Every disciple, equipped to multiply.
Reach RVA’s training pathway exists to put the tools of a gospel movement into ordinary hands. Its goal is not to create professionals, but to multiply disciples who make disciples, leaders who make leaders, and churches that plant churches. Every level below is drawn from a proven, reproducible disciple-making framework, tested across church-planting movements worldwide and adapted for Richmond’s segments.
Richmond will not be reached by a bigger organization. It will be reached when enough ordinary believers know how to have a gospel conversation, disciple the person sitting across from them, and hand off what they’ve learned to someone else.
What you can expect
By the time you’ve worked through this pathway, you will be able to:
- Start a gospel conversation with someone in your own relational network (oikos) and know how to find a “person of peace”
- Lead a discovery Bible study or discipleship group that keeps multiplying without you in the room
- Coach and multiply other leaders using the same MAWL pattern (Model, Assist, Watch, Launch) someone used with you
- Adopt a Richmond segment and begin applying the strategy there, all while coordinating together
“And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” 2 Timothy 2:2, ESV
The Core Missionary Task.
The work of reaching a place has six components: entry, evangelism, disciple-making, healthy church formation, leadership development, and a strategically planned exit. They are not a ladder to climb once. They overlap, they repeat, and each one carries practical, reproducible tools you can hand to someone else.
Prayer is not the seventh component. It is not a component at all — it is the essential element in every part of the task, and it has to permeate all six. We do not pray in order to begin the work and then get on with it; the work is prayed through from entry to exit.
“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Matthew 9:37–38, ESV
Entry
Gaining accessWho are we sent to? How do we get in?
Diagram your relational network (family, friends, neighbors, coworkers) to identify who you are already sent to
The single most useful hour you can spend before any training
- Luke 10 House of PeaceSearch for persons of peace: receptive individuals God has already prepared who will open doors to their community (Luke 10:5–7, ESV)Once your Oikos is mapped — look for who in it is already receptive
Evangelism
The responsibility of every believerAre we telling them the whole gospel, on purpose?
A brief, reproducible personal story of before/after in Christ
Your own story is always ready — no preparation needed
- 3 CirclesA simple gospel illustration: Brokenness → God’s Design → Gospel → Repentance & FaithRight after your testimony — explains the gospel with a simple diagram
- 4 Responses to the GospelFramework for identifying where someone is: hard soil, rocky soil, thorny soil, or good soil (Mark 4:3–9, ESV)Right after — use it to read where the conversation landed
- 7 Stories of HopeDiscovery Bible Study arc through key redemptive narrativesFor good soil — a longer arc once someone wants to keep exploring
Disciple-making
Word, Spirit, peopleHow do we make disciples who obey and reproduce?
4 questions, 1 sheet of paper, 1 hour; entry-level discipleship tool for green lights and existing believers
Entry-level — for green lights and existing believers alike
- 3/3 (Three Thirds) PatternEvery gathering has three thirds: look back (accountability), look up (worship/word), look forward (vision/practice)Once you're meeting weekly as a group
- Commands of ChristThe foundational obedience curriculum: 8 core commands Jesus gave his disciples, used as the content of discipleshipThe content you teach through in that weekly group
- Sword Bible Study MethodA group discovery method for engaging scripture togetherAn alternate format for groups who want to discover scripture together
Healthy Church Formation
Multiplying, not merely startedWhat are we actually building toward?
A church is a group of baptized believers committed to one another, gathering regularly to carry out the functions of a biblical church. These twelve characteristics are not a checklist to clear and forget. They describe what a healthy, sustainable, multiplying church looks like — the thing every group we start is growing toward.
- 1.Biblical evangelism
- 2.Biblical discipleship
- 3.Biblical membership
- 4.Biblical leadership
- 5.Biblical preaching and teaching
- 6.Biblical ordinances — baptism and the Lord’s Supper
- 7.Biblical worship
- 8.Biblical fellowship
- 9.Biblical prayer
- 10.Biblical accountability and discipline
- 11.Biblical giving
- 12.Biblical mission — local and global
- Simple, reproducible churchA church expression that does not require a building, professional clergy, or institutional infrastructureOnce the group is functioning as a church on its own
- Immediate reproductionChurches are immediately expected to reproduce by sending church plantersFrom day one — decide who this church will send out
Leadership Development
Be, know, doWho will shepherd these churches after we are gone?
- Be
- Character before competence: above reproach, self-controlled, hospitable, gentle, not a lover of money, managing his own household well (1 Timothy 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9, ESV)
- Know
- The Bible and sound doctrine, held firmly enough both to teach it and to correct what contradicts it
- Do
- Teach, shepherd and care for the church, and equip the saints for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11–12, ESV)
Leaders are formed, tested and affirmed inside a real local church — not credentialed at a distance.
The training cycle for reproducing leaders: I do, you watch → I do, you help → you do, I help → you do, I watch → you do, someone watches
As soon as someone in your group is ready to do what you have been doing
- Generational MappingVisualizes and tracks disciple-making and church planting across generations, so you can see where multiplication is actually stoppingOnce there is more than one group to keep track of
Exit
Handing off, not walking awayHow will we know when this segment no longer needs us?
There is no worksheet for this one. Exit is measured by what the believers of a segment are doing without us.
- EvangelismAre the believers here sharing the gospel themselves, in their own words, without us in the room?
- Disciple-makingAre they discipling the people they lead to Christ, rather than sending them to us?
- Healthy church formationDo their churches display the twelve characteristics — and are they starting other churches that do?
- Leadership developmentAre they raising up, testing and affirming their own next leaders through their own process?
- EntryAre they sending planters into the next unreached corner of Richmond, instead of waiting to be sent to?
Exit does not imply abandonment. It is a change of relationship: the churches of a segment stop being a field we work and become partners we work alongside. It is also what keeps the task moving — exit from one corner of Richmond is entry into the next.
Rehearse the conversation before you have it.
Knowing 3 Circles and a 15-second testimony is not the same as saying them out loud to someone who does not share your faith. Engage Lostness, built by the IMB Innovation Team, is a free practice tool: hold a conversation with a character from one of 15 worldviews at three levels of openness, then get coached on where the conversation turned and what to try next. English and Spanish.
Every character there is generated by AI. It is a rehearsal room, never a substitute for real people, and never an authority on what anyone actually believes. Practice there; go knock on the door here.
Open Engage LostnessSuccess here is faithfulness to the task, not a number at the end of it. We are responsible to do this work well; the results belong to God.
Scriptural basis: Matthew 28:16–20 (ESV), the commission to go and make disciples of all nations, and 2 Timothy 2:2 (ESV), entrusting what we have heard to faithful people who will teach others also.
How do you know it's working?
Exit is a judgment call, and the five questions above are what keep it about a segment rather than about us. The seven phases below are that same judgment applied to all of Richmond at once. They describe what is true of a place — not how much work has gone into it.
They measure a place, not a person
You do not have a phase. A segment does. The question is never how far the worker has come — it is how far the neighborhood has.
They do not move together
Richmond's 13 segments each advance at their own pace. One can be gathering a church while another is still waiting on someone to gain access.
Phase 4 is the floor
A gathering, worshiping church is what every segment should clear first. Multiplication — Phases 5 through 7 — only becomes the goal once that church exists.
Phase 1 · Entry
Workers have gained access and are building relationships
Phase 2 · Evangelism
The gospel is being actively shared here
Phase 3 · Discipleship
People are responding in faith and being discipled
Phase 4 · Local Church
A church is gathering, with local leaders emerging
Phase 5 · Reproducing Church
Churches are sending out planters; multiplying
Phase 6 · Multiplying Church
A movement spanning generations of churches
Phase 7 · Sustained Gospel Presence
A sustained, self-sustaining gospel presence
Every tool on this page exists to move one segment one phase further.
See where all 13 segments stand right nowYour next 30 days.
None of this requires a title, a budget, or permission. Here is what you can do this month.
Start with 411
The fastest way in is a single one-hour session. Email the team to schedule a 411 Training for your group, or watch for the next one on the events calendar.
Map your own Oikos
Before you ever sit in a training, list the 20 people you already have relational access to. It’s the single most useful hour you can spend before Level 1.
Find your segment
Richmond is divided into 125 geographic zones and 13 people-group segments. See which one overlaps your own relationships and where it currently sits in the 7 Phases.
Commit to reproduce
Every tool on this page ends the same way: train someone else within 30 days. Decide now who that will be.
Practice out loud
Before the real conversation, rehearse one. Engage Lostness (free, built by the IMB Innovation Team) lets you practice sharing your faith with an AI character from another worldview, then coaches you on how it went.
Go deeper
Once 411 is done, the Missionary Task Intensive and Mid-Level Training are next. Both are hosted periodically in Richmond.
Ready to start training?
Connect with the Reach RVA team to schedule a 411 Training, ask about the next Missionary Task Intensive, or find out where your segment currently stands.
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