The Single most important thing….

TimothyDisciple Making Movements / Discipleship / EvangelismLeave a comment

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

John 6:63 (ESV)

I recently re-read Small Groups, Big Impact by Jim Egli and Dwight Marable.  This book is based on a research project that these men conducted to answer the question, “what are the factors that impact conversion growth through small groups?”  They surveyed over 3000 small group leaders in 21 countries using a survey instrument and interviews to discover the right things that groups should do to be effective fishers of men.  I thought that their findings had applications for DMM / CPM in several respects.  David Garrison found that the first characteristic of CPM’s is extraordinary prayer.  I’ll just lift some quotes from the book to give you a sneak peak into their findings:

“The practice that impacts the health and growth of a small group the most is the prayer life of its leader.  If you walk away from this book with only one insight, perhaps it should be this: If you want a vibrant and growing small group, consistently take time to grow in your relationship with God!

The prayer life of the leader correlates positively with the other three dimensions of small group health—Reach, Care, and Empower. Leaders who pray more have groups that are more outward focused. Their groups also experience more community and are more engaged in mobilizing new leadership. But the prayer life of the leader has a particularly strong impact on the evangelistic effectiveness of a group.

the amount of difference that a leader’s prayer life makes on a group’s evangelistic impact is startling. Our research reveals that leaders with a strong prayer life have groups that are more than four times more fruitful evangelistically.

Our research, involving thousands of small groups, dramatically underlines the simple Biblical truth: When we pray, we see God do awesome things! If you want others drawn to Jesus and their lives changed, pray. If you want Jesus’ life flowing to you and through you, draw near to him. Life-giving ministry depends on God and his abilities, not on you and your abilities!

prayer-in-small-groupswe were surprised to discover that the amount of time spent preparing the Bible lesson shows no correlation whatsoever to small group growth. In other words, the leaders who spend five hours preparing the Bible lesson for their groups have groups that grow no faster than the leaders who spend five minutes preparing the lesson! Amazing but true. It does make a dramatic difference, however, how much time the leader spends praying for his small group meeting.

Interestingly, when we asked leaders how much time they spend preparing the lesson and how much time they spend praying for their small group meeting, most leaders told us that they spend far more time preparing their lesson than they do praying for their meeting! Few leaders realize that lesson preparation makes a negligible difference in group health and growth, but prayer makes a big difference. It is much more important to prepare your heart than it is to prepare your notes!

having a vibrant group depends more on God than on you. Your primary role is to tune into him.

we asked small group leaders how much time they spent watching television in the average day. The statistical analysis showed an extremely strong negative correlation between small group growth and the amount of time the leader spent watching television. Most likely this correlation simply means that when we do things that take large amounts of time away from relationship with God and relationship with others—it adversely affects those relationships.”

From Small Groups, Big Impact

by Jim Egli

Nonreproducible methods

TimothyChurch Planting Movements / Disciple Making MovementsLeave a comment

“As a church planting coach in Cambodia, I once brought lanterns for use in a drama, a contextualized performance of the Bible story about Ruth and Naomi. I say contextualized in that the Cambodian church planters allowed the surrounding context to influence the style and nuances of the play. The Cambodian farmers were only able to meet at night after they came in from the fields, so I thought it would be beneficial to provide artificial lighting. I also brought a few other resources from the city to enhance the drama and create a pleasant atmosphere in this village setting. I viewed the lanterns as a simple act of kindness and a way to increase the effectiveness of this friendly community event.

A couple of weeks later, the church planters and I were preparing for another storytelling gathering. The church planters gave me a list of things I could bring to the gathering: a tarp, a car battery, and a portable stereo. As I held the list, I realized that I had made a momentous mistake. I was thinking of the success of the immediate event. “What will make this ministry event that I am a part of succeed in a timely manner?” This short-term thinking was a problem for several reasons. One, I communicated through my actions that the local resources of that village were somehow inferior. Two, I conditioned the church planters to feel a need to access resources not readily available to them in order to succeed in this ministry and future church plants. Third, if the church-in-process were to daughter a church in the future, they would want to use external resources to do it, as I had modeled to them.

This whole method can be summed up in one word: nonreproducible.”

We Are Not The Hero
Jean Johnson
Loc 1201

The crippling effect of dependency

TimothyChurch Planting Movements / Disciple Making Movements / Discipleship / EvangelismLeave a comment

“At one point, I was working in conjunction with a local Cambodian pastor to train some of his members to plant daughter churches. The soon-to-be church planters sat in a circle, and I asked them to share their experiences of why and how they came into a faith journey with Jesus. Their testimonies revealed that most of them began their faith journey because they received glasses, rice, land plots, or employment from Christian organizations. Upon hearing their stories, I knew that their experiences of how they came to know Christ would greatly affect their church planting approaches. As the church planters launched into various areas to plant churches, they began to ask the pastor and me for glasses, rice, land, and jobs for other people as a means to share their faith. The pastor did not have these types of resources readily available. I considered my options and realized that the only way I could keep this church planting process alive was to feed into the chain of unhealthy dependency. I was not willing to create a spirit of dependency around myself. So I declined their requests as well. One by one, the church planters quit when they realized they would not personally receive ongoing handouts and salaries or goods to pass on to potential believers within their realm of ministry.

Despite the majority withdrawal, several of these Cambodian church planters stayed the course. As they visited people and shared about Jesus, a question was repeatedly posed to them: “How much money do you make, and can you get me a job too?” Folk Buddhists among their community perceived the Cambodian church planters as paid hirelings of a foreign organization. Even worse, many Cambodians perceived those who joined the “Jesus religion” as traitors who were lured by opportunity for handouts, money, and jobs.”

We Are Not The Hero
By Jean Johnson
Location 2077

do the opposite…

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Earl Nightingale was a entrepreneur and leadership guru of the last generation.  He has hit on exactly the dynamic that is involved in the counterintuitive aspects of DMM / CPM.  There is a reason why this approach works.  It is that the majority is wrong.

“If you enter a market and don’t know what to do, watch what everyone else is doing, and then do the opposite, if you want to be successful. The majority is almost always wrong.”

Earl Nightingale

you could miss out on….

TimothyChurch Planting Movements / Disciple Making Movements / Discipleship / Evangelism / UncategorizedLeave a comment

“What I have seen over the last decade tells me that movements are not the mere work of men. They are the work of the Spirit. If God is actually in the middle of movements, then to ignore them means you could miss out on the most significant work of God since the Reformation. Why not take the risk, look over the horizon and ask the Lord to show you what He is about in the world?”

Robert Reach
Movements That Move

A history lesson – what killed a Church Planting Movement

TimothyChurch Planting Movements / Disciple Making Movements / Discipleship / Evangelism / UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Baptists and Methodists flourished because they mobilized common people to preach the gospel and plant churches wherever there was a need. The Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Congregationalists languished because they were controlled by well-paid clergy who were recruited from the social and financial elite. Early growth was dramatic for the Methodists – from 2.5 percent of the church-going population in 1776 to 34 percent in 1850, with four thousand itinerant preachers, almost eight thousand local preachers and over one million members. This made them by far the largest religious body in the nation. There was only one national institution that was more extensive – the U.S. government. This achievement would have been impossible without the mobilization of ordinary people – white and black, young and old, men and women – and the removal of artificial barriers to their engagement in significant leadership as class leaders, local workers and itinerant preachers. Unfortunately, the Methodist rise was short-lived. Whereas before 1840 the Methodists had virtually no college-educated clergy among their circuit riders and local preachers, their amateur clergy were gradually replaced by seminary-educated professionals who claimed the authority of the church hierarchy over their congregations. Their relative slump began at the same time; by the end of the nineteenth century the Baptists had overtaken them in numbers.

Steve Addison

Movements That Change The World

Bible College / Seminary training hinders more than helps

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The mode of training is also critical, particularly at the earlier levels of training. The problem with a Bible college or seminary-type training is that it uses a classroom-academic methodology that is inconsistent with the model of church that is being planted. The college – trained church planter may often feel uncomfortable with the informal atmosphere of the home gathering or the church under a tree. He or she wants to preach extensively rather than equip the people to discover the truth from God‘s Word for themselves so that they can become mature believers, not dependent on the church planter. The mode and tools of training should be consistent with the expected model of church.

Extractive training should also be avoided if possible. When emerging leaders are removed for significant periods of time from their local community they become an outsider to their own community. They often return from the training (if they return at all) with an outsider (and academic) view of church and ministry, with strange ideas and habits and are no longer able to relate naturally to their people.

On-the-job training is much more effective in terms of rapid church multiplication. This continuous training is done primarily through a discipling/mentoring relationship between the coordinator/trainer and the church planter. It reflects Jesus‘ model of training with the disciples. They were almost constantly with Him.

David Hunt

Church Multiplication in East Africa

There is a ready army of workers

TimothyChurch Planting Movements / Disciple Making Movements / Discipleship / Evangelism / Uncategorized

Every believer, specially gifted by the Spirit of God, is to be a minister in the work of the Kingdom. Kingdom work is not the domain of the ―professional trained paid church planter/pastor/leader. In fact, the separation of clergy and laity has perhaps become one of the greatest barriers to the engagement of the believers in the ministry. This unbiblical class distinction leaves most believers with a secondary role in the work of the ministry. Classified as laity or volunteers they are generally expected to serve the professional leaders in secondary functions leaving the important roles to those who are trained, credentialed, and paid.

The criticality of discipling every believer, because every believer is to be a minister using the gifts assigned to them by the Spirit, leaves no one out. There are no spectators. Everyone must be empowered to do what God has ordained them to do.

This fundamentally changes the role of the church planters. They must resist the temptation of doing the work and focus on equipping the new believers to do the work of the ministry. From the very beginning nothing is done by the church planter that could be done by the local believers. It becomes part of the DNA of the new church. The ministry is done by the believers and unless the believers do the ministry it doesn‘t get done. It is an unhealthy church where the church planter or paid pastor is the minister and the people are the spectators, or are relegated to secondary roles of ministry.

When the people are the ministers there is a ready army of workers. The local believers win their neighbors to Christ. The local believers lead the newly formed church including all the functions of church. The local believers minister to the needs of the people in the community. The local believers go out and plant new churches. Rapid church multiplication simply cannot happen through a strategy of ―professional paid ministers. It will only happen when the believers are empowered and engaged in the work of the ministry.

David Hunt

Church Multiplication in East Africa

Muslim Sheikhs as Persons of Peace

TimothyChurch Planting Movements / Disciple Making Movements / Discipleship / Evangelism / Uncategorized

Initially in the East Africa project the Muslim sheikhs were avoided. They were considered to be the enemy. As the principle of the person of peace began to take hold, some church planters started to focus on the sheikhs. They were indeed often the spiritually sensitive people in the community. They were influential with the people. Many sheikhs were discovered to be the person of peace to bring the gospel into the community. In one part of the Rift Valley the church planter began to seek out sheikhs with the gospel message. Within three months, five local sheikhs had become believers and were deeply engaged in a discipleship process with the church planter sometimes meeting together several times a week. These five then began to carefully share the newly discovered ―truth with other sheikhs in nearby communities. Within twelve months, seventy-two sheikhs became followers of Jesus. The goal in this area is to see one thousand sheikhs become Christ- followers and then to ―go public. The desire is that the entire community will be transformed through the power of the gospel.

David Hunt

Church Multiplication in East Africa

The Importance of the Person of Peace

TimothyChurch Planting Movements / Disciple Making Movements / Discipleship / Evangelism / Uncategorized

“Perhaps no one principle in this strategy of church planting has had such a singularly powerful impact as the principle of finding the person of peace. From a strategic perspective it becomes one of the key elements in this overall process. Many church planters have been freed from the overwhelming burden of an institutional/traditional method of church planting by adopting the person of peace principle.”

“Nekarat is a diligent and committed church planter. For years he worked tirelessly succeeding in establishing thirteen churches throughout his region. By most accounts he was a very successful church planter. But for Nekarat it was not enough. Learning the principle of the person of peace he immediately changed his whole approach and began looking for that special person or family that God had already prepared in each community to receive the gospel message and to open their community to the gospel. Within the next two years seventy new churches emerged in his region.”

David Hunt

    Church Multiplication in East Africa

Within three months, thirty of his neighbors had become believers in Jesus….

TimothyChurch Planting Movements / Disciple Making Movements / Discipleship / Evangelism / Uncategorized

One of the best resources to learn about DMM/CPM is free.  It is the doctoral dissertation that David Hunt wrote about how he was used to catylize a DMM/CPM in East Africa.

When he was twenty-two years old, Ibrahim turned from being trained as a sheikh to becoming an ardent follower of Jesus. He was so thrilled that he had ―found the truth‖ that he could not stop himself from telling others about it. First he led his wife to Christ, then his cousin Eyobe. Within three months, thirty of his neighbors had become believers in Jesus, creating no small stir in his Islamic community where his father was the current sheikh. Needing to band together, this small group of believers met regularly to support each other, study the Word together, worship their new-found God, and talk about how to reach still more. Ibrahim and Eyobe met regularly with the local church planter for discipleship, but the church planter was not regularly in the village and did not lead any church services. After a few more months, Ibrahim had a passion to take the ―truth that he had recently discovered to the next community so he took his cousin Eyobe and began to look for an open listener in the neighboring village. After initial resistance it was the sheikh of that community who first responded to the gospel, and through his witness a new community of believers quickly emerged. Ibrahim and Eyobe moved on to the next community where again God moved and a church was born. Eyobe planted three churches in less than twelve months because no one told him he couldn‘t! He did the thing that naturally came out of the passion of his heart to share Jesus with his community and those around Him. Today these communities of believers are continuing to grow and mature as the people learn how to become obedient follow of Jesus.

David Hunt

      Church Multiplication in East Africa