LONG BEACH, Calif. (BP) — From the moment the lights went down for the opening worship set to the final prayer that wrapped up the event, the Send Network Gathering in Long Beach Aug. 26-27 drove attendees toward the conference theme: “Multiplication for Movement.”

Send Network, the church planting arm of the North American Mission Board (NAMB), welcomed approximately 800 church planting missionaries, pastors and other ministry leaders eager to connect and learn from leading practitioners in church planting.

Vance Pitman, president of Send Network, presented the opening message and began by recounting the history of the church in China, how it had grown in the 20^th century despite facing intense persecution.

“I long to see a movement like that in our nation and on our continent,” Pitman said. “Sadly, we look around North America today; here’s what we see: political toxicity … moral and ethical avalanche … hostility toward all things Christian. But here’s the good news — all of that existed in China, and God moved anyway.”

Preaching from Acts 14, Pitman encouraged attendees to embrace the biblical strategy of pursuing the expansion of God’s kingdom locally and globally through proclaiming the Word of God and prayer.

“Our mission is not new. Our mandate has not changed,” Pitman said. “The church in North America has simply drifted from being a people who follow the teachings of this book in how we go about ministry and mission today.”

The early church, as seen in Acts 14:21, focused on engaging cities with the gospel, making disciples and then establishing churches from those new Christ-followers.

Following Pitman, J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh, N.C., emphasized the need for local churches to cast a wide net that reaches out to those without Christ in their neighborhoods and draws them into patterns of deep discipleship.

“Great Commission churches seek to grow wide and deep because they understand that there is a part of New Testament evangelism that is definitely attraction, ‘Come and see,’” said Greear. “But they also understand that there is a large group of people who are just not going to come and see. So, you have to equip people to carry the gospel to them.”

A multiplying church must, then, be characterized by discipleship that trains believers with a strong, biblical view of the world so they can engage with the lost in the world.

“Churches that grow deep without growing wide are not really growing that deep because gospel depth leads to evangelistic width every single time,” Greear said. “Churches that grow wide without growing deep are not really growing that wide because width that does not grow out of depth will not last into the next generation, much less into eternity.”

Bryan Loritts, a vice president with Send Network and a pastor at The Summit Church, spoke on multiplication within the local church that extends to all the various types of people who make up the community around that congregation.

Highlighting Paul’s message in 1 Corinthians 9, Loritts underscored the cultural flexibility Paul displayed as he became “all things to all people” for the sake of the gospel of salvation in Christ Jesus.

“The first thing we have to do is that we must commit to hold the gospel tightly,” Loritts said. “Paul’s commitment to reach everyone is not birthed out of a diversity, equity and inclusion agenda … [Paul] says, ‘I do it all for the sake of the gospel.’”

While a church must hold tightly to the gospel, a local congregation must hold its culture loosely and be willing to compromise on those cultural influences that are not grounded in biblical commands.

“We are faithful to the gospel while flexible with our culture,” Loritts said. “My culture is to orbit around the gospel and not the gospel around my culture.”

A series of breakout sessions included topics such as deepening devotion – a track about prayer and Scripture-based worship – church planting, engaging the city and making disciples. Others focused on Send Network Español and women’s missional efforts in the church and on church planting teams.

“There are a lot of great experiences here. The teaching is top notch. The worship is great,” said Tyler Trusley, pastor and church planter of Cross Church El Mirage in the Phoenix metro area. “One of the best things is getting to connect and reconnect with other planters. There have been so many conversations that have been helpful for encouragement, formation and problem solving.”

Mark Lee, lead pastor of VantagePoint Church in Eastvale, preached the final main session of the Send Network Gathering and featured the role faithfulness plays in seeing God move and stir revival.

“Movements aren’t made through the famous,” Lee said. “Movements are made through the faithful.”

Rather than build up a platform, Christian leaders should recognize that their greatest, longest-lasting impact will play out through the disciples they have made. Those who faithfully make disciples will invest into their lives and let them go when God sends them out to plant a church or lead elsewhere.

Lee shared about two men who were sent out from his church to plant churches of their own, Jay Stovall and Chris Karish.

“Whenever I was willing to lay down my life and say, ‘God, it’s not really mine. It’s not my church. These aren’t my guys. This isn’t my budget,’” Lee said of sending out sound, loving pastors and leaders. “Here’s what I’ve learned … that the divine hand of favor and anointing on VantagePoint just ended up growing stronger and stronger in the process.”

Karish, who planted Renovate Church in Long Beach in 2020, attended the event.

“Seeing Mark get up there and preaching what I know he believes from the bottom of his heart meant a lot to me because I’ve seen it from behind the scenes all the way to where he is right now,” Karish said.

“I love the combination of the Spirit-filled atmosphere of prayer with great preaching and great worship,” said Karish about the Send Network Gathering. “You can tell from the stage to meeting people face-to-face that everybody really does care about you. That they’re for you.”

Send Network’s next Gathering takes place in Boston, September 16-17, and there’s still time to sign up. Visit www.sendnetworkgatherings.com to register and attend.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Brandon Elrod writes for the North American Mission Board.)