This video is the first in a series of training content provided in the core resource library for Multipliers Pathway. In this first video, Todd Wilson, team leader of Multipliers (multipliers.org), provides an overview of the new Multipliers Pathway process. This cohort-based experience is designed for 10 to 12 churches seeking to strategically increase their church planting activity. The process is also designed to be white-labeled for use by networks and denominations as a catalyst for mobilizing more churches into planting. The process is built around a Master Tool called the Gospel Saturation Vision Scope (GSVS). Each of the six elements of the GSVS is covered in the 6-month Multipliers Pathway. Several multiplication frameworks, tools, and exercises are integrated into the process. During the six-month pathway, churches develop contextually specific plans for increasing their church planting results and impact. Visit multipliers.org/mp or multipliers.org/pathway.pdf to learn more.

This is the second video in the core content library for Multipliers Pathway. It should be watched before the first cohort gathering. Todd Wilson hosts the video and discusses the stewardship role in creating a reproducing church culture. We all have an abundance of problems to solve and opportunities to seize. Good stewardship comes in discerning the most important problems to solve to advance the most important opportunities that converge to create a healthy culture.

Todd covers three important stewardship truths:
1. Our churches will eventually die. This IS NOT a problem to solve.
2. The opportunity we need to prioritize is how best to steward the time we have to create a legacy impact that ripples beyond the life of our church.
3. The most critical problems we must face are the things that hinder our ability to be the best stewards of the time we do have for creating healthy reproducing church cultures!

Healthy reproducing cultures are built on the foundation of healthy disciple-making and mobilization cultures. The Gospel Saturation Vision Scope (GSVS), used as the master tool in Multipliers Pathway, is designed to address these issues and help foster a healthy, reproducing church culture.

The next core video in this series will introduce the Culture Alignment Framework used in the Multipliers Pathway.

This is the third video in the core content library for the Multipliers Pathway. It should be watched before the first cohort gathering. Todd Wilson hosts the video and discusses a simple model developed by Brian Zehr for culture alignment. The model’s three elements are Values, Language/Narratives, and Behaviors. Each element is explained.

Values – The individual beliefs that motivate people to act one way or another. They serve as a guide for behavior. Generally, people adopt the values that they inherit. Values are not what we do, they shape how we do everything we do!

Language / Narratives – The way we communicate, the words we use and repeat, the definitions we live, and the stories we tell and celebrate! Values intrinsically motivate and drive us toward behavior. Language and narratives inspire and point us toward behaviors. Both values and language are always at work, complimenting or working against one another.

Behaviors—We make hundreds of decisions each day. In church, many core resources require our attention and decision-making. These include programs, budgets, facilitates, staffing, technology, processes, communications, calendaring, structure, etc. Our values play a critical role in this decision-making making, significantly shaping the church’s behavioral norms.

The video also introduces behaviors of reproducing churches and references the 30 behaviors found at www.multipliers.org/pathway/behaviors. It discusses the first four of the 30 behaviors.

The next core video in this series will introduce the Level 5 Multiplication Framework.

This is the fourth video in the core content library for the Multipliers Pathway. It should be watched before the first cohort gathering. Todd Wilson hosts the video and discusses the Level 5 Framework, a core tool for understanding multiplication in the Multipliers Pathway.

Level 1 – The primary characterizations of Level I churches are “subtraction, scarcity, and survival.” Typically, Level 1 churches live with financial tension because their attendance numbers are declining and they worry about having enough money to keep things going.

Level 2 – These churches are in plateau preceded by either increasing or decreasing attendance. They have growth in their sights with Level 3 at the pinnacle, but are constrained by their scarcity thinking. Their focus and aspirations center on growth and addition, and their primary characterizations are “tension, scarcity, survival, and growth.”

Level 3 – These churches have shown success at growth. They have a demonstrated record of taking the next hill. The primary characterizations of these churches are “addition, growth, and accumulation.” These churches are accustomed to finding and solving the problems that limit growth. They’ve dealt with rapid year-over-year growth in budgets, building and facility decisions, capital campaigns and assuming debt, building teams, staffing (including hiring and firing), structural issues (including infrastructure and overhead), the drive for the next innovative marketing and outreach strategies, and reorganizations to improve organizational alignment.

Level 4 – The primary characterizations for Level 4 churches include “discontent, new scorecards, and reproducing at all levels.” Leaders of these churches sense that there is something more than conquering addition-growth and are drawn to a future that’s more about planting new orchards than putting more trees in their orchard. Level 4 churches live in tension. They are torn between a vision for multiplication at Level 5 and the reality of the demands created by Level 3 addition practices. The resources needed to deploy and send for multiplication are typically perceived as the best, scarce resources for fueling Level 3 growth.

Level 5 – These churches are rare, so they stick out in the crowd. The primary characterizations for these churches are “multiplying, releasing, and sending.” Their leaders spend as much time on multiplication strategies and activities as they do on addition. Churches in this profile will plant hundreds of churches and send thousands of people to be part of church planting teams over their lifespan. Their scorecard is more about “who has been sent” than “how many have been accumulated.” Level 5 is an outcome result of faithful Level 4 behavior and is not something you do. Level 5 typically does not exist in just one church, but instead in the collective of a network or family of churches.

The next core video in this series will introduce the 3 Dimensions of Multiplication Framework.

This is the fifth video in the core content library for the Multipliers Pathway. It should be watched before the first cohort gathering. Todd Wilson hosts the video and discusses the 3 Dimensions of Multiplication Framework, a core tool for understanding multiplication in the Multipliers Pathway.

The 3 Dimensions of Multiplication Framework helps us understand how the prevailing consumer-driven operating system in the US church emerged. This operating system is also represented by the Level 3 magnet in the Level 5 Multiplication Framework (previous video). This video helps diagnose where we’ve gone off track and what we need to focus on to restore the Level 5 magnet (movement magnet) from the Level 3 magnet (growth magnet).

This is the last Multipliers Pathway core content video required to be watched before the first cohort gathering. In this video, Todd Wilson explains what it means to say, “How we add makes all the difference.” Todd explains the differences between programmatic and reproductive addition, reproduction, and multiplication. He highlights 7 truths/principles:

1. Addition is the foundation of reproduction and multiplication.

2. You can add without reproducing, but you can’t reproduce without adding.

3. You can reproduce without multiplying, but you can’t multiply without reproducing.

4. Multiplication is not something we do. It’s an outcome or overflow of what we do. By focusing on healthy, generational reproduction, we may see multiplication as the overflow.

5. Programmatic growth is not capable of reproducing. Programs only consume. Programmatic addition stunts our reproductive capacity and holds us back from multiplication. The Level 3 Magnet and Consumer-Driven OS.

6. Jesus’ style of relational disciple-making (addition by a disciple who makes disciples who plant churches that plant churches) is reproduction capable of producing multiplication. The Level 5 Magnet!

7. By faithfully and persistently focusing on Level 4 reproduction via disciple-making, we may see multiplication.