The CCCC Church Multiplication Committee met in October 2005 for prayer and conversation about the future of church planting in the CCCC.  The committee left those meetings with a common vision to “start a church multiplication movement in the Conference that is supported by healthy pastors and healthy churches”.  We are excited to see this movement developing today.

The CCCC stepped out in faith in 2006 to hire Dr. Ron Hamilton to serve as the Director of Church Multiplication and Dr. John Kimball to serve as the Director of Church Redevelopment.   The CCCC now has staff in place to oversee a movement of God that will change the ministry of the Conference.  Our Conference Minister, Steve Gammon, and key CCCC leaders have been trained in church multiplication and are fully committed to a mission-focused ministry in the Conference.

The Church Multiplication Committee is working with church plants in three regions of our nation: Boston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Los Angeles.  Significant ministries of outreach and evangelism are taking place in each of these new churches and leadership teams are being developed to grow a church planting movement in each of these communities.  Interest in church planting is growing across the nation and new churches could be developed in several regions of the nation within the next year.

The committee has partnered with the Praxis Center for Church Development to strategically put in place the systems necessary to support a church multiplication movement.   We are committed to recruiting, assessing, training, resourcing and coaching church planters to lead new churches as the movement emerges.  We have a vision to plant 30 new churches by 2009 and envision this continuing to the point where 50% of CCCC churches are new churches.

God is at work in the CCCC in exciting ways.  But, this is not about the growth of the Conference.  Rather, that movement is growing to make us more effective in reaching people with the good news of salvation through Jesus and developing these people as extraordinary followers of Jesus.  It is a joy to partner with God and His Spirit as this movement grows and develops.

Ron Hamilton is Director of Church Multiplication for the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference.  Before taking his current position in 2007, he was both a church planter with 30 years' experience and chaired the CCCC Church Multiplication Committee.  

(c)2008 Conservative Congregational Christian Conference.