When Chris Beard became the lead pastor of Peoples Church, he was rocked by an article in The Cincinnati Enquirer titled “A City Divided by Race” and convinced by the Holy Spirit that God’s will is for churches to look like heaven on earth. Chris and the church staff began to pray that God would help them reach this vision.
The church grew from a 98% white commuter church into a church that is approximately 25% African American and 25% international. The staff, board, and leadership teams are racially diverse and are continuing to learn what it means to be a reconciling church. In 2012, the church voted to change the name of the church to Peoples Church. A name that reflects the 30-plus nationalities worshiping and working together in God’s mosaic. “Everything we do, and all that we are, is moving us toward a greater understanding of God’s purpose; to be one reconciled church, a church that worships and prays together, a church which is racially and generationally rich, a church who loves God and all peoples wholeheartedly, and passionately contributes to growing God’s kingdom.”
Peoples Church works to plant, or directly assist, at least one church start-up annually, and has done so since its earliest years. Chris’s heart since my youth has also pulsed with purpose for multiplying kingdom leaders and reproducing gospel-centered churches.
A growing number of church leaders are longing for something more than just adding attendees to our services, programs to our churches, and begging week in and week out for volunteers. They long to see disciple-making-based kingdom multiplication. They long to become reproducing churches.
Exponential began wondering what it would look like to build a community of reproducing churches that cared more about WHO they were catapulting and sending forward than WHAT they were accumulating and leaving behind. That led to an inaugural list in 2019 of Outreach Magazine’s (as Outreach 100) list of 100 Reproducing Churches. And that community continues to grow.
Exponential is a growing community of leaders committed to accelerating the multiplication of healthy, reproducing faith communities. We exist to equip movement makers—like you—with actionable principles, ideas, and solutions. With the Under the Hood series of conversations and webinars, you’ll get a chance to hear in more detail what it takes to become a Level 4 Reproducing Church.
