From Megachurch to Multiplication

A Church’s Journey Toward Movement

By: Chris Gallanos

ISBN: 978-1732869608

READ: July 2023

RATING: 6/10

Summary: The true story of a mega-church that disbanded in order to reach more is VERY compelling. They stopped their Sunday morning services and began implementing DMM (Disciple Making Movement) strategy. The book unfolds their story and the vision, strategy, and tactics of DMM. If you are new to the DMM approach there is a lot here to chew on. If you aren’t new to it then the length to value ratio may be lacking. I gave it a 6/10 because DMM approach seems to be rooted in pragmatism (hey, this works!) as opposed to arising out of the Scriptures. Although the book has many useful tips to connect with the lost, it loses its impact without a solid biblical foundation. The book also suffers from a lack of focus and could have been much shorter and sharper.

Chapter titles are: Introduction 1. What is WIGTake? 2. 1,000,000 in 10 Years 3. The Whiteboard 4. Millions 5. What is DMM? 6. The Ten-Year Anniversary 7. Leverage 8. Where’s Chris? 9. DMM Coaching 10. DMM Training 11. Raise the Sails 12. Focus on God’s Word 13. Multiplying Extraordinary Prayer 14. Go Out Among the Lost 15. See Groups Start 16. Cast Vision 17. Train Believers 18. Ongoing Coaching 19. Akachi 20. Andrew and Kristin 21. From Microsoft to Ministry 22. Seminary Executive 23. From Simple to Complex 24. Identity Crisis 25. A Reduction in giving 26. A Reduction in Attendance 27. Doubts and Discouragement 28. PIPSY 29. Intentional 30. International 31. Prisoner 32. Sick 33. Tentmaking 34. Weekend Planning 35. Ty 36. Shayne 37. DMM Push Week 38. How to Get Started (Church Staff) 39. How to Get Started (Church Attendees) 40. Can This Really Happen in America?

Chapter 1:

“The WIGTake question is, ‘What’s it going to take to reach everyone in a people group?’” pg. 6

Chapter 2:

“…a people group is the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance.” Pg. 9

“If you assume multiplication and work backward from 200 million in twenty years, you’d need to reach 1 million people in the next ten years to be on track to reach 1 million people in the next ten years to be on track to reach the 200 million in the next twenty years.” Pg. 11

Chapter 3:

“We had a multi-site church of ten campuses with thousands attending each weekend. Our methodology was attractional.” Pg. 15

“The average cost per baptism in the typical American church is…you may want to sit down for this…1.5 million.” Pg. 16

Quoting from John Dickinson:

   “The fuel of American evangelicalism—dollars—is disappearing and will dwindle over the next three decades. We’re losing millions of our own people—about 2.6 million per decade, just from one generation studied. The evangelical church is not winning new believers fast enough to keep pace with rapid population growth in the United States. While these forces eat at the church internally, the external climate is turning against evangelicals. The fastest growing subculutures in the US express militant antagonism against Christians who take the Bible seriously. What’s left of a smaller, shrinking, strapped church is also splintering and splitting itself over politics and postmodern views of God and the Bible.” Pg. 18-19

“Many of us would admit that the American church is on life support.” Pg. 21

Chapter 5:

“DMM is obedience-based discipleship the sees disciples reproducing disciples, leaders reproducing leaders, churches reproducing churches, and movements reproducing movements.” Pg. 28, quoting Stan Parks.

“For many American churches, including ours at times, success is having as manay people as possible fill the seats at worship services on Sundays to hear teaching from God’s word….That explains why those staff members spend their whole week planning for the services and programming surrounding services.” Pg. 29

“To those executing a DMM strategy, success can be summed up in two words: generational discipleship.” Pg. 30

“They make disciples, and from those disciple-making efforts, churches are planted.” Pg. 30

“Someone might ask, how do people in these movements define church? It’s simple: Acts 2:36-47. That’s what Stan Parks said when I asked him the same question.” Pg. 34

Chapter 6:

“Although ordinary people being disciple makers isn’t particularly controversial, ordinary people acting as church planters may be a bit controversial in our country.” Pg. 38-39

Chapter 7:

“…prayer and testimony are the fuel of revival.” Pg. 45

“…movements don’t happen unless people are reading, obeying, and sharing the Word of God.” pg. 47

“Jesus said to teach the new disciples to obey. In movements overseas, it’s called obedience-based discipleship. The focus isn’t on information accumulation. The focus is on life-transformation through obeying Jesus and sharing about him with others.” Pg. 47

Chapter 10:

“The reason was that most of the training was just lists of Bible passages that Stan would have us reread with fresh eyes.” Pg. 61

Chapter 11:

Stan introduced the seven elements that were consistently found in the lives of ordinary believers who are successfully making disciples in these movements. Pg. 65

They are: Focus on God’s Word, Multiplying, Extraordinary Prayer, Go Out Among the Lost, See Groups Start, Cast Vision, Train Believers, Ongoing Coaching

Chapter 13:

“Your prayer life is now ordinary for you. Add something to it to make it extraordinary for you. Then when that becomes ordinary, add something again to make it extraordinary. Keep repeating the process.” Pg. 80

Chapter 14:

“Naturally, then, you have to ‘go out among the lost’ to see movements start.” Pg. 85

“An often-repeated DMM principle is, ‘Expect the hardest places to yield the greatest results.” Pg. 86

WOOLY Acronym of DMM: pg 88-89

W Welcoming

OO Open Oikos

L Listen

Y (doesn’t stand for anything)

Goals for going out among the lost:

 -Spend at lease 1 hour a week as a team going out among the lost.

 -Spend time loving, serving, and sharing with your family, coworkers, neighbors and friends. Pg. 90

Chapter 15:

“The goal in seeing groups start is generational growth.” Pg. 93

“Most DG’s (Discovery Groups) do not become churches. …Only about 1 in 4 DG’s survive.” Pg. 93

Chapter 16:

“And what are we training them to do? Go out among the lost and see groups start! That’s the same thing we’ve been doing.” Pg. 101

-I’m surprised this is all they are trying to train them to do! Jesus did much more with his disciples.

“The reason we gave our DMM churches a goal of casting vision to one person per week is because we’re assuming it will take casting vision to thirty people to find ten who are willing to go through training.” Pg. 102

“Training is done best through what we call the MAWL approach: MAWL= Model. Assist. Watch. Launch.” Pg. 103

Chapter 18:

“I can’t stress enough the importance of a having a coach if you’re going to dive into DMM.” Pg. 108

“My DMM coach told me that in these movements it’s common to meet with a coach at least weekly in your first two to three years.” Pg. 108

- I don’t understand how an approach and system that’s supposed to be so simple and easy for the end user needs so much training on the front end!

Chapter 23:

“In fact, contrary to conventional wisdom, we started eLife with small cell groups rather than big gatherings. We thought we might have a celebration on occasion to bring the cells together, but the keyword was might….There was only one problem. As soon as we moved out of houses and into the skating rink, crowds showed up. Sure, we had sent out some mailers inviting people to the new church. We had knocked on doors in several neighborhoods and invited people. But we were still shocked when more than three hundred showed up to our grand opening.” Pg. 139

  -this seems like one hand not knowing or being aware of what the other is doing. These are the actions of someone looking to gather a crowd!

“Without generational disciple making we knew there was no way to reach our entire people group.” Pg. 140

“While pastors might argue all day long about how to accomplish the Great Commission, virtually all of them agree that the Great Commission describes the mission of the church. Churches are supposed to be about making disciples of all nations.” Pg. 142

“Although eLife had reached thousands, proof existed that we could reach many, many more. And what was the key in virtually all those places? Movements of God.” pg. 143

Chapter 24:

“DMM essentially invites people not to just call themselves disciples of Jesus but to actually be disciples of Jesus. And Jesus said you cannot be one of his disciples unless you’re willing to give up everything you have.” Pg. 145

Chapter 28:

“The word access is used a lot in DMM circles and refers to a reason for being there. When you go to a new place where you don’t naturally belong, you need to find some means of access so the people in that place receive you and don’t reject you immediately.” Pg. 169

“Around the world, the number one way DMM’ers find those interested in God is by serving them…while consistently, simultaneously, and culturally appropriately pointing people to God.” pg. 170

“We want to join him where he’s already working, and we trust that he will lead us to those places.” Pg. 171

PIPSY Acronym: P: Poor, I: International, P: Prisoner, S: Sick, Y: nothing

Chapter 31:

“In fact, one key hindrance to growth in movements is if the church gets the idea tha they are ‘only’ supposed to meet once a week.” Pg. 211

Chapter 32:

“In fact, in many movements, more than half of the persons of peace are found through miracles.” Pg. 215

Chapter 34:

“Prayer. Testimony. Training. Those are the three primary elements in our new weekends that are leveraged for DMM.” Pg. 227

Chapter 37:

“Jesus said workers are supposed to go into the harvest fields, not just expect the harvest fields to come to them. His workers were supposed to be goers.” Pg. 252