Generosity—the Key to Resourcing a Multiplying Movement of Church Planting
There are lots of marks of a church that resources a multiplying movement of church planting, but the most important is generosity.
It’s not about being large or having a sizeable staff team. It’s not about being contemporary or having lots of young people. It’s not about having fantastic facilities or even charismatic leadership.
All those things can help, but what’s most important is recognising that God’s kingdom grows through giving.
Churches that understand this realise that they exist to benefit others, not themselves. Rather than encouraging consumerism, they value generosity. They know that it is better to give than receive. That’s why generosity should be at the heart of the so-called ‘resource church.’ You may not see this immediately because a resource church might, on the surface look like any other church, but take a closer look and you’ll soon see a particular set of values underlies decision-making, centred not on taking, but on giving.
Founder of the Vineyard movement, John Wimber taught this, saying that ‘gifts are for giving away.’ He modelled generosity in his life, his church and the movement he started, through his lifestyle, his teaching and his conferences. Wimber highly influenced the UK church, especially Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in London, home of the Alpha course and the most prolific resource church to date in the Church of England. HTB’s growth over the years has not come from being a larger church, but rather from being a resource church as God has blessed their generous giving.
Our model for generosity is rooted in the Trinity - in the very nature of God.
God the Father created a world that grows and multiplies (Gen 1:22), and lavishes his love on us (1 John 3:1). God the Son freely and voluntarily gave his life for us (Rom 5:6) and now continues to give in heaven by interceding again and again for us (Rom 8:34). God the Spirit has been poured out on his church (Rom 5:5), and continues to give gifts to equip and transform (1 Cor 12:11).
Examples of generosity are found across the pages of Scripture, including people such as Joseph (Gen. 45); Boaz (Ruth 2); the woman of Bethany (Mark 14:3); the poor widow (Luke 21:2); Cornelius (Acts 10:2); Barnabas (Acts 4:36) and of course Christ himself (John 20:28). God promises to bless those who live a life of continued giving (Prov. 22:9; Matthew 6:2-4; Luke 6:38).
The idea is simple but takes some faith to practice: keep giving and God will replenish so you can give again. And again. And again.
The New Testament honours churches that are generous like this. Probably the stand-out generous church is the Antioch church (Acts 11:19ff) who not only gave freely to others in a time of famine (Acts 11:30), but also gave their best people to plant churches (Acts 13:3). As such Antioch has always stood out for me as a model resource church. That’s why I used it as the primary ecclesial model for my recent book on resource churches, called Overflow. The Antioch church discovered that God’s grace - his generous love - overflows. He gives more than enough. It is never meant to remain just with us, but given away to others. They also found, to their delight and joy that as they gave away what God gave, so God continued to pour into them again. And again. And again.
Churches that practice this kind of generosity are truly resource churches.
As they invest time, energy and finance into evangelism, discipleship, leadership development and regular church planting, so they find that God’s provision overflows, so they can do it again. And again. And again. To keep giving in this way is not always easy. It often involves sacrifice and huge steps of faith, but God honours this kind of brave, bold, generous faith. Also, if the churches planted seek themselves to be resource churches who give and plant regularly, then growth by addition becomes growth by multiplication. Before long an exponential movement of church planting begins to gather pace that has the potential to transform localities and regions.
Might we see such a multiplying movement in our day? As I pray and work for that, I believe that church planting and resource churches will be increasingly important. But behind it all is generosity. Living a life of giving. It really is the way of blessing, summed up so beautifully by Ann Voskamp: '...there is always enough God. He has no end. He calls us to serve, and it is Him whom we serve, but He, very God, kneels down to serve us as we serve. The servant-hearted never serve alone. Spend the whole of your one wild and beautiful life investing in many lives, and God simply will not be outdone. God extravagantly pays back everything we give away and exactly in the currency that is not of this world but the one we yearn for: Joy in Him.'
Matthew Porter
Matthew Porter is Vicar/Senior Leader of The Belfrey in York, a Church of England resource church with a vision to be serving God’s transformation of the North. He is author of a number of books, including Overflow (Authentic Media, 2020).
