By David Dixon
“We develop kingdom workers for increasing Gospel impact.”
To this day, when I hear this phrase, my heart skips a beat or two because it resonates in my soul. The idea that a district of a church denomination could shift to become a development network rooted firmly in the Gospel with eyes toward multiplication…that gets me pumped!
When I have the opportunity to talk about our district’s vision, it usually comes with two responses. The first is, “Wow! That sounds great. It would be amazing to see churches grab a hold of that.” With that first response there is usually a visible excitement in people’s faces, but often that excitement fades a bit when they get to the second response. It usually comes in the form of a question, “How are you planning to pull that off?”
That is truly the big question.
A culture of development sounds wonderful, but how do you create that kind of culture?
When we talk about culture as a district team, we often describe culture like soil. A farmer works diligently to care for the soil because a farmer knows that it isn’t just about having good seed or keeping the bugs away. In fact, many of the aspects of farming are out of the farmer’s control, but they can be careful to tend the soil in order to maximize the crop. Through the hard work of tending, adding nutrients, testing, resting, and irrigating a farmer can work to bring life to the soil that ultimately leads to a good crop.
“Our answer is: we are going to work the soil. We are going to work to build a culture of development.”
Culture work is like soil work. It can be difficult. Sometimes you have to pull out the rocks. Sometimes you have to work in some fertilizer. Sometimes you need to build new irrigation lines. As hard as it can be, the beauty of it is that once you have good soil it produces a great harvest many times over.
If we can do the hard work of building a culture of development toward multiplication, then we have created the space for multiplication to happen naturally and fruitfully. In that kind of Gospel-centered culture, evangelism becomes normal, discipleship happens regularly, leaders are developed wholly, and churches are set free to plant in places that we only dreamed about being before. A healthy district focused on Jesus can become that kind of place.
So when people ask the big question, “How are you planning on pulling that off?” Our answer is: we are going to work the soil. We are going to work to build a culture of development.
For us, this blog represents another attempt at working the soil. Our team’s hope is that this will be a space for writings that promote development in our district. We want to speak to issues that are timely from a Gospel perspective. We will look to speak into the six areas of development that we feel are most important: personal, relational, proclamation, multiplication, leadership, and the prophetic. We desire to speak to the culture of Eastern PA in a way that invites healthy dialogue and asks big questions.
In this way, our aim is not to replicate what is already out there, but to be a voice in our district toward development from people that are working the same soil together for the cause of Jesus.
Together, may we grow more and more into a people of Gospel development toward multiplication so that the people of Eastern PA may know and see the love of Jesus coming from our local churches.