Exponential NEXT Ventures has supported and funded more than 70 innovative projects over the past six years. Each year, we invite a handful of our pioneering project leaders to write articles for Innovation NEXT because we love sharing stories of Kingdom impact and innovation as they help create the future of the church.
This summer, we thought it would be fun to reconnect with three projects that joined the NEXT Ventures family in the early years. We hope you enjoy these “Where Are They Now?” updates and are encouraged by what God continues to do through their ministries.
– Tom Planck, NEXT Ventures Director
The vision of the Church Development Network is to plant 1,000 churches in creative spaces and places. That bold vision is intended to communicate our desire to see saturation church planting happen in the U.S. like it is happening in other places around the world. We were deeply challenged by stories of church planting movements around the world – testimonies of saturation church planting and the rapid multiplication of churches from village to village and city to city.
Our prayer has been simple: “Lord, You are multiplying Your church throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America – why not here? Why not in the United States?” That question launched a journey. We began studying how disciple-making movements and church planting movements were multiplying globally and asking what universal principles could be applied here in the west. What we discovered surprised us.
First, we noticed that global saturation church planting is first a disciple-making movement. Church planting is a by-product that flows out of disciple multiplication. Healthy churches emerge naturally when disciples make disciples.
Second, saturation church planting begins with the end in mind. The goal is not merely individual discipleship. The goal is to make disciples who gather as the church – even in very simple forms – as disciples make disciples.
Third, in global multiplication movements, leaders are not required to complete a long institutional pathway before being released into ministry. Instead, planting the church becomes part of the formation process.
Fourth, the laity are the leaders.
And finally, rapid obedience to the commands of Jesus becomes the expectation for every believer.
In theory, we all agree with these principles, but in many ways, these principles are opposite of the church planting methods in the U.S. The heart is the same – we all want to see the Gospel proclaimed and new churches established. But the methodology is very different.
In the West, the process frequently looks like this: educate, assess, plan, and eventually launch a worship service. In saturation church planting movements, disciples are made first, churches gather quickly, and leaders grow through Just-In-Time Training (JITT).
We often describe the prevailing model as the “Ready, Set, Go” approach.
Ready – God has called you.
Set – Complete assessment, training, planning, fundraising, and credentialing.
Go – Launch the church.
The problem is that this often becomes the “Ready, Set, Set, Set, Set…” model. Somewhere along the way, church planting became something only well-equipped experts were expected to do. The subtle message: Before you can start, you need years of preparation, a polished team, and a fully developed strategy. Ordinary believers were taught to wait until they looked like professionals. We designed CDN to prioritize practitioners.
Don’t get me wrong, education is important, but we believe that the best learning is done as you obey Jesus and are sent into His harvest field. We describe this shift as the “Ready, GO, Set” model.
Ready – God has called you.
GO – Obey His call and begin immediately.
Set – Learn and grow through Just-In-Time training while actively engaged in ministry.
The goal is multiplication.
As you can imagine, one of the greatest challenges is helping leaders shift from a highly institutional model of church planting toward a model built on simple ecclesiology, disciple-making, and rapid obedience.
This requires bi-vocational leaders who learn to integrate calling and career. It also requires pastors willing to release inexperienced leaders into the harvest field for real-world ministry instead of holding them back until some future day when they finally appear “ready.”
Our prayer has been that God would normalize a new pathway – one where everyday believers step out in faith, join Jesus in the harvest, make disciples, and gather as the church in creative spaces and places.
As we evaluated church planting in the West, we consistently observed three major barriers:
- The prevailing model costs too much.
- There are not enough church planters.
- The process takes too long.
Those challenges forced us to ask a deeper question: What is actually preventing multiplication?
We became convinced that the problem was never the harvest. Jesus said in Luke 10:2, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the Harvest to send workers into His harvest field.”
The problem is deployment. That conviction shaped the DNA of our work.
First, we believe the resources are in the harvest. Church planters do not need to wait until every outside support system is perfectly established before stepping out in faith. God often provides through the very field He sends us into. The details are in the journey.
Second, we believe God uses ordinary people. Acts 4:13 says the people were astonished by Peter and John because they were “unschooled, ordinary men.” Yet the crowd recognized one defining reality: they had been with Jesus.
The greatest credential for ministry is not polish. It is presence. Have you been with Jesus?
Third, we believe rapid obedience flows from God-filled environments. Prayer is not an accessory to mission. Worship is not a side note. Obedience is cultivated through prayer and revealed through responsiveness to the Holy Spirit. Healthy multiplication begins in the upper room before it ever reaches the streets (Acts 1).
CDN training centers are deploying people who would never have considered themselves “qualified” to plant a church. While our vision is to plant 1,000 churches, our mission is “the relentless pursuit of obedient disciples.”
We have also discovered something surprisingly simple: People often just need vision and permission to go.
Many church planters never imagined God could use them in this way because nobody had ever spoken faith over their lives. Nobody had shown them a pathway. Nobody had told them that obedience was possible.
So, we cast vision. We speak faith. And we activate people to join Jesus in His harvest field. God equips them as they go.
Today, Church Development Network functions through four primary environments that help people move from calling to planting to multiplying.
Jumpstart is where vision is cast and calling is awakened.
Encounter is an immersive worship and training experience where believers are activated into their calling.
Launchpad is a monthly prayer gathering for active church planters and leaders in the field.
And Sent Summit has become our annual gathering to equip trainers and celebrate what Jesus is doing across the movement.
These environments matter because church planting is not a single moment. It is a journey. People need environments where they can hear God clearly, be formed spiritually, receive mentorship, pray together, and celebrate what Jesus is doing.
1. God-filled environments are central to activation.
We do not want to build church planting on hype, pressure, or personality. We want to build it in the presence of God.
That is why prayer-saturated environments matter so deeply to us. We are not primarily trying to produce religious entrepreneurs. We are trying to help people hear Jesus clearly and obey Him courageously. In Acts 13, the church was worshiping and fasting when the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul.” Mission flowed out of worship. Sending flowed out of prayer.
That pattern still matters.
2. Rapid deployment changes everything
One of the strongest values inside CDN is rapid deployment.
This is not about lowering standards. It is about restoring biblical order. In the New Testament, leaders were developed while actively engaged in ministry. Jesus modeled this when He sent the 12 and the 72 into the harvest field in Luke 9 and 10. Many leaders only discover what God has placed inside them after they step into the field.
3. People need permission to go
This lesson may sound simple, but it has proven incredibly powerful.
Many lay people never believed God could use them in this way because nobody had ever spoken faith over them. Nobody had given language to their calling. Nobody had shown them a pathway. Sometimes the breakthrough is not complicated. Sometimes people simply need someone to say, “Yes, God can use you. Obey. Get started.”
4. The world needs all forms of churches
We have learned not to force one model onto every community. Some churches begin in homes. Others in parks, gyms, storefronts, campuses, or coffee shops. Some remain small. Others grow large. Every community is different. Every planter is different. Every church plant is different. The point is not uniformity. The point is obedience.
That is why we say: The pathway is unpredictable, but the steps are predictable. The 5 predictable steps that we emphasize are: Pray, Speak Out, Gather, Obey, and Send Out. These five strategies provide a dashboard for multiplication.
One ongoing challenge is the deep cultural pull toward institutional definitions of church. Many still assume a church is only legitimate if it has a building, staff, a large budget, and established infrastructure. But a church is not validated by a building. A church is validated by the presence of God among a people gathered in the name of Jesus and living on mission together.
We have also learned that many leaders struggle to release inexperienced people into the harvest. It feels safer to guard them until they appear fully prepared. But that “fully ready” moment is elusive. At some point – and we say it’s “right away” – leaders must be trusted and sent.
We have also learned that systems alone do not create multiplication. Training matters. Strategy matters. Rhythms matter. But healthy multiplication ultimately grows out of spiritual hunger, prayer, obedience, and faith.
And perhaps one of the most important lessons is this: If we do not change the prevailing model scoreboard, we will never change the outcomes. That is why we celebrate a different set of goals: calling, gathering, and sending – not merely attendance, budgets, and buildings. That realization has helped us create a new scoreboard shaped by three milestones:
Milestone One: A Church Conceived in Heaven
The first milestone occurs when a person says “yes” to the call of Jesus to plant a church in a specific place or among a particular people group.
That moment matters deeply to us.
We describe it as “a church conceived in heaven.”
Like conception in the natural world, nothing may yet be visible externally, but something significant has already changed. God has initiated something new in the heart of the planter.
I remember when I first responded to the call to plant a church. Something shifted inside me. In that moment, I knew heaven had initiated something before earth had yet seen it.
All that remained was for the church to be born on earth.
Milestone Two: A Church Born on Earth
The second milestone occurs when the church gathers for the very first time.
We intentionally celebrate that first gathering.
Like a newborn child, a newly planted church may still be small and undeveloped. It has years of growth ahead of it. But it is still fully and completely the church.
That first gathering matters. It represents a church born on earth.
Milestone Three: A Church That Multiplies
The third milestone represents maturity.
Some define church maturity through staffing, buildings, budgets, or organizational systems. While those things have value, we define maturity through multiplication. In biology, maturity is reached when something can reproduce. In the same way, we believe a church reaches maturity when it helps give birth to another church.
The goal is multiplication. Every church can become a training center that helps new disciples move from calling to gathering to multiplying. CDN Training centers are places where believers are activated, disciples are made, churches are gathered, and leaders are sent again and again. We believe Jesus raises up church planters in every kind of place. We believe He wants churches in neighborhoods, campuses, parks, homes, gyms, and overlooked communities.
As we look ahead, several priorities continue to grow clearer.
First, we want to see more localized training centers established across the country and beyond. Every region needs environments where people can hear God’s call and be equipped to obey.
Second, we want to see hundreds more workers deployed into the harvest. If the vision is thousands of churches, then we must accelerate calling, mentoring, and sending leaders.
Third, we want to see more leaders embrace multiplying rhythms instead of treating church planting like a rare event.
And fourth, we are committed to celebrate small beginnings. Small beginnings do not limit Kingdom impact – they are the evidence of it. Zechariah 4:10 says, “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.”
The greatest mindset shift is this: church planting is not primarily about building institutions. It is about gathering obedient disciples in the harvest and allowing Jesus to build His church.
That is how movements multiply.
At its core, Church Development Network exists because we believe Jesus is still calling ordinary people into the harvest. We believe the church grows when disciples obey, when leaders are released, and when believers are willing to step into the field before they feel fully prepared. The vision of planting 1,000 churches is not driven by ambition or organizational expansion – it is driven by faith that Jesus still builds His church through ordinary men and women who have been with Him.
The harvest is still plentiful. The need is still urgent. And the invitation remains the same: hear His voice, obey quickly, and join Him in the work of gathering disciples and planting churches in creative spaces and places throughout the world.
