Take a look at the chart below:

	Elephants	Rabbits
	sexual maturity: 18 years	sexual maturity: 4 months
	only one baby per pregnancy	average of seven babies
	22-month gestation period	1-month gestation period
	only fertile four times a year	Practically continuously fertile
	grow in 3 years from 2 to 3	grow in 3 years from 2 to 476 million!

Larger churches do a lot of great things—but they don’t multiply well. In fact, very few sanctuary-based churches ever intentionally plant a new church, and those that do tend to do it only once. The metaphor of the elephant and the rabbit brings the point home. Wolfgang Simson makes the case: "If you put two elephants in a room and two rabbits in [another] room, in three years you will have three elephants and 476 million rabbits. Wonderful things happen in elephant-type churches. But with all of these elephant churches around, it's time for a rabbit plague."

Healthy House Churches multiply—rapidly, sort of. When we talk about multiplication of a House Church in our Network, what we mean is that every year we anticipate each House Church to have identified, recruited, and trained one new House Church Pastor who will be a blessing to the community by going out to start a new House Church in their home or some other informal setting.

Now, a new House Church once a year doesn’t really sound like “rapid” growth, does it? From a single House Church that means in two years we would see one church become two. But from that point on it’s pretty phenomenal:

What that means, for us, is that with our “head start”, we can expect these kind of results—note that we’ve built in some church losses in order to reflect the reality that people move and House Churches close:

In real numbers, this means that in our sixth year, there will be 1,752 people touched by Jesus Christ through The Rock. That, my friends and family, is my heart-burst. It’s why I do what I do—because I know this stuff is possible: it’s already happening in India, China, South America, Central America, Africa, and all over Asia (it’s even happening here in the U.S.—see Neil Cole’s work in California here). And I believe it’s possible even here.

So, what does this mean for you? What do rabbits and elephants have to do with you? Simply this: Many of you reading this column (those of you who faithfully read this stuff to the end—my personal thanks!) know that Jesus has placed it in your heart—maybe way back in the furthest reaches, but there nonetheless—to host a church in your home. Others of you, know who in your House Church is being called to do so. The only question then is, how and when will you be faithful—or else, how will you get out of it? Remember, Jonah ran away from God, but as the story teaches, you can run, but you cannot hide. Let me invite you to take the first step that will verify that nudging in the back of your mind. Go online now to take the PMA (April’s login: rocklover password: member) and see what God has in store for you.