Board Report

The Kingdom Multiplication Group (KMG) sponsors and guides church plants in the Free Methodist Conference of Southern California, helping streamline processes to see new congregations thrive as self-sustaining communities transformed by the Gospel. The KMG team provides customized assessments to confirm pastoral candidates evidence of clear vocational calling, spiritual authority, and emotional health needed to undertake sustainable church launching. They also supply contextualized coaching, training and resources to further develop skilled leaders able to inspire reproduction.

Message from Outgoing Board Chair, Randy Goetz

As Randy Goetz completes his fruitful tenure serving the essential Kingdom expansion work of KMG, he warmly invites conference members to consider supporting these vital efforts through their prayers, service and giving. Randy expresses deep gratitude for the opportunity, highlighting the proven track record of Director Mike Perkinson in addition to his hand-picked team carrying out specialized assessments to accurately evaluate prospective planters. He believes KMG offers remarkable potential to steward the Christ-centered leadership desperately needed for the urgent end-time spiritual harvest at hand.

Vision for Multiplication

The KMG believes gathering empowered communities devoted to modeling Jesus’ compassion and selfless service remains among the most Spirit-led, effective strategies for reaching the lost. Their aim is to affirm and equip the next generation of called, qualified planting leaders across Southern California through sensitive, tailored development programs. They are trusting God to orchestrate unprecedented church multiplication as they cast vision and create accessible systems for reproducing passionate kingdom disciples and leaders committed to transforming their spheres of influence.

Growth & Achievements in Past Year

God continues advancing the Kingdom through the planting of new churches across Southern California. By God’s grace, KMG experienced fruitful ministry expansion in 2023.

Church Plant Assessments

A key part of KMG’s mission is conducting comprehensive assessments of prospective church planters to confirm their calling from God and evaluate their readiness to launch a new congregation. This past year the team performed evaluations for four candidates: Mia & Mark Shin; Ramon & LaKisha Jones; Lamont & Wendy Leonard; and Christopher & Jenna Spolar. Our specialized process examines their giftings, capacities, relationships and vision casting in order to issue recommendations for next steps toward planting.

New Church Plants

In the past year we celebrated two new Free Methodist faith communities birthed with KMG’s support – Guillermo & Ligia Flores and Ramon & Lakisha Jones planted thriving congregations manifesting their unique vision.

Current Church Plants Stories

We are also encouraged by the testimonies emerging from our recent plants:

• Revolution Church held their first baptism in a home pool, powerfully marking new life for a man desiring to wash his past away. Many core team members have witnessed prodigals return to faith, breaking long-term addictions. Outreach events have allowed other recovering individuals to experience restoration.
• Kingdom Cathedral held a March holy convocation and worship event to officially launch their plant, which included baptizing several homeless people committing to Christ that day. They now host international teams who assist their homeless outreach through providing meals, clothing, discipleship and prayer in area camps.
• After the Abbey’s core team led many to faith in their first year, they are entering their next phase of forming a portable church while continuing addiction recovery groups and pursuing Matthew 25 humanitarian service missions.

Given new church planters currently in our pipeline at various phases, we are on target to support an estimated four to six new plants annually as we build momentum in the coming season.

Creating a Culture of Multiplication

Seeing the fruitfulness of churches planted so far, an expanded focus for KMG is cultivating a culture across our conference that values reproducing leaders, ministries, and congregations. We believe a movement of multiplication will significantly advance our shared Kingdom mission.

Leadership Development & Coaching

Central to this aim is holistic leadership development pathways. KMG draws on the ancient rabbinic model of discipleship training emphasizing spiritual nurture alongside knowledge and skill formation. Director Mike Perkinson currently coaches rising church planting leader Dr. Robert Marshall using this approach to replicate more ministry coaches. Additional upcoming ordained and lay coaches are being mentored in this experiential development framework to expand our capabilities.

Training & Resources

In partnership with conference communications, we are producing online training courses and materials designed to instill fundamental disciplines and mindsets for successful church multiplication. Supplementary church planting tools and resources are making the journey more accessible.

Cross Cultural Connections

Understanding multiplicative DNA must permeate all our cultures, KMG is translating training content into Spanish while directly training Hispanic ministry leaders in contextualized coaching competencies through our own Hispanic church planting track. We aim to raise up leaders to exponentially increase our Kingdom harvest.

By focusing strategic efforts on embedding reproducible systems for leadership and congregational multiplication across Free Methodist churches in Southern California, we believe an unstoppable movement of disciples, ministers, congregations and communities living out Christ’s love can sweep through our region and beyond. We invite every member to join us in this exciting movement!

Key Next Steps & Future Opportunities

In light of progress made, KMG leadership recently developed a strategic blueprint for seeing a culture of ongoing church multiplication firmly rooted across our conference. Key elements of our go-forward plan include:

Strategic Plan for Multiplication Culture

A centerpiece of our strategy involves creating an accessible developmental pathway for current pastors to be equipped and activated as disciple-making leaders that reproduce healthy Free Methodist communities. Rather than multiplying ministry independently, we aim to foster interdependent relationships facilitating mutual training, coaching, resourcing and accountability tied to clear benchmarks. We are developing 4-6 one-day training cohorts for 2024 with Peyton Jones and are rolling out Quest, our church plant training process for both in-person and online.

National Partnerships

We are building networks between prominent church planting organizations and denominational leaders to glean best practices while tailoring unified systems enabling our pastors to be assessed, trained and coached in line with Free Methodist ideals. Our goal is to plug our conference into pipelines of vetted planters.

Philippines Partnerships

In addition to US multiplication efforts, former missionary bishop Alan Bacus continues guiding university students in the Philippines to reach communities through quest church planting approaches with great effect. We are also networking with current Bishop Tereso overseas to instill generational discipleship throughout their conference. Plans include taking key leaders abroad for practical global ministry experience while teaching multiplication dynamics contextually.

Continued Prayer & Support

We covet the prayers and support of conference members as we pursue God’s vision for an exponentially reproducing Free Methodist family. We see incredible potential for Kingdom advancement if we align our efforts toward mutual discipleship and leadership development patterns that catalyze growth. We invite each pastor and local church to consider how they can apply multiplication practices within their own sphere of influence as we walk this out together.

Celebrating Our Progress

We celebrate the Spirit-empowered progress being made toward establishing new disciples and communities of faith across Southern California through the Kingdom Multiplication Group. Dozens of passionate leaders are being assessed and developed, while numerous congregations embrace their identity as multiplying churches. We remain grateful for the opportunity to support these Kingdom advancements.

Invitation to Join Multiplying Kingdom Work

While celebrating all that God is accomplishing through our church planting efforts, we acknowledge there is still much work ahead as we collectively foster cultures of reproduction. We warmly welcome each leader and local church to join us on this adventure of implementing intentional development pathways that unlock the multiplying DNA latent within our conference and each member. Together we can catalyze an unstoppable Kingdom movement for reaching the lost!

Please reach out about how your gifts and passions might support maturing this vision. And continue upholding church planters and the KMG ministry in fervent intercessory prayer – this is vital fuel empowering current and future strides expanding God’s Kingdom in Southern California and beyond!