This course grounds students in the biblical, theological, and historical foundations of church planting, emphasizing multiplication as God’s design for the church rather than a ministry option. Students will explore the missio Dei, New Testament paradigms, and the mandate to multiply (Genesis 1:28, Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 8:1-4). The course will draw on extensive research, including your dissertation’s findings, to help students articulate a personal theology of church planting and multiplication. A core focus will be understanding and facilitating a “multiplication conversion” – the catalytic moment or process when a leader or church shifts from an addition mindset to a multiplication paradigm. Lessons from history, such as the Anabaptist movement’s neglect of leadership development, will highlight the importance of investing in multiplying leaders for sustainable growth.

This course develops the practical leadership skills essential for effective church planting and multiplication, fostering a “multiplier mindset” from the start. Emphasis is placed on preaching to the unchurched, entrepreneurial ministry development, vision casting for Kingdom-minded growth (going beyond individual church success), team building, fundraising, and evangelism. Students will learn to develop these skills in others, fostering a multiplying leadership culture from the outset. It will explore how church culture determines multiplication success.

This practicum-based course deeply immerses students in the practices and mindset of church planters who multiply. Each student is paired with a multiplying mentor (or the professor/director will serve in this role). A key finding is that 100% of multiplying leaders had multiplying mentors, demonstrating that multiplication conversion is rarely self-generated; it’s catalyzed by relationship. Through interviews, field observations, and reflective assignments, students will examine the “multiplication conversion” more deeply, identify and assess the “7 Reproductive Markers” (or qualities) of multiplying planters, and develop a personal plan for generational multiplication, including how to assess for multiplication in others. Students will understand what multiplying mentors actually do over years: modeling, challenging, releasing, and sustaining.

This hands-on, practicum-based course explores the primary models and methods of church planting, with an emphasis on practical application, contextualization, and designing reproducible systems. Students will engage in fieldwork, develop a comprehensive church planting proposal that prioritizes multiplication, and receive ongoing feedback from both faculty and mentors. The course culminates in a capstone project: designing a church plant plan that explicitly prioritizes multiplication and aims to build an “Apostolic Pipeline” for sustained growth. It will challenge prevailing metrics of church success by proposing a new scorecard based on “generational dashboards” rather than mere attendance, and demonstrate how to invest for multiplication through financial reallocation.