Having an Exit Plan From the Start

Persons of Peace: 2. How Do I Find One?

david.north@team.org (David North) — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 17:08:21 GMT

Persons of Peace: How Do I Find One?

I understand that I need to look for “POPs” or Persons of Peace / Prepared Open People,

but how do I find them

and how do I recognize them?

In our previous blog, " Persons of Peace: 1. What are they?" we discovered what Persons of Peace are and why they are part of Jesus’ strategy for spreading the good news of the kingdom. We saw from biblical examples and modern stories that…

- They can be unbelievers, pre-believers, new believers or established believers

- They are local, networked people

- They are being prepared by God in very different ways

o Through sickness and a sense of need

o Through a sense of inadequacy

o Through their own lives being changed

- They reduce exponentially the amount of time it takes to penetrate a new area

- They already know the people and the culture we are trying to reach

- The people we are targeting will listen to them, either because they are so changed, or because they are respected and “worthy” people.

But how do we find them? When we go into a new place, we don’t usually know who the connected people are who will open doors for us, and often the ones we think will be our POP’s end up being unhelpful and closed to our message.

In my blog on “ Journeying toward Christ ” ( https://www.goandplant.com/journeying-toward-christ ), I was talking with a worker in Southeast Asia who was trying to reach into a Muslim community. He and his team had been in their location for 7 years with very little fruit. They had tried to become part of the community life and to build relationships for a number of years with the kinds of people they thought would be Persons of Peace, receptive to the message and connected in the community. They discovered that, very often, the people that they had invested so much time in relationally were closed and uninterested once they began to share the gospel. In all that time, they had bypassed many people by spending all their time on their narrower focus of people they assumed or hoped would come through in the long run as their persons of peace.

As we move into a new area, we don’t know up front who those people will be . We have to use multiple approaches to find them. This team in S.E. Asia made the decision that, while they still built relationships with some , they would start sharing the gospel up front with the many in order to find the few who were already prepared by God. Then they would focus their relational time on those who were prepared already by God and open to their message, and they would use those relationships as bridges into the community. They determined to start early with the gospel, and that would help them filter out who might and might not be receptive and supportive. Instead of starting with relationships and moving to the gospel, they decided to start with the gospel and move with the responsive into relationships with the responsive or open ones.

This seems to be a method often used by the apostle Paul in his ministry. He would go and preach the gospel to a group or to a synagogue. Out of that group, people would often be divided into the “opposers” and the “adopters.” He would then take those aside who were open and eager to learn more, and then he would focus his time on these responsive few, the adopters. Then as he worked with these, going deeper in relationship and in teaching, we read that the gospel spread in those areas from that base of Prepared, Open People. They became his POPs.

This shows us 2 ways we can look for Persons of Peace in a new place.

1. Through Friendships in the community while living as a witness

2. Through Broad Spreading of the gospel

Let’s look at these two approaches:

1. Through Friendships in the community while living as a witness – The key here to finding the ‘Persons of Peace’ is in relationships where we demonstrate Christlike character and love, and where we speak openly and naturally in those relationships of our faith and trust in God. If we fail to make it known that we are followers of Christ, then we might make good friendships, but we’re unlikely to find persons of peace. They need to know it is Christ who makes the difference.

LOVE THEM AND TELL THEM

When Jesus told his disciples what to do during their short-term missionary training trips (Matthew 10; Luke 9 and 10), he told them to heal the sick and preach the gospel. Love them and tell them! In two of these passages, preaching the gospel comes first, and in one of these passages healing the sick comes first, but it is clear that the demonstration of God’s love and power through healing was to be accompanied by making it known that it was done in the name of Christ and for his kingdom. The credit for the healing was to be given to God, not to the disciples.

It's easy to go and live among them and love them without actually speaking the gospel of Christ. In that case the messenger gets the credit for the friendliness and kindness. This is why Jesus immediately told his disciples, not to rejoice in the miracles they had done while on mission, but to rejoice that they themselves were saved (Luke 10:20). Our Christlike character and kindness need to be accredited to the gospel of Christ.

As we continue to be openly Christ followers as we live in loving relationships , God will expose to us the people who He is preparing, and they will be drawn to us and to our message.

We don’t know who they will be, but loving acts done in Christ’s name will begin to show us who God’s POPs are. They will not be turned off by our message.

2. Through Broad Spreading of the Gospel. The disciples went to all the lost towns around Galilee with the gospel. They covered a lot of territory looking for responsive people. They went into towns and villages and shared the gospel with a wide range of people , not knowing who would reject it and who would respond to it.

I mentioned in my first blog on Persons of Peace that, in one city, we spent 3 months going house to house sharing the Word before we came to a family who were ready to hear and receive Christ, and they immediately started helping us spread the Word. That taught me what I passed on to our new believers as we trained them in spreading God’s Word. As the church began to be established, I trained them in house to house witnessing in subdivisions. We took teams to parks and malls. We trained them to share at their schools and with their families and friends. I told them that we were likely to meet many people who weren’t interested, or who rejected our witness, or who may even be hostile. But I told them not to worry about that (Mt 10:19,26,28). Those weren’t the people we were looking for. We were out looking for the people God had already been preparing who are out there somewhere (Mt. 10:40ff) . The ones we were looking for might be in the next house or the next street or the next subdivision. And sure enough, we met a lot of disinterest, and a little hostility, but eventually we found people who were waiting to hear who became part of God’s people and shared in our witness.

We can’t find our Persons of Peace unless we are willing to risk rejection and hostility by sharing the gospel widely.

This is why in Matthew 10, Jesus spent most of his witness-training telling the disciples to expect that many would “not receive” them v:14, and that they were going out “among wolves” v:16, and they would suffer real “persecution” v:17ff, and “hatred” v:22, and violence v:28. But He ends the chapter reminding them that some will “receive” them along the way and will find eternal life.

Of course, we have to be wise as serpents (v:16) so we are not foolishly endangering ourselves or others around us, but at the same time, unless we are willing to speak up for Christ, we will never find our persons of peace who will help us bring the gospel into new communities.

PROMINENT PEOPLE

So, as we go into new areas, we are looking for these POPs who will bridge gaps into their networks of relationships, but we don’t know who they are in advance. We have to share our faith through love and through gospel witness in order to discover them. But, we have to be careful who we assume will be our bridge into the community. We tend to think they need to be the highly influential, government officials, prominent businesspeople, well known athletes or musicians. And although it is true that such people, like Cornelius, can open wide doors to many people, but it’s also true that they can often be the least responsive unless God has specially prepared them, because they can also be the most self-reliant and self-focused people.

In our last city, we befriended someone who was probably the best known radio and TV announcer in the city and his wife who was a prominent Doctor there. After all the time we spent with them and having built a great relationship with them, they had no interest in the gospel we shared with them. They weren’t willing to step out of their traditional religion.

We tried to connect with and reach these kinds of people in hopes that they would open doors to their networks. We joined some of their clubs, and attended their parties if invited, and took up the sports and hobbies in which they were participating, all the while being unashamed of our walk with the Lord as followers of Christ. And a few came to Christ along the way and helped us reach their connections. Those who did were able to open up their workplace to us for Bible studies. One Military captain who was a believer invited me to come and speak to his whole group of about 100 soldiers. One Christian lady was the regional director of the department of education and opened the door for us to do weekly Bible studies in public schools with all the teachers from 5 different schools. One business woman asked us to lead devotional times with her entire warehouse staff of about 30-40 people. So just a few such people can have a big impact.

But we often found this group to be the least responsive, maybe because they had the most to lose socially if they became Christians. So, while we built bridges with some socially influential people, most of our time was with the ordinary people of life, and this is where we found the most Persons of Peace, people who were ready to accept Christ and willing to be equipped to reach others.

UNEXPECTED PERSONS OF PEACE

Often we will be surprised who God will send to connect us with the lost community. We are surprised and maybe shocked at some of the people Jesus chose to be His door openers.

• The poor shepherds on the low end of social acceptability to introduce the birth of the King of Kings to Israel

• The Woman at the well who was a marriage and moral failure who was used to lead the whole of the town of Samaria to faith

• The Gadarene Demoniac who was used to prepare the entire region of the Decapolis for Christ

This shows us several things…

1. That socio-economic standards are not always the standards God uses in getting the gospel out.

2. That it really is the work of the sovereign God to lead us to such people.

3. And so, we really should pray that God will lead us to find what we can’t find on our own.

4. That often the best witnesses and gospel promoters are the ones who were the most broken without Christ.

The key we found to discovering God’s persons of Peace was to bring the gospel to as many as possible, and then focus on those who seemed responsive to the message of Christ. Then, we observed how they responded to Christ and to our encouragement to spread the Word to others. The ones who were quick to spread the Word to others and to gather others were the ones we wanted to focus our discipleship on in the long term. Some of these will be what we called “Super Spreaders.”

Examples of Super Spreaders:

• A troubled teenager came to Christ, and within 3 months he told us that 15 of his classmates wanted to study the Bible with him. Could we help him?

• A 15 year old girl from a very broken family came to Christ and immediately started witnessing for Christ at her school. Before long she was bringing friends and family to Christ.

• An outgoing businessman , who had recently lost his handicapped son, accepted Christ and gathered his friends and asked if I would come and teach them.

• A young lady who was already a young believer in a new city we entered. She began connecting us with other Chinese young adults from her community. She had a quiet witness and the ability to connect us to others who she knew would be open.

Clearly these were prepared by God to bring Christ into their networks. Sometimes their networks were family, sometimes friends, sometimes work environments, sometimes schools. Sometimes these people were existing believers with a heart for the lost. Sometimes they were newly changed by Christ. As we go out in Christ’s name, we share with many, and we disciple the responders and start training as many as we can in passing the gospel on. But then we will find those who are especially gifted or who have that special passion for reaching others. When we find these, it is important to take the time to disciple, equip and train them and to demonstrate to them how to share the gospel and disciple others.

To Think about…

• Do you have any people in your context who are willing to pass on to others the things you share with them?

• Are you looking and praying for POPs as you go about your life and witness for Christ?

• Do you have ways of witnessing and discipling that would be easy to pass on to the “Super Spreaders” that God might bring your way?

• Do you pray that God will raise up more laborers from within your harvest field? Remember; Persons of Peace are Prepared by God. Ask Him for them, and ask Him to connect you with them.

Persons of Peace: 1. What are they?

david.north@team.org (David North) — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 16:27:06 GMT

Persons of Peace: 1. What Are They?

When we enter a new area, we often wonder, “Where do I start? I don’t know anyone here, and who am I to come into their world and start teaching them?”

Jesus prepared his disciples for this by giving them a strategy

When Jesus was sending out His 12 disciples on a missionary training trip in Matthew 10, and when He was sending out 72 of His followers on evangelism training in Luke 10, He gave them each a command that was to be part of their strategy for reaching those areas. Jesus told them to find “Persons of Peace” or “sons of peace” Luke 10:5,6. And in Matthew 10:11-14 Jesus calls them “Worthy” people. Jesus told them they were to look for these kinds of people who would help them reach the towns they were going to. They were outsiders, but these people would be insiders. In fact, He told them that if they didn’t find any such people, they ought to move on to another place. So,

What is a “Person of Peace?”

In Matthew 10:14 Jesus tells us that these Worthy people or Persons of Peace are people who

1. “Receive” Jesus’ messengers and

2. “Listen to their words.”

3. They were supportive of the messengers and their ministry, relationally and even financially.

4. Mathew refers to these people as “worthy.” That could indicate that they would be respected and connected in the community. Or “Worthy” could refer to their respectful welcome of Jesus’s messengers.

5. The y accepted the disciples into their households (gk: Oikos)

“Oikos” – the Greek word used here for house or household is “oikos,” usually referring to more than the building, and including the family network of all who live or work in that place. It would infer that they introduce the messenger into the home and family where they were staying. They welcome the message and the messenger and introduce them to their network whom they can more easily reach than we outsiders.

6. One of the key characteristics of a Person of peace is that they are from that area and are connected there .

POP's: We used to refer to these kinds of people as POP’s: Persons of Peace, or Prepared, Open People. Jerry Trousdale in his book, Miraculous Movements says, “Persons of peace are God’s pre-positioned agents to bring the gospel to their family, their friends, or their workplace.” (p.90)

Some key words

Some key words then for the kind of people we would be looking and praying for as we enter a new area would be: Prepared, Open People (POPs), connectors, networked in the area, locals, those who provide relational bridges to the community, respected, welcoming, receptive to the message and messenger, door-openers.

Some Examples in the NT are:

Levi - Lk 5:27-29 to the tax-collectors and to his family

Cornelius - Acts 10 to his family and to the military

Lydia – Acts 16:14,15 to her family and business connections

The Philippian Jailer - Acts 16:27-34 to his whole household and the prison staff

The Woman at the Well - John 3 to her whole town

Paul would often go into new places and publicly share the gospel with a large number of people. Before long he would take those who responded and then focus on teaching and training them and on reaching their oikos groups, their households or networks. These people would often become a base for reaching their whole communities.

Some Examples of POPs in our Ministry

(i) Tarlac City

When I arrived in Tarlac city as a new missionary, I didn’t know how to begin or how to connect with the people. I was there with my Filipino co-worker and neither of us knew a single soul in the city and there were very few followers of Christ in that place.

So, I decided to take 2 approaches simultaneously

1. I would use the friendship approach to build relationships through common interests and look for opportunities to speak of Christ,

2. and we would share the gospel widely, going door to door, sharing the gospel in a certain part of town, looking for open people.

Common Interests: So, I joined a tennis club in my subdivision, but I was so bad no one wanted to play with me. Then I started biking and found a biking club I could join. Through those friendships and much time together in a common interest, I was able to befriend 2 of the influential people in the group, and that led to them suggesting to the whole group that we take a little time halfway through the ride to have Bible meditations together. By connecting with these respected members, the door opened to the whole group. One of the two influential leaders never came to Christ in my time there, but he was my person of peace that opened the door for the whole group to hear the gospel.

Share the Gospel Widely: At the same time, after 3 months of going door to door 5 days a week with no results, we came to a house where 2 young couples were visiting with each other. When I shared the gospel with them, they all four immediately received Christ and were willing to start weekly Bible study together. When we started the Bible Study, they had invited other neighbors together and from that we had our first baptism with 12 people, which became the beginning of the church in that city.

When I found these 2 couples, my Persons of Peace, I stopped the door to door, and focused on discipling them and training them to share with others. When I went back after 20 years, they were still passing it on to others in the same way I had brought the gospel to them. Long after we had discipled them and trained them to pass it on and after we had moved on to other places, that 12 had grown to more than 600 believers, many of whom I have never met personally and never could have reached.

Both friendship and also broad spreading of the gospel had led me to find persons of peace.

(ii) John

In one city, my son and I were out in the street throwing a football in the subdivision. A neighbor, a Chinese businessman, came out and started chatting. He asked me what I was doing in the city. I told John, “I’m a Bible Teacher. ” To my great surprise he replied, “Can you teach me the Bible?” It turned out that he had been asked to lead a Catholic small group of young business people but was struggling because he knew nothing of the Bible. So, I started meeting with John, working through a passage of the gospel of John each week together and then helping him prepare to do the same with his small group. After several months, John came to receive Christ personally. I met some of his groupmates and none of them knew I was meeting with John. It came up in the conversation that “John has become a really good Bible teacher.” Later John was asked to speak at one of their Catholic retreats to hundreds of young adults. We worked on his talk together, bringing the gospel of grace clearly, and then John presented it to his group. They never knew I was involved. They never would have invited me as an outsider to speak to their group. John was a person of peace. He was a POP, a Prepared Open Person . He had been prepared by God by giving him a task in his group that he was not able to fulfil. He had a felt need to learn the Bible. He was an insider and he was connected , and he received me, the messenger, and the message . He was the bridge to his Oikos.

(iii) COMBAT

I rode a mountain bike as a way to connect with the many mountain bikers in the city. I had started riding occasionally with a group named COMBAT. It turned out that Danny, one of the group members who had lived a wild life before, had recently come to Christ. He had been trying to figure out how to share Christ with his very lost groupmates. When he found out why we were there, Danny came and asked if I would teach a Bible study to his group (of about 12 young men). He said he would invite them to his house for dinner each week and he would provide the food and all I had to do was teach the Bible study. Through that, several of the guys became followers of Christ and were baptized and discipled. Danny didn’t know how to teach them, but Danny received me into his Oikos and recommended me to His group, and prepared them to receive the message I brought. Danny was a new Christian and he was a Person of Peace.

(iv) Roy

One of the guys in the COMBAT Bible study with Danny was Roy. Roy had lived a godless life. I had ridden with Roy previously and there was no interest in God. But when his wife had a stroke, his self-sufficient life was shaken. Previously he had said he didn’t need God. God was for sinners and he was a good person. But now in his time of need , he heard the gospel from a friend, and started to come to the Bible study to learn more. Roy’s life was completely changed by Christ, and he asked me if I could come to teach his family, which included his siblings, his Mom and her sisters and a number of cousins and other relatives. Roy convinced them all to join the Bible study and all of them came to faith in Christ. Along the way, Roy asked me to show him how to teach so he could keep teaching his family. Later Roy became one of the elders of our church. Roy had become a person of peace. He was prepared by God through his wife’s stroke and a sense of need and brokenness. He brought me into his Oikos and, through him, the group accepted me and the message, and the whole family was changed.

(v) Consolacion

This town was our fastest church plant, and one of the primary factors was this principle of entering the town through persons of peace. Together with a small group of missionaries, we had planted a church in nearby Mandaue City. We knew no one in Mandaue and it took us years to get a breakthrough. When the church was finally established, we felt led by God to start a new church in the next town up. However, at first we weren’t able to find other missionaries to go with us, and we didn’t want to start alone. As we prayed, about 10 of the members in our Mandaue church asked if they could go with us to start the Consolacion church plant because they were from up there and had been praying for a church to come to their area.

I told them they could come with me if they would let me train them to help us reach the people there. So, they came and we trained them to reach their already established networks of relatives, friends and neighbors. For almost a year we met with them, discipled them and trained them, and they were reaching out to their networks. When we started that church officially after 1 year of planning, praying and training, we had more than 80 people start coming, all of whom had been reached through those who were hometown people. The original group of local believers were our Persons of Peace. We never had to do cold-turkey evangelism in this church plant. Our total focus was to equip local people to reach their already established networks.

What do we learn from this about Persons of Peace?

- They can be unbelievers, pre-believers, new believers or established believers

- They are local, networked people

- They are being prepared by God in very different ways

*Through sickness and a sense of need

*Through a sense of inadequacy

*Through their own lives being changed

- They reduce exponentially the amount of time it takes to penetrate a new area

- They already know the people and the culture we are trying to reach

- The people we are targeting will listen to them, either because they are so changed, or because they are respected and “worthy” people

In our next Blog we will look at the question “How do we find Persons of Peace?” and we will look at Examples of unexpected Persons of Peace. Take some time now to consider persons of peace who have opened doors in your ministry, and begin thinking and praying for ways to discover more such people.

Journeying Toward Christ

david.north@team.org (David North) — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 20:26:41 GMT

Journeying Towards Christ

Is evangelism an event or is it a process… or both? And why does that matter?

When I was in Bible College, I was introduced to the “Engle Scale.” This was a chart that showed how the whole of coming to faith in Christ and of growing in Christ is a process that takes time . Accepting Christ and being born again is an event. At one moment we were lost and the next moment we had eternal life. But coming toward Christ is always a journey , and growing in Christ as a disciple is a journey.

Saddleback Church in California used the Engle Scale in their evangelism training and adapted it to include their purpose-driven discipleship process. They showed that many people move through the following stages, though it might be at different speeds and in different order, from level -6 (Resistant Stage) through Ground Zero when they Receive and Believe, and on to +5 (Mature Christian Living for God’s glory as disciples)…

-6 Self-satisfied, skeptical, resistant or spiritually apathetic. (Resistant stage)

-5 Becomes aware of unmet need or spiritual void in life. (Spiritual awareness)

-4 Begins looking for answers to questions or solutions to problems. (Seeker stage)

-3 Considers the difference between themselves and believers. (Consideration stage)

-2 Learns how and why to become a Christian. (Understanding stage)

-1 Ready to believe and Receive Christ. (Ready stage) The fruit is ripe.

GROUND ZERO: NEW LIFE IN CHRIST!

+1 Baptized and connected to a church family (Membership CLASS 101)

+2 Practicing the habits necessary for spiritual growth. (Maturity CLASS 201)

+3 Using your God given talents (SHAPE) to serve others. (Ministry CLASS 301)

+4 Sharing the Good News with non-believers. (Missions CLASS 401)

+5 Living out one’s Life Purpose for the glory of God. (Magnification CLASS 501)

The purpose of this flow chart was to help Christians understand that unbelievers might be at different stages in their journey towards Christ, and that our approach should be different depending on their stage. Saddleback Church’s training included the following chart with suggestions of methods to use with lost people at the different stages of their journey.

Friendship Evangelism

How to Cultivate an Eternal Relationship

They also provided this simple list for how to meet lost friends at their stage in their journey to Christ…

1. Start praying for each person.

2. Build a relational bridge with them.

3. Begin a conversation about spiritual things. Invite them to church. (weekend service or event)

4. Share your story or personal testimony with them.

5. Offer to study the Bible together

6. Invite them to accept Christ as their Savior. (Ground Zero)

7. Connect them to the church family. (101 CLASS, Baptism, Small Group, etc.)

Another approach to seeing evangelism (or witness) as a process is that of “ Life2Life – Learning to Live as a Witness for Jesus in my Everyday Encounters ,” by my brother, John North - https://mylife2life.com/

As John says, “ A person may not follow this exact order in their journey towards Christ, or they may take several steps at once. You may need to add/change some steps for the specific person you are relating to. Two things can greatly accelerate their movement through this path

1) A Crisis, and

2) A Christian (that’s you) who is focused on helping them find Christ

Also we must realize that God may already have someone ready to trust Christ, although we have just encountered them. ”

This Life2Life workbook for groups is a great way to lead a group of believers through 18 sessions of learning to live all of life as a witness.

Jesus' Evangelism Training

It’s interesting that in Matthew 10 and Luke 10 as Jesus is sending out his disciple, the 12 and the 72, He includes such instructions as, "Pray for more laborers, Go to their places, Stay with one of them for a while, Eat and drink with them, Love them with healing and deliverance, preach the gospel to them." Each part of that indicates to us that winning people to Christ is multi-faceted in approach .

- Presence in their comfort zones

- Spending time with them

- Eating with them

- Showing them visibly the love and power of God

- Sharing the gospel

God uses all these things to move people towards Himself.

We Still Need The Gospel Message

We also have to realize that the spoken gospel is necessary for them to be saved. Sometimes Christians spend so much time being relational that they never get to speaking of spiritual things. They never actually get to the gospel. But if our friends never hear and believe, they will never be saved (Romans 10:14,15,17). But at the same time, we recognize that God uses various things to prepare the hearts of lost people over time , and we can have a part in that.

Sometimes the Gospel Can Come First

A missionary team working amongst an unreached group from another religion in SE Asia spent almost 7 years in an area. They spent some years serving the people and building friendships, only to find that the ones they had invested in were not interested. So, they changed their approach, and shared the gospel message right up front in a culturally suited way. Then, depending on people’s responses to the gospel, they would spend their time relationally investing in the seemingly responsive people. They used the gospel as a filter to find their “persons of peace” whom they would invest in relationally. This actually proved far more fruitful for them.

The point is that we have to be alert to where people are in their spiritual sensitivity, and minister to them accordingly. I have to admit that I am one to jump right to the gospel presentation early on. I know God can use that even with those who are not ready. But I have also learned through experience, to recognize when someone is open to friendship with me even if they are not ready to surrender to Christ. I learned that I need to be intentionally sharing the gospel often, but I also need to build those friendships over time even with people who don’t accept Christ. They may just need more time, or more knowledge, or more evidence of genuineness in the life and love of Christians.

Why is this important?

- Because we need to be patient as people work through their issues.

- Because sometimes we need to remove rocks before planting seed.

- Because a study showed that most people hear the gospel 7 times before accepting Christ. Investing over time is worth it.

- Because not everyone is good at sharing the gospel message, but each of us can help someone at some stage as we live and love in the name of Christ.

- Because some Christians feel like a failure if they haven’t shared the gospel with someone yet, but if they have moved someone closer or have broken down some barrier, it’s a reason to rejoice.

- Because helping move a person one step closer on the journey is a victory.

In Life2Life John shares a good approach to walking with someone on their journey toward Christ. He shares the following stages we can pursue while investing in someone else’s journey.

Acquaintance -> Friend -> Personal Conversations -> Spiritual conversations -> The gospel

To Think about…

- How can you move to the next level with an acquaintance or a friend?

- How can you help your believers to see that everyone is on a different journey that takes different approaches?

- How can you put practical tools, actions, activities and ideas in the hands of your current believers, so that they start joining in the work of journeying with people towards Christ?

Connecting with the Lost - Entry Phase

david.north@team.org (David North) — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 19:52:48 GMT

Connecting with the Lost - Entry Phase Tools

I’m new in this place. I don’t know anyone. Where do I begin?

How do we get started when we enter a new town or city? In this blog, we will provide a few tools you may be able to use to get started in Connecting with the local people. Some of the tools you will find are...

- Discovery Questions to know your people.

- A Brainstorming tool for your team to help you determine how you can enter their world.

- A way to draw out your target population

IT ALL STARTS WITH DEPENDENT PRAYER

When entering a new area, there is no question that we need to begin with prayer because it is the Spirit who opens peoples’ hearts to understand their need for Christ. I had a prayer partner during my Bible College days, and we would pray, even back then, that God would be going ahead of us and preparing souls for when we arrived in the ministry area. As I look back on my life in winning souls and planting churches, I can honestly say that I believe that all those who came to Christ were on a spiritual journey before I came along into their lives with the gospel. God had been working with them and preparing them even when they were unaware of His work in their lives. Every new team should have an intentional prayer strategy.

GOD WORKS THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS

But it has been built into God’s plan to use human relationships as His main element in opening doors for the gospel. And that is our experience. Some I had to befriend and join in their journey toward Christ and it took time (one friend took many years to surrender to Christ, but later on he became one of our elders and preachers in the church.) Others were at the door and all I had to do was open the door with the gospel key and they were ready to step through.

Today we want to talk about how to connect with people in the first place so they will give opportunity for us to share Christ with them. In a survey of people over 16 years old who came to Christ, almost all of them said that the main factor in their decision to follow Christ was a relationship with a real Christian. (Life2life p.12)

This means that if we are going to be able to lead people toward a personal relationship with Christ,

we need to have a personal connection to them ,

we have to have people with us in their relational networks who can help us reach them for Christ.

Our fastest church plant happened when we could hardly find any missionaries to work with us. We ended up developing and training a group of local believers to help us reach, win and disciple their own people. These people already had networks of relatives and friends who knew and trusted them, so the gospel could spread quickly. These local believers fall into a similar category to the ones Jesus called “persons of peace” who can provide natural openings for the acceptance of the messenger and the message.

But when we are entering a new area, we need to take extra time to connect with the local people, and establish ourselves as trustworthy people. I believe this is part of the reason Jesus taught His missionary trainees in Matthew 10 to "Heal the sick" and "Preach the Gospel." The healing was to minister to their felt needs in order to validate the messenger and prepare their hearts for the Gospel message.

INTERESTS AND NEEDS

This means we have to understand their Interests and Needs , and connect with them in their world . In our team building retreats, we would spend quite a bit of time brain storming on a white board as to what the Interests and the Needs of the community were, and how we could connect with their needs and interests; how we could participate in their AREAS OF INTEREST and help meet their AREAS OF NEED.

GO OUT AND DISCOVER

This discovery process involves going out and discovering by watching, asking and listening to find out…

- Where they live

- Where they go to relax and recreate

- What they do to relax and recreate

- What are their preferred ways of communicating

- What they do with friends and family

- Where they live, their neighborhoods

- What and when they celebrate and how they do it

- Where and when they vacation

- Whether they have free time during the day, and how they use it

- What their dreams and ambitions are

- Where they meet to eat

- What their daily rhythms are of eating, working, resting, fellowshipping, recreating

- In what areas they would like to improve their personal and professional lives

- What brokenness exists in the community

- What the areas of felt need are

- How their religious beliefs affect their lives

Each team member's discoveries should be shared with the whole team.

One of the young couples that Kathy and I were able to reach were neighbors of ours. One time I just asked them, “What do you do here in the city in your free time?” Their answer was, “ Restaurant Hopping . We meet with friends and try out different restaurants and go somewhere else for dessert and coffee. We go to different places each time we meet.”

Kathy and I thought, “We can do that,” and so we did, with them and with several other couples, becoming close friends in the process and having wonderful opportunities to talk about our faith.

SADDLEBACK SAM

Rick Warren in his book, “ Purpose Driven Church ” took time to draw a picture of Saddleback Sam , a typical young adult living in Saddleback, and to write out characteristics of Him to help him and his team visualize who they were trying to reach.

CONSOLACION CHRIS

At one point we did the same, brainstorming as a team, with "Consolacion Chris," a typical resident of our target community. Of course, there was a lot more that could have been included, but here it is…

Consolacion Chris

Very busy, young couples (30’s),
Living in start-up houses in compact subdivisions,
Middle-end housing (2-5 million Pesos),
Not so many single young professionals,
Beginner families,
College grads,
Tech savvy
Private schools for their kids, kids speak English
Moms or helpers pick up kids
Guys love basketball and biking
Most commute and work in the city, not much work available here in Consolacion,
Roman Catholic
Spend free time in the only airconditioned mall in the city

BRAINSTORMING INTERESTS AND NEEDS

After describing all we could about the target group, we did our brainstorming on ways we could connect with our community in the two areas of their Interests and Needs. It helped us determine that if that's what Consolacion Chris is like, our efforts need to be on what effectively connects us to their world.

See the chart below …

1. Start with just listing all the ways we on the team can possibly connect with them. This list will depend on who is on the team.

2. Narrow down the list to what we can realistically do.

3. Let team members state where they would like to be involved.

4. Determine what each one will actually start doing.

5. Determine what activities the team will do together.

A brainstorming example from one of our team retreats

After brainstorming on ways to connect with the people, we need to start looking for POP's ("Persons of Peace," or "Prepared Open People"), responsive people who can also link us in to their networks of relationships, and then have a plan to help them move on their journey toward Christ. We will look in our next blog at the subject of “ Journeying toward Christ. ”

One Verse Discipleship - Craig Querfeld

david.north@team.org (David North) — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 17:24:19 GMT

One Verse Discipleship - by Craig Querfeld

One Verse Discipleship

A helpful Tool

with Craig Querfeld

If we want to start a movement of disciples making disciples, we need simple, reproducible tools. We already mentioned in a previous blog on the " 3 Thirds Process " ( A Multiplication Tool - 3 Thirds Process ), that we need simple tools and a process that will promote disciple health and multiplication. One suggested tool for the Word time together is "One Verse Discipleship" used by Craig and Sue Querfeld in Peru. In our developing world of diminishing time availablility, especially in cities, this simple approach of Bible based conversation around one verse and one topic could prove to be just the tool you need.

Here is Craig sharing about One Verse Discipleship...

"While Sue and I ministered in Peru, we felt that there was a need to motivate and empower the church to carry on a one-to-one discipleship. In response we developed this “manual” of discipleship.

Before we delve into the content let me give you some of the background on our thought process.

Some Background

Limitations : We were aware and convinced that discipleship cannot be defined by a series of studies nor can it be limited to a study of a certain amount of verses. This should not be considered the end all of discipleship. It had a certain focus, intended results, and a particular context in which it came about.

Focus : The focus of this “manual” was to give growing leaders in the church a tool with which they could interact with young Christians , those who were the process of being established in their faith. Practically speaking it was used with people being prepared for baptism or right after their baptism.

This manual had a two prong purpose: One to equip leaders and to establish new Christians . That is one of the major reasons we used one verse or a few verses. We needed to do something that was reproducible and understandable for young Christians.

Desired Results : Besides the aforementioned purposes, this tool was meant to motivate and spur people to spend time in Scripture with others while influencing them spiritually. The church was composed of new believers who had not learned to influence others for spiritual purposes. And secondly, the church people were not used to studying scripture on their own. The hope was that this material would encourage members to study scripture and then to teach that to others. With the use of this we were trying to push back on the cultural value that states that only the experts can study and teach the Bible.

Background: The Peruvian culture affected how we designed this. First, Peruvians are not readers. They don’t read much and the whole culture does not encourage it. So we needed to keep this as simple as possible. Yet we wanted to provide some insight and help. Secondly, their model of teaching is imparting information so we wanted to give them tools to move towards a question asking model that would spur the new believer to internalize their faith. Thirdly, we used verses that would help form a Biblical worldview typically parting from their new found faith in Christ.

With these introductory statements, lets move on to explain the methodology.

Content :

The content of the “manual” consisted in a list of the verses. For each verse we included three sections

The Intended goal for each lesson.
Notes that help the presenter/facilitator understand the passage.
Questions to ask the new disciple.

Bible Based :

The goal of organizing it in this way was to ensure the primacy of scripture and that the passage in mind was central to the conversation. Even though the emotional state and life situation of the new believer are important we wanted for this conversation to be centered around scripture .

The idea was that the facilitator would read and study the manual at home but would not bring it to the conversation. The manual would be hidden; it is only a resource to help guide but not the ultimate guide leaving room for other personal questions and doubts. In this way the conversation could be fluid and not bound by a manual that scripts the interaction.

The following were the topics and verses that we chose.

Notes are provided to the Discipler to help them understand the verse themselves and enable them to confidently guide another person in biblical conversation around the verse. Here are a couple of examples of help notes for the leader.

Example #1 :

Matthew 16:16

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” said Simon Peter.

Focus : Understanding who Jesus really is

Explanation Notes

• In response to Jesus' question: “Who do you say I am?” Peter makes this statement. This response from Peter is one of the strongest statements about Jesus.

• The Christ : Refers to Jesus as the anointed and promised of God to fulfill his purposes on earth. The “Christ” (Greek) or “Messiah” (Hebrew) is the same person. Both words mean “the anointed one” or “the sent one.” For the Jews, the Messiah was someone whose arrival they longed for and waited for. Although we are not Jews, Jesus becomes the most anticipated man because through Him we have salvation, hope, and life.

• Son of God : By referring to Jesus in this way Peter was affirming that Jesus had the same essence as God and that he was God himself. See Philippians 2:6 and Hebrews 1:3.

• Son of the Living God: Jesus is the source of life. He possesses the strength and power for life.

• Jesus is more than the baby who was born in Bethlehem, grew up, and walked the earth; he is the Savior that all humanity was waiting for.

Application Questions

• Before reading the verse ask: Who would you say Jesus is? Allow them to respond without interrupting or correcting

• How did you come to that conclusion? Again, please respond freely .

• Read the verse several times to memorize it.

• Peter had some ideas about who Jesus was. According to Peter, who was he? The Christ, the Son of the Living God

• What does it mean that Jesus is the Christ? “Christ” is a term that means the “sent one”; It means that God sent him to pay the price for our sins. All the Jews understood the word.

• What does it mean that Jesus is the Son of God? It means that Jesus IS God; who has the same attributes as Him. Phil. 2:6

• Combining the two ideas, what does it mean to us—to you—that Jesus, being God, was sent to earth to pay the price for your sins? That he came for me; that God himself cared about me and saved me

• How does it make you feel? Let them respond freely; You could mention awe, the desire to serve and obey Him, etc.

Pray together.

Example #2 :

Mark 1:15

"The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

Focus : Understand what it means to repent and believe

Explanation Notes

• This was Jesus' first call for everyone.

• “The kingdom of God is at hand” – here Jesus is making an invitation to men by saying that the kingdom of God is available to all. It is near and not far away, available to all those who wish to enter it.

• In order to enter this kingdom Jesus sets two requirements: repent and believe.

• Repentance is a radical and total change in our lives.

A change of my understanding of who he is; He is no longer just a man, but he is my Lord.
A change in my actions; I no longer do what I want, but I realize that my sin is rebellion against God.
A change of direction; I no longer follow my own desires but the will of God.
Repentance is not enough. After deciding what we are NOT going to do, it is necessary to say what we are going to follow.

• To believe the good news is to put our faith in the person, message, and work of Christ for us.

Jesus is the Son of the living God and we want to put our faith in Him.
Jesus proclaimed the message of salvation for humanity.
Jesus gave himself on the cross to give us new life.

Application Questions

• Review : Ask him how the commitment he made at the last meeting went and has he kept it. Talk about the results you have seen. If you don't have it fulfilled, talk about why and, at your discretion, decide if you should review the previous lesson or continue.

• Read the verse several times to memorize it.

• Do you remember what we have learned about Jesus in the last two meetings? He is the Son of the living God and he is our Lord

• What does it mean that Jesus is Lord? That He is the one who directs my life; I surrender to Him and obey Him.

• Jesus says in this verse that the kingdom of God is near. What do you think that means? Allow him/her to answer and then clarify anything he/she did not understand. “The kingdom of God is at hand” means that anyone who wishes to enter that kingdom can do so; It is something achievable for everyone.

• Jesus says that anyone who wishes can enter the kingdom of God, but he sets two conditions. According to the verse, what are they? Repent and believe the good news

• What does it mean to repent? Radically change my ideas, realize my mistakes, recognize my sin, and ask for forgiveness...

As I repent I realize that Jesus is not just another man, but who? My Lord; God himself
As I repent, I realize that I cannot justify my sin by saying “that's the way I am,” but that sin is a rebellion against God.
When I repent, I no longer follow my own will, but instead seek to obey the will of who? Of God
To repent is to change my way of thinking and acting, leaving my sin behind and obeying the Lord.

• What is the second condition that Jesus sets? Believe the good news

• What is the good news? The fact that Jesus died on the cross for me, thus providing me with the only way I can receive forgiveness for my sins

• What does it mean to believe that good news? Have complete confidence in the person, the message, and the work of Jesus on the cross.

• Who is Jesus? The Son of the living God, my Lord

• What message does Jesus proclaim? That through Him we can have eternal life

• What did he do to give us that life, that salvation? He died on the cross, paying the price for our sins

• Do you have entrance to the kingdom of God? If yes, go to question #18; If you say no or don't know, go to question #19.

• How do you know? I have repented and believe in the good news; I have accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior; I have surrendered to him……If you understand, pray together to finish; If you don't understand, go to question #20.

• Do you want to be sure you can enter? If you say yes or you don't know how, continue with the following questions; If he says no or doesn't care, just finish and pray together. In the next session you should review Romans 6:23.

• According to the verse, what do you have to do? Repent and believe

• Have you done that? Guide him to repentance. If you don't seem to understand, go back to the previous questions. Don't move on to the next verse until you understand this one. If necessary, repeat it at the next meeting, or return to Romans 6:23.

Challenge :

This was our attempt to move beyond the institutional discipleship model that the Peruvian church understands and is comfortable in doing by focusing it on small bites of scripture and emphasizing the natural interaction around scripture. This is an imperfect tool and could possibly use another set of eyes and more fine tuning after multiple uses. Please adapt it to your needs and your context. Even now I can see how each of these verses could be changed to different stories for a different cultural and learning context.

I could translate the whole document and send it to you but I fear that it would not meet the particular need and context of your making discipleship journey.

Dream, reflect, bring others into the conversation and come up with your own list of verses and topics and let see what God does with that in your context. Feel free to leave a comment or suggestions below.

Building A Multiplication Process - What Will It Take

david.north@team.org (David North) — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 20:10:13 GMT

Building A Multiplication Process of Disciple Making - What Will It Take?

Building Your Multiplication Process

Start with Understanding What it Takes

It was my personal goal that everyone in our church could help plant a new church in the future. For that to happen, we needed to discover or develop methods that would be transferable.

We needed a process that would enable all the members to join the work of making disciples.

As we try to build a growth track for Making and Growing and Equipping disciples, it is helpful to clarify the stages it normally takes for a person to grow from being “lost and unconnected” to becoming the mature and fruitful disciple God wants. Of course, each person grows in a unique way, but there normally is a flow of the stages of spiritual growth as a person moves from Lost and Unconnected to becoming a 3M disciple (Maturing, Ministering and Multiplying).

As we desire to multiply disciple-makers, it is important to help them grow themselves as disciples in these phases, but also to enable them to lead another person through these phases. That’s why I chose simple, reproducible tools and methods for our disciple making process. I want everyone in the church to be able to help another person through the same journey.

As I thought of the process of growth, I made a list of

1. The Stages of growth , and then brainstormed…

2. What has to happen for a person to move from one phase to another, and then…

3. Choose tools and methods that we as a church can use to help people move forward as growing, serving and multiplying disciples.

We brainstormed these stages and the following results together as a team.

i. The Stages of Growth

Lost
Contact
New Believer
Maturing disciple
Disciple-Maker

ii. What Steps does the disciple-maker need to take in order to bring their lost friends through the process of becoming disciples who make disciples? (See following Chart)

Connect with the Lost
Win the Contacts
Grow the New Believers
Gather the Maturing Disciples
Equip the Maturing Disciples
Multiply the new Disciple-Makers (enable them to pass it on)

Connect, Win, Grow, Gather, Equip, Multiply

iii. Practically, what will it take see them grow to the next level? What sort of activities can we do to connect, win, grow, gather, and multiply. The following chart was our attempt to discover and create a flow toward seeing a disciple making movement start through our church.

Who are the target at each stage ,

and what do you want them to become,

and what is the main thing needed to move them .

For example, for the Lost to become Contacts , we have to Connect with them. What will that take? Well, it will take going to their spaces, building relationships with them, serving them, connecting with their interests and their needs in their spaces.

iv. Finally, we brainstormed and chose simple, reproducible Methods and Materials that would enable all our people to lead others through this growth process. Some of the methods and materials would be led and taught by the church leaders, but we also wanted to have ONE basic tool for each stage that our believers themselves are equipped with to move a person through the whole process.

The chart below was developed along the way, listing the tools that we felt would be simple, effective and reproducible for all members in the church. The tools in blue were ones that every disciple would be equipped to do. The others are methods and tools that the church leadership would ensure were happening.

Take Time Together To Work It Out

Each church planting team leader should work through this process carefully and then work through it with their team. You may come up with something better than we did. No church’s process is perfect yet. There will always be factors that we didn’t plan for or expect. We will always want to improve the plan to see it better reach our audience.

To begin with, we want to find ONE effective method and multiplication process to equip our people for each stage. They may learn other methods along the way, but we want to get everyone started with a simple, commonly used method for each stage that they can then teach others. This simple method helps people get started in ministering, and it becomes a tool they can pass on to their new disciples.

Imagine your youth using each method at each stage, your moms, your working people, the singles in your community. Make it simple enough for everyone to start using it. Begin working on a plan that would enable them in their everyday world to make disciples who also will pass it on to others.

Be sure to start with reaching the lost.

Feel free to share comments below.

A Multiplication Tool - 3 Thirds Process

david.north@team.org (David North) — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 16:24:07 GMT

A Multiplication Tool - 3 Thirds Process

In our post on “Building Your Multiplication Process” ( Building Your Multiplication Process (goandplant.com) , We mentioned that we intentionally built processes into our various group gatherings so that the believers will be constantly reminded and enabled to “Pass it on” to others. Multiplication will be built into all our environments.

One of the tools we mentioned was the “3 Thirds Process” developed by Ying Kai during his time in China. (See his book, T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution ). In order to build multiplication...

into his Culture so that it would be expected that you would multiply , and
into his System so that it would be simple to pass on , Ying Kay developed what he called the 3 Thirds process. Mind you, this is not a specific curriculum for the Bible portion of a Bible study. Rather, it is a well-rounded process used in all the discipleship meetings to ensure that people are getting a vision for multiplication and the tools and practice for multiplication even while being discipled as new believers.

As you can see, many of these elements shown in the chart above would be a part of a normal Bible Study group such a pastoral care, worship and prayer, and a Bible lesson. However, the essential items in order to transition this from an ordinary Bible study group into a multiplying discipleship time are the following elements.

1. Accountability

2. Vision Casting

3. Practice

4. Goal setting

Accountability

Some Good Accountability Questions might be …

* FOLLOW:

How did you obey the lesson last week?

* FISH:

Were you able to do last week’s assignment with anybody?
Who are you reaching out to?
Have you talked with anyone this week about spiritual things?
Who are you witnessing to? Who has believed?
When are you training them in the same process?
Are these new believers witnessing, winning & training others??
Are the trainers that you are training, training others?

Of course, the questions would be catered to the stage of discipleship the new disciple is in.

3 ^rd Third: Skills to Develop / Goals Set

During the 3 ^rd Third, Ying Kai would have them practice teaching the lesson they had just learned about Salvation, or Assurance, or the Great Commission, or prayer, etc, and then have them set goals for who or how many they would teach it to this week. He would not go on to the next lesson until they had passed it on. He would pray with them and help them pass it on if necessary.

In our ministry, we didn’t have the 3 ^rd third always connected directly to the lesson just learned. Rather we used this part of the discipleship time to help them gradually learn the skills of living their lives as witnesses. After the Word time (2 ^nd Third), we would take them through one simple skill per session and have them develop or use it that week. We continued on one skill until they had done it. The skills we had in Pathway Community Church were as follows…

Summary of 3 ^rd Third actions and goals for Pathway Community Church, Philippines

After the Bible Lesson 1

Action:

OIKOS - Have your disciple write down all their network of relationships that need to hear the Gospel and need salvation. Then have them identify 3 people (3 key contacts) from the list who they think maybe more open to the Gospel and that they will begin praying for.
Pray together by name for the 3 key contacts on the list.
Pray for opportunities to connect and share the gospel with them.

Disciple's Goal:

Connect with the 3 key contacts through friendship visits or some kind of communication.

After Lesson 2

Accountability: Ask your disciple for an update on their 3 key contacts and any progress in connecting with them.

Action:

Introduce a Gospel tract . Explain that times may come up when we can use the Gospel tract as an effective method for sharing the Gospel with our friends, family, or acquaintances. We want to be ready when opportunity comes! Beginning with your own witnessing testimony, share the Gospel with the disciples using the Gospel tract. Give disciples the tract to take home and become familiar with. Encourage them to use the Gospel tract with someone if the opportunity comes up.
Pray for progress with the 3 key contacts.

Disciple's Goals:

Become familiar with the Gospel tract.
Continue reaching out to the 3 key contacts.
Pray by name for each of the 3 key contacts, asking God for opportunities to connect and share the gospel with them this week.

After Lesson 3

Accountability:

Ask your disciple for an update on their 3 key contacts and any progress in connecting with them. Did you pray by name for the 3 key contacts? Did you make an effort to call/text or make some kind of communication to your 3 key contacts?
Did you review the gospel tract?

Action:

Introduce a Witnessing Testimony , a personal and powerful tool to use in introducing the gospel.

Choose one thing in your life that changed when you met Jesus. It could be a fear (of dying, of rejection by others, of separation from your family, etc.), an addiction that you couldn’t get over, feeling far from God, feeling guilt, dirty and unworthy, anxiety, loneliness, regrets, bitterness, resentment, marriage problems.
Illustrate this concept with a personal experience from your life.
Briefly share how that one area of your life changed as you came to learn truths from God that are written in His Word.

Transition Statement : Have them memorize, “For a while I didn’t know how to tell other people that I cared about what had really happened to me, but I have this little booklet that helps explain it clearly, and I’d like to share it with you.”

Facilitator : You may give your own witnessing testimony again, as an example, if needed.
Pray for progress with the 3 key contacts.

Disciple's Goals:

Prepare their own short witnessing testimony. Bring their written witnessing testimony to share next week.
Continue to pray by name for the 3 key contacts.
Continue friendship visits or some kind of communication with the 3 key contacts.

NLIC Lesson 4

Accountability:

Did you write your witnessing testimony? (As you wrote your witnessing testimony, how did you see God’s handiwork in your life?)
Update on contacts and progress with them.

Action:

Go over disciples’ prepared witnessing testimony. Give feedback and suggestions for improvement, if any.
Pray by name for progress with the 3 key contacts.

Disciple's Goals:

Make corrections to your witnessing testimony for improvement, if necessary. Practice saying your witnessing testimony along with the gospel tract. Prepare to share it to your facilitator next week.
Pray for each contact by name and ask God for opportunities to share the gospel with them.

NLIC Lesson 5

Accountability:

Update on contacts and progress with them.

Action:

Have your disciple share with you their witnessing testimony along with the gospel tract. Give your disciple pointers for improvement. Be encouraging! This can be intimidating and awkward for your disciple. Encourage your disciple to keep practicing.
Pray for progress with the 3 key contacts.

Action steps for your disciple this week:

Continue friendship visits or some kind of communication with the 3 key contacts.
Again, pray by name for each contact and opportunities to share the gospel. (Seeing a pattern?)
Share your witnessing testimony along with the gospel tract to at least one of your key contacts.

NLIC Lesson 6

Accountability:

• Update on contacts and progress with them. (Willing to attend a community group or do a God’s Gift Bible study?)

• Did you share your witnessing testimony along with the gospel tract with someone?

Action:

Pray for progress with the 3 key contacts.
Have your disciple share their witnessing testimony along with the gospel tract with you.

Remember: PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

Encourage your disciple to share the gospel with their contacts. Offer to go with them if it would be helpful.
Pray for progress with the 3 key contacts

Goals:

Pray for opportunities to share the gospel and boldness in sharing the gospel when God opens up opportunities.
Continue building relationships with your 3 key contacts.
Share the gospel with one person

NLIC Lesson 7:

Accountability:

How are you progressing in building friendships with your 3 key contacts?
Did you have any spiritual conversations this week
Did you share the gospel with anyone this week?

Action:

Give advice/suggestions for next steps to move contacts forward.
Offer to go with your disciple to share the gospel with a friend.
Pray for progress with the 3 key contacts.

Action steps for your disciple this week:

Continue to connect and share with the 3 key contacts. Find creative ways in building relationships with them — i.e., meet for coffee, go out to lunch/dinner, call/text, go out on an outing and do something fun together, etc.
Share the gospel with someone this week

NLIC Lesson 8

Accountability: Update on contacts and progress with them.

Action:

Give advice/suggestions for next steps to move the contacts forward.
Pray by name together for the 3 key contacts.
Encourage disciples to “pass it on” to a new believer. Help them share the gospel to someone and help them get started in discipling someone else (start God’s Gift Bible study).

Action steps for your disciple this week:

Continue to pray by name for the 3 key contacts.
Pay attention to God’s guidance and opportunities to share the gospel. Rely on God and be bold in sharing the gospel.
Continue friendship visits for connection and sharing the gospel with the 3 key people.

NLIC Lesson 9 and following

Accountability: Follow up on action steps set from previous meeting. Update on contacts and progress with them.

Action:

Give advice/suggestions for next steps to move the contacts forward.
Pray by name together for the 3 key contacts.
Encourage your disciple to “pass it on."

Action steps for your disciple this week:

Keep practicing your witnessing testimony. Practice it with your family.
Continue friendship visits or some kind of communication with the 3 key contacts.
Once again, PRAY for your 3 key contacts.
Help them start discipling any new believers

-----------------------------------

So, we adopted this 3 Thirds principle and process, not in house churches, but as part of our larger church’s disciple making process.

Every meeting with someone for Evangelistic Bible Study we started with care and prayer, and at the end we asked them, “What in this lesson impacted you?” and “Who will you share that with this week?” So even before they came to faith, they were already learning to share what they were learning with others.

And every Discipleship meeting with new believers ended with the 3 ^rd third, discussing with them how they could reach others and giving them step by step tools and simple assignments to do that.

And every Community Group meeting ended with a time of reporting, planning and praying for outreach that all the group members were doing, and what the group could do together. We built it in.

I would like to hear from you if you have a process tool to build multiplication into your discipleship.

Building Your Multiplication Process

david.north@team.org (David North) — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 21:22:19 GMT

Building Your Multiplication Process

The right materials and methods won’t result in multiplication

unless we have an intentional process designed to multiply.

--------
Building Multiplication Into All We Do

I was speaking to a group of missionaries in Asia about developing a ministry of multiplying disciple-makers. I was telling them how we had developed a process in our church plant where we were making disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

One of the missionaries asked me how long it took us to develop that process . I didn’t exactly know how to answer that question since it was a cumulation of learning things over the years and of trying and developing methods and processes.

Collecting the Right Tools

During 33 years as a church planter, I was constantly looking for or modifying or developing materials to be more effective in...

- connecting with and evangelizing the lost and

- discipling new believers and in

- providing for long term discipleship and

- equipping of laborers and leaders.

So, part of the process was getting the right tools and methods that were effective through God’s blessing, and were simple enough to equip ordinary believers to use them . Over the years we had found and were using simple tools for adding and discipling new believers.

Breakthrough… Building it into the Process

However, a breakthrough happened in our ministry when we realized we needed to build multiplication into our process of making disciples. In fact, we needed to build multiplication into everything we did. It had to be intentional. The right materials and methods wouldn’t result in multiplication unless we had an intentional process that would enable and equip all our growing disciples to pass it on to others who would pass it on to others.

How we did that

Here are some ways we did that :

1. During our 8 week evangelistic Bible studies (“God’s Gift”) we ended each lesson with the 2 questions,

a. What in this lesson really impacted you or what was new to you?

b. Who can you share this with this week?

These 2 questions were built into each lesson. Then in the following lessons, we would follow up by asking them how it went. This helped them start passing it on to others even before they themselves had accepted Christ. It also helped enforce these new truths in their hearts.

2. During our 12 lesson ( " New Life In Christ " ), early discipleship times that establish new believers in the basic essential beliefs in God and habits for growth, we used what is called “The 3 thirds” process for each meeting. We learned this from the “T4T” church planting movement developed by Ying Kai, and adapted it for our use.

The discipleship time is divided into 3 parts known as the Heart, Head and Hands.

a. During the Heart portion : we include time for Pastoral/Relational care, Worship and Prayer, Accountability for applying last week’s lesson, and some sharing of vision for them doing discipleship.

b. During the Head portion : we cover a new discipleship lesson from the Word.

c. During the 3rd third, the Hands portion : We take time to give them basic tools and confidence to begin making disciples of their own, through practice and goal setting.

3. During our community group times, we used what we called the 4 W’s format to ensure that mission and multiplication was always a part of each meeting.

Welcome, Worship, Word, Works .

1 hour could look like this :

Welcome : 10 minutes about the group to make people feel welcome and happy to be there.

Worship : 10 minutes all about God , using Scriptures about God, prayers of thanks and worship, and songs using Youtube.

Word : 30 minutes about the Word using questions on the passage from the Sunday service and leading to personal application.

Works : 10 minutes to focus on outreach and disciple-making, sharing and praying for each one’s contacts, Bible studies, etc. Planning together on outreaches the group or individuals could do.

That’s 2 Questions / 3 Thirds / and 4 W’s for the Evangelistic Bible Studies, Discipleship Groups and Community Groups. Each of these is providing a commonly adopted, memorable process for promoting multiplication in each context.

The leadership of the church

The leadership of the church provides equipping and training for the members, but the main equipping would hopefully come from the soul winner or disciple maker who had been trained by someone themselves in the same way. This would be built into the process.

Have an Apprentice

Beyond this, we encouraged everyone that had any ministry in the church to have an apprentice. The teacher of the new member class was to have an apprentice if possible. Same for the leader of each Community Group. The worship leader was to be mentoring someone in worship leading. I would ask the drummer who he was training, and the guitarists who they were equipping, and the SS leaders who they were bringing alongside to learn to teach.

Multiplication Has To Be Intentional

Most church leaders feel they need to do all the discipling and teaching and so they can only add people according to their capacity , but when our focus is on making disciple makers and intentionally equipping everyone to pass it on, and we provide the right tools and processes, the ministry can grow beyond the capacity of the leaders themselves.

In a future Blog, I will share with you how we used the 3rd third of our discipleship time to equip new disciples to pass it on to yet more disciples.

For your thought:

How could you build a simple process around your current discipleship times that would enable your disciples to learn to do the same with others, reaching the lost and beginning discipleship?

Feel free to comment below or add any helpful thoughts.

Having a Multiplication Mindset

david.north@team.org (David North) — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 01:41:59 GMT

Having a Multiplication Mindset

Is it more important for missionaries to win souls or to equip soul winners?

Is it more important to make disciples or to make disciple makers?

One is addition and one is multiplication.

When Jesus saved and chose the disciples, He wasn’t just thinking of their salvation and new life. He was planning on equipping them to do what He did - fish for souls and make disciples. Jesus said, “ Follow me and I will make you fishers of men .” I will demonstrate it. You follow me and watch how I do it. I’ll equip you, and then you will be able to do the same thing as I am doing with you.

When Jesus chose his disciples, he was not just thinking of his disciples. He was thinking of the many generations to come after them and through them. In John 17:20, when Jesus had finished training the 12 and was preparing to leave the mission with them, Jesus prayed, “I pray not only for these but also for those who believe in me through them.”

Well, of course, we need both addition of disciples and multiplication of disciples. We need to know how to add people to faith in Christ in order to be able to equip others to do the same and multiply. And we need to know how to disciple and equip individual disciple-makers ourselves in order to multiply disciples and disciple-makers. Jesus himself added people to his group of disciples, but he didn’t just have an addition mindset. He had a multiplication mindset. He added them so that He could teach them to multiply.

Paul had the same mindset as Jesus. He told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2, “The things you have received and seen in me, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Paul was looking through Timothy at 4 generations of disciple makers.

“Me” (Paul) --> “You” (Timothy) --> “Faithful Men” -->“Others also”

Which could look something like this diagram below.

When I started out in planting churches, I spent almost all my time trying to add new souls. Which is where it had to start. Once they accepted Christ, I spent all my time discipling those I had won. Those were great times in the ministry, and people were coming to Christ and their lives were changing. But I became restless because I wanted to be winning more to Christ and discipling them, but I didn’t have the time, and the evangelism really slowed down or at times stopped, because I needed to care for the believers. Something needed to change.

With time I realized that part of my problem was that I had an addition mindset, and what I needed was a multiplication mindset. The whole process depended on me doing it. My end product was a maturing disciple, and then I needed to start over again with others. But my end product should not have been a maturing disciple. I needed to develop maturing, multiplying disciples. I needed to continue to disciple them into being part of the disciplemaking team, and then teach them to do the same with their new disciples.

That meant that my discipleship plan needed to include doing and demonstrating a simple way …

o to connect with the lost,

o win them to Christ,

o instill in them the basic habits and truths of walking with Christ,

o gather them into healthy groups

o and a simple process for them to do it all with someone else so that they could pass it all on to others.

If I could lead each new disciple to win, disciple and equip another person, then evangelism and discipleship could both continue on simultaneously and endlessly. It needed to be continuing to happen without me being the one to do it. I needed to see my primary role as an equipper of disciple-makers.

Here is a chart showing the comparison between an addition approach to planting a church and a multiplication approach.

- It works like this…

We see that we need to go slow in order to go fast .

Take the time to build it into each disciple to pass on what they received, and take the time to develop easily reproducible methods and systems that will facilitate all new believers being developed into disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

Of course, real life ministry doesn’t happen exactly like this. It isn’t an exact science like mathematics. There are many external factors that influence the growth and the spread of the gospel such as what kind of soil we are planting in, the responsiveness of the people, the gifting and calling of the founders, the working of the Holy Spirit, and so on. But that is true with every kind of ministry. But the fact is that Multiplication will outpace addition .

In future blogs we will look at ways to build multiplication into our ministry plans.

GO SLOWER IN ORDER TO GO FASTER

FOR THOUGHT:

- Is your ministry primarily from an addition mindset or a multiplication mindset?

- Do you see each new believer as a connection to their life network?

- Do you have an intentional strategy to help them grow into Maturing, Ministering, Multiplying followers of Christ?

Examples of Exit Plans for Church Planters: #2 A House Church Health Plan

david.north@team.org (David North) — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 00:14:09 GMT

Examples of Exit Plans for Church Planters: #2 A House Church “Health Plan”

What does a healthy house church look like?

What are the elements of a healthy house church that would indicate to you that it will continue on and grow and multiply without you being present at the meetings?

Exit Planning

In our last few blogs, we have discussed how it can be helpful to us to envision the time when we are no longer needed in a church plant. We try to describe the functions and qualities that we would like to see in place and locally led, so that we can confidently move on and focus elsewhere. We called this an “Exit Plan” or a “Transition Plan.” Some may want to call it a “Church Health Plan” or “End Visioning.”

As cross-cultural workers, we are always aware that we have been called to continually introduce the Kingdom of God to new areas. It’s in our hearts to see the church established in areas and among people who were formerly in spiritual darkness. We want the new believers from the new places and cultures to gather and grow in order to shine for Christ in their own cultures independent of us. When that is happening, we know we can transition out and focus on repeating that process elsewhere. Or we can transition to a role of equipping them to repeat the process again in new locations.

Exit Planning for House Churches

But what would a healthy house church look like that would make us confident that it can function as a healthy church community without our presence?

Can you describe what it is you are working to establish?

What functions would you want to be present independent of the church planter?

We looked in our last post at an Exit Plan from a larger, urban church-plant ( Examples of Exit Plans for Church Planters: An Urban Church Plant (goandplant.com) . Today we would like to see what some church planters are using to “work themselves out of a job”, or into a new role of equipping, in places where planting house churches is a good approach.

Church Mapping

As small groups of new believers develop, many times it is not helpful to have outsiders coming in to lead and to teach since it draws the attention of the local power brokers and resistant religious groups. So, in order to enable the new groups to function as churches on their own, the church planters will quickly work to teach and to equip the new local believers to carry on the essential functions of a church on their own. Very often they will use what is known as “Church Mapping.”

“ The Bare Essentials of Helping Groups Become Churches ” is an article in Mission Frontiers Magazine written by Steve Smith. Here is an excerpt of what he says could be done using a discovery Bible study from Acts 2 with the newly forming group of believers.

“The ‘church lesson’ done with the new believers makes the following application: (have them do this with their current BS groups or churches)

On a blank paper, draw a dotted line circle representing your own group. Above it, list 3 numbers : the number regularly attending ( stick figure ), the number believing in Jesus ( cross ) and the number baptized after believing ( water ).

Examples of Exit Plans for Church Planters: #1 An Urban Church Plant

david.north@team.org (David North) — Mon, 22 May 2023 13:13:02 GMT

Examples of Exit Plans for Church Planters: #1 An Urban Church Plant

How will you know when your church plant is ready for you to leave?

Can you prepare for that day from the beginning of the work?

In our blog, “ https://www.goandplant.com/having-an-exit-plan-from-the-start ,” we noted that an Exit Plan, or Transition Plan, is our vision of the essential parts of the planted church that we need to see in place and functioning that will indicate to us that this church will continue to thrive without us and that our work as church planters is done. When these are present, we know that we can either transition out to a new role such as equipper and mentor, or we can move on to begin a work in a new area.

“It’s time. They don’t need us anymore.”

We noted that an Exit Plan …

1. Keeps all team members focused and working together on clear goals.

2. Avoids sideways energy – It helps you not put time, energy, and resources into good things that don't help you get to where you as a team want to go.

3. Helps define short and long-term goals

4. Inspires and encourages the team in making progress

5. Helps you not stay too long or leave too soon

Context

Your Exit Plan or Transition Plan will look different depending on the kind of context you are working in and the kind of church you believe you need to establish. For example, the Exit Plan for a house church plant may be quite different than for a larger, urban church. We would like to look together at various examples.

Today I want to look at an example of an Exit Plan from one church planting team. We were planting a larger urban church in an open country. Here was our 9 point Exit Plan.

Exit Plan - Pathway Community Church - Philippines

The Missionary team will have accomplished its mission when:

1. There is a locally led Worship Planning Team (Magnification)

2. There is a (or several) master communicators for the Sunday service

3. There is an established, working, locally led discipleship training process (Maturity)

4. There is a locally led children’s Sunday School and youth ministry

5. There is an ongoing training of small group leaders (Membership)

6. There is an ongoing outreach ministry plan and coordinator (Mission)

7. There is a functioning system of member gift discovery and placement (Ministry)

8. The church is financially capable of sustaining the ministry and its expansion

9. There are recognized local elders functioning as leaders of the church

After this, the church will be considered “Established.” At that point, the church should be strong enough to continue to grow and carry on its own ministry and expansion under its own leadership.

As you can see from this example, the points were designed to produce fruit in the future church in the areas of Outreach, Discipleship, Gift Discovery and Service, Membership care, Financial Resources and Oversight.

We considered the biblical purposes of the church together and then tried to determine what ministries we would need in our context to produce the essential purposes of God for the church in that location.
These are Key Activities or Functions or Roles that we want to be intentionally present in the maturing church so that God’s purposes for the church will be produced in the years ahead.
The elements of the exit plan do not tell us specific methods or materials to be used.
They are not just descriptions of what a healthy church is or what a healthy church does. Rather they are functions intended to support and produce the health we are aiming for.
They are the targeted ministry areas that we need to work on and for which we will later develop processes, materials and training or equipping.
Different people on the team can become the champions for each of the areas depending on their gifts and interests.

Of course, each of these areas would be being developed and leaders prepared throughout the process of planting. As soon as we are able, we bring people alongside us in order to equip them in each area even as it is being initiated. In our ministry in this church, we started with what we could manage and slowly added areas as God provided us people to handle those areas. Each year we would meet and see how we were doing on our Exit Plan, and we would determine how to strengthen what was already working and what aspects of the list we would try to add in the coming year.

The day came when Kathy and I were sitting in church one Sunday and all the ministries of the church were being led by local people. I leaned over to Kathy and said, “ It’s time. They don’t need us anymore. ” It was a bitter-sweet moment because it had taken so much to get there, but we knew we could be confident that we had laid a good foundation. We could leave and start planting again somewhere else.

We will look next time at an example of Exit Planning for a house church movement. We will also be looking at steps you can take in preparing your own exit plan.

Response: In the comment section below share your thoughts about this exit plan. How is this helpful to you? What suggestions would you have? Is something missing?

Having an Exit Plan from the Start

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 16:48:39 GMT

Having an Exit Plan from the Start

When we started our last church plant, we began with a planning retreat for everyone who wanted to be a part of starting a new church. During that retreat we talked about a lot of things. We discussed the biblical definition of a church. We described our target area and target people and their religious beliefs. We evaluated our team members’ gifts and passions and did team-building activities. We formulated our vision and mission statements and our core values. Then toward the end of our retreat I said, we need to clarify our Exit Plan. They all looked at me strangely and said, “Exit Plan? We haven’t even started yet. Why are you talking about an exit plan? What do you mean by an exit plan?”

What is an Exit Plan?

An Exit Plan provides clear markers that describe the essential elements you want to see in place and functioning properly that will indicate to you that your job is done here and it is time to transition out.

It could also be called a Transition Plan.

But…

Why have an Exit Plan before you even start?

1. It avoids sideways energy

An Exit Plan helps you not put time, energy, and resources into good things that don’t help you get to where you as a team want to go.

When we start the plant, we have nothing but the team. The bullseye is where we want to be. The arrow is the strategies and activities that will take us towards the Bull’s Eye. We ask, What is the best way to get from here to there?

All the activities can be measured by how they move the organization forward towards the goal. The Exit Plan spells out that goal in measurable details and helps us know what not to use our energies on. Is it moving us forward in our vision or is it not? If not, we won’t put our efforts or time there.

2. It keeps the team focused

It keeps all team members focused and working together on clear goals. All are pulling in the same direction.

One of the members of our start-up team was eager to be a part of the new church plant. But along the way, it became clear that his end product was different than ours. It was good, but different. He wanted to start an activity center, livelihood projects, a job training program. I had to keep bringing him back to what we were doing. We had agreed on the Mission and Vision and Exit Plan, and we had spelled out what the essential things were that we needed to develop to reach our vision.

Eventually, he felt called to leave and start his own work, and I encouraged him to do that because it was a good idea, it just wasn’t what we had agreed on. It would have sapped our energy and people away from what was important.

3. It helps define short and long-term goals

At the beginning of our work, I personally, and then we together as a team, spent a lot of time developing and praying over the vision of what kind of church we were trying to plant. We had spent a lot of time talking about what kind of a disciple we wanted this church to produce. Once we had clarified the vision of the church and of the disciple, we worked backwards in setting long and short-term goals. If that’s where we want to end up, how do we get there? What needs to be in place for this to be that kind of a church and for this church to go on producing this kind of disciple into the future?

Each year at our annual evaluation and planning retreat we pulled out our Exit Plan and said, “What have we got in place of these 8 pillars, and what can we add in the coming year?” Maybe we had 4 of the 8 points of our Exit Plan functioning and we decided that year to work on 2 additional points moving us toward our vision of a healthy, missional, reproducing church in that place.

4. It inspires and encourages the team

Because working at discipleship and working with people is often messy, it’s hard to measure progress and it can be discouraging not to be able to identify success markers . I sometimes thought, “It must be nice to be a Bible translator because at least you know when your job is done and how many verses are left to translate.” It’s not that clear with people. But having a clear Exit Plan can encourage you and let you see clear markers to your work, and help you measure your progress.

5. It helps you not stay too long or leave too soon

I remember one time when we were young and new in the Philippines, someone told me about an older missionary couple who had been in one place in the Philippines for over 30 years. I had two conflicting responses in my mind:

Respect for their commitment and perseverance
The question, “WHY?” (Why are they still there? Have they accomplished what they came to do? What did they come to do?)

The national, denominational leaders told us there were two kinds of missions – ones that stayed too long and ones that left too soon. And so we worked on an Exit Plan that would help us know when it was the right time to transition out.

Some thoughts:

Exit Plans are not about numbers but qualities, people and systems at work.
It doesn’t mean you can’t turn things over until the end. The transition can be gradual as various aspects are turned over to the local believers along the way. In this way, the church planter can hone in on preparing the church for the remaining aspects.
The Exit Plan helps us work intentionally and with focus. We recognize that the Lord can cut short our stay, so we make our Exit Plan but also put our trust in the Lord.

Respond : What self-perpetuating roles, practices, processes or conditions need to be in place and locally run before you would consider the new church able to continue on its own? In the comment section below, list some processes or practices or people that you feel need to be in place for the church to prosper on its own.

In our next post we will look at two examples of Exit (or Transition) Plans.

Starting a Church or Starting a Movement?

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 17:08:28 GMT

Starting a Church or Starting a Movement?

In my first church planting work, I remember being asked in a small group, “What gives you the most happiness in life?” My answer was, “Leading someone to Christ.” That really gave me so much joy. But I remember being asked that question again during my most recent church plant. My answer this time was, “When I see people I led to Christ and discipled leading others to Christ and discipling them.” It seemed almost weekly that we heard of a fairly new believer starting evangelistic Bible study with someone new. Often it was someone that was being discipled by someone who was being discipled by someone we had discipled. Kathy and I would just laugh with joy and amazement at the way the Gospel was going way beyond our reach.

I’m sure that’s what Jesus had in mind when he told the disciples to make disciples of all nations. There was no way that they personally could finish that task. Rather they needed to do it themselves AND equip others to do the same thing. Did you ever notice that the Great Commission is somewhat circular? “Go and make disciples … teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

“Everything” includes the Great Commission itself. Jesus is in essence saying, “Go and make obedient, baptized disciples who will go and make obedient, baptized disciples who will go and make obedient, baptized disciples in obedience to this command of mine.”

This means that every generation of disciples is to be taught to obey the Great Commission. We are to make disciple makers who will make disciple makers who will make yet more disciple makers. The job is not finished when we have disciples. The job is done when we have multiplying disciple makers who will take the Gospel on into places we ourselves can never reach.

So, are you just planting a church of disciples, or are you planting a movement of disciple makers? Paul told Timothy, “The things you learned from me teach to reliable men who will be able to teach others also.”

That’s 4 generations of disciples.

When our church in the Philippines had to shut its doors because of the Covid-19 lockdowns, the youth in the church immediately determined to continue the disciple-making process that we and our team had begun with them online with their friends.

Kathy and I …

had gone through the evangelistic process and basic discipleship process with a young couple who were there to work with the youth in the church plant.

The young couple …

then took the small group of youth through the same process in one-on-one or small group meetings, and in the process assigned

the youth …

to continue to use it with all new, incoming young people and with their lost friends .

That’s 4 generations of disciples.

When the pandemic closed the church, there were about 14 regular youth in the core group and all were equipped to win the lost and do beginning discipleship with the new believers. They immediately took the opportunity to set up online Bible study groups with their friends who were also locked down. Now a year and a half later, we see social media posts from the group with maybe 50 young people and we don’t even personally know either the discipler makers or the disciples. Each one is being followed up online by a young person who was equipped by someone before them. They post pictures of the disciple and the disciple maker on Facebook when a youth finishes a phase of disciple making.

A Culture of Movement and Multiplication

For this to happen, there needs to be a culture of movement and multiplication. The leaders need to be committed to equipping others more than doing it themselves. It’s not just equipping others to disciple others. It’s equipping others to equip others to equip others. We do everything with long-term multiplication in view.

Pass it on!

A young man we knew named Ivan came to Christ in our area. I asked another member in the church who we had discipled to work with Ivan and disciple him. Not long after, Ivan came and asked if we would also teach his friends. We told him, “No, but we will help you to teach them.” Ivan started a Bible study with about 15 of his classmates, just doing with them what we had done with him. Later he was getting ready to teach another group of students, and I reminded him of our ministry’s motto, “ Pass it on .” Don’t just teach it yourself. Who can you help learn to pass it on? Ivan then immediately thought of and recruited two ladies in the church to help him who were newly discipled but had not yet taught others. And so it goes on.

To have a culture of movement and multiplication of disciples…

The leadership team needs to be committed to this.
The church sees itself as living to multiply disciple makers.
There should be a prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit throughout, knowing that we can only see true movement if He moves.
There needs to be a firm conviction that the Holy Spirit indwells and empowers all believers to be His witnesses and to do His ministry.
From the very beginning new people need to be encouraged that they can pass on whatever they have received. They don’t have to grow to maturity to pass on the things they already know and are applying in their lives. They just need to stay a step ahead of the one coming behind.
The process and tools need to be reproducible and simple so that anyone can participate.
The growth track needs to be simple and clearly understood.
The movement can have mottos and slogans and signs that reinforce the movement mentality.
Those going through and carrying on the discipleship need to be celebrated.
And there should be development of leaders who are very intentional in equipping and enabling the believers to join the movement of God in this world.

We’ll look more at developing a simple tool kit for disciple making in future articles.

What simple bridge into the Gospel could you train your new believers to use with their lost friends and family to start a witnessing opportunity?

What simple Gospel-sharing tool can you enable brand new believers to share with their family or friends?

What immediate follow-up tool or method can you use with new believers that they could turn around and use with newer believers?

What early discipleship tool or method will you use that they can turn around and use with another?

We want to start movements of disciple making, not just make disciples.

Make Disciples: What Kind of Disciples? 3M Followers of Christ

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 17:15:30 GMT

Make Disciples: What Kind of Disciples? 3M Followers of Christ

The primary command of Jesus for His church was, “make disciples.” When Jesus told His disciples to go and make other disciples, He had some specific things in mind of what a disciple is. When we make things like furniture, vehicles, tools, factories, and so on, we carefully determine what it is we want to make before we start creating it. When Jesus was developing His disciples, it was clear that He already had in mind the kind of disciple he was developing. He said things like, “I will make you fishers of men,” “keep my commands,” “receive me,” “believe in me,” “love one another,” “love my Father,” and “love me…” His three years of ministry are a picture of Him building these characteristics intentionally into His disciples so that they would be ready to carry on the work by the power of the Holy Spirit when He left.

So what kind of a disciple are you trying to make in your church planting work? What are you aiming at and how will you get there? What kind of followers of Christ would you like to see your church producing? After all, the main task of the church you plant is to make disciples, whatever a disciple is.

It’s important to begin with a clear picture of the end product or disciple. Once that is clear, we can go ahead and develop a strategy to move people from "lost and disconnected" through "Connecting," "Gospel sharing," "Early discipleship," "equipping" and so on. In this post, I would like to share with you our description of the kind of disciple we aim for in our ministry, a 3M Follower of Jesus .

1M Disciples – “Maturing”

When I began my work as a church planter, my goal was to bring people to Christ and see them grow into Mature followers of Christ . That was my picture of a disciple – someone maturing in their relationship, love, faith and obedience to Christ. So I shared the Gospel with them so they would know Christ, I took them through early discipleship lessons, I preached my heart out so they would know, love and obey Christ. It was beautiful to see them growing and changing and learning to love the Lord.

The problem was that I was burning out as I tried to be everything for them in the new church family. God showed me that He had given each member gifts and abilities and that the role of “apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers” (which includes missionaries) was to “equip the saints (all the believers) to do the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12). So, I gave special effort to developing 2M Followers of Christ.

2M Disciples – “Maturing and Ministering”

I realized that for the church to continue without me in the future, all the work and ministry of the church needed to be done by the local people, so I set about training and equipping the people to serve and to lead and to take ownership of all the various needs of the church, encouraging and enabling them to minister to one another with their gifts and abilities. It was wonderful to see the body starting to function well on its own.

However, I often saw the church running well but I got frustrated personally because I wanted to be out winning new people and discipling new believers. But I had a growing church to care for and oversee, and we were seeing less souls saved than before, which was my passion.

It was at this time that I read books and began learning about the Disciple Making Movements (DMM’s) and Church Planting Movements (CPM’s) that were spreading to thousands upon thousands around the world through ordinary C hristians. Some examples include:
* Miraculous Movements by Trousdale, Jerry (amazon.com)
* "Contagious Disciple-Making" by David Watson
* T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution: The Story... by Steve Smith (amazon.com)

These models didn’t exactly fit my context in urban, Catholic Philippines. But I knew that some of the principles driving them were universal and I needed to apply them in my ministry.

One of the keys to these movements was that they were driven by the commitment to multiply disciple-makers and church planters from among the people they were reaching. The believers were equipped with simple reproducible methods right from the start. I knew that the key to movement beyond what I could do was to multiply laborers, giving my time to not just making disciples but to making disciples who would make disciples who would make disciples. If I could do that so that all the members were equipped and activated, then the work of winning the lost would not need to slow down so that I could develop the church.

3M Disciples: “Maturing, Ministering and Multiplying”

As I looked at Jesus teaching, I knew that this was His purpose for disciple making as he prepared them to lead a disciple making movement that would reach the whole world, passing it on from person to person and generation to generation and people group to people group. The disciples I worked at developing were to be 3M followers of Jesus.

This was the vision of the end product of the churches we planted. As Jesus came to the close of His earthly ministry, Jesus spent a lot of time talking about these three areas:

Maturing (upward with God) = Abiding in Christ, loving the Father and the Son, obeying Him …
Ministering (Inward with the church body) = That they may be one, wash one another’s feet, …
Multiplying (Outward to the lost around us) = Bear much fruit, sent into the world, make disciples, be witnesses …

This goes right along with the definition we are using in TEAM for a disciple: “A disciple is a 1. learner, lover and follower of Christ who 2. loves and serves the church and 3. makes disciples.”

This could look like this:

Maturing (“learner, lover and follower of Christ”)
a. Abiding, listening, learning, obeying, trusting, praying, depending, confessing, in the Word, Quiet times, worship, etc.
Ministering (“who loves and serves the church”)
a. Belonging
b. Serving one another and the church
c. Acts 2 church
d. The “one another” commands
e. Spiritual gifts developed and used
f. Ministry Leadership Development
Multiplying (“and makes disciples” – being missional)
a. Living and witnessing for Christ out there
b. Connecting with the lost
i. Relational avenues
ii. Service avenues
iii. Direct Outreach
c. Starting Spiritual conversations
d. Witnessing
e. Doing personal discipleship with new believers
f. Multiplying – learning how to make new disciples who will also make new disciples who will make new disciples. Disciples seek to become like their Lord which includes sharing the Lord’s heart for the yet unsaved.

This 3M description guides us into a well-rounded disciple-making strategy. As we understand the various aspects of being a well-rounded disciple, we can find or develop processes and materials and experiences that lead our disciples to grow in each of the three areas.

Activity:
At the top of a page of paper (or white board) write the words “Lost Person.”
At the bottom write the three words: “Maturing” “Ministering” “Multiplying.”

From there you and your team can begin praying and working on a plan that will lead to this kind of a disciple. Create a diagram that shows the various elements that you will choose to use to help develop your people in these three areas.

Remember to begin with the lost. How will you connect with them? How will you lead them to Christ? Can you do it in a way that will be easily reproducible by the first believers that you lead to Christ so you can begin multiplying disciple makers early on? How will you help them grow to maturity? What will be in place to ensure spiritual growth for new believers and for long term growth together? How will you build community so that they are all ministering with their gifts and their love? How will you build multiplication into all that you do?

Begin to build your description of a disciple in each of these characteristics:
a. Maturing
b. Ministering
c. Multiplying
Start to draw out the process of development. We will look at this and develop it more in future articles.

Response: In the comments below please share your observations and questions.

Disciple-Making Starts with the Lost

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 17:27:03 GMT

Disciple-Making Starts with the Lost

A Filipino pastor came in to lead the church we had just planted. Immediately he started an Evangelism Training program, involving as many of the church people as possible. I remember several things he said at that training. One was that “you have to have a bigger front door than your back door.” He said that every church will lose people along the way out the back door; some will get work elsewhere, some will fall away, some will die and so on. So, if you aren’t doing evangelism and bringing new people in continually, eventually the church will shrink and die. He also said that his primary discipleship tool was “Evangelism Explosion” for discipling his church members. Through the Evangelism Explosion equipping workshops he showed them how to pray, memorize Scripture, trust the Holy Spirit, and join God on mission.

I experienced some of this in my planting of churches. I would begin with all my efforts focused on connecting with the lost and sharing the Gospel. As people came to Christ, my time became limited to discipling the saved and gathering the church. But then I would realize that the ministry wasn’t growing anymore because I was focused on teaching and discipling the new believers rather than on reaching the lost. And inevitably we lost some of the members we already had. The solution is that part of discipleship has to be equipping the new disciples to become fellow soul-winners, and enabling them to win and disciple new believers who will win and disciple new believers and so on.

At one stage I had designed a great discipleship process for all the members of the church but after a while no one was moving through the phases of the process. It was a big wake up call to me that the disciple-making process of a church or church plant has to start with evangelism, and evangelism has to continue in parallel to the discipling and training of believers.

"the disciple-making process of a church or church plant has to start with evangelism, and evangelism has to continue in parallel to the discipling and training of believers."

Jesus’s Mission

Jesus has a mission, “I will build my church…” and He has given us our part in that mission. Jesus used various words to emphasize various aspects of the work we are to do in helping build His church. He used terms like “go,” “sent,” “fishers of men,” “into the world,” “be my witnesses,” “you are the light of the world,” and “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey….” The Great Commission is really a compelling statement that summarizes all these commands and lets us know the main thing we are to do.

Matthew 28:18-20

“All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you to the end of the age.”

Jesus is at work building His church, gathering together a people for His own possession, and He invites us to work alongside Him with His authority and with His presence. The main command here is “make disciples” as we go into the whole world. “Baptizing” and “teaching” obedience to Christ are what we do with these new disciples. So “making disciples” starts with what we would normally call evangelism and continues with what we call discipleship.

Making Disciples = Evangelism + Baptism + Discipleship

Evangelism is the process that leads people toward Christ and into faith and grace. Baptism signifies this momentous transition from lost to saved (Lk 15:24), from darkness to light (Eph 5:8), from not God’s people to God’s own people (Rom 9:25), from being under judgment to being free from condemnation (Jn 3:18), from being dead to being alive in Christ (Eph 2:4,5), from not being His disciples to being His disciples. It is a once for all transition. Discipleship is the new disciple’s lifelong process of learning to follow and obey Christ in everything.

The Bible never uses the term “discipleship.” This has been our word to describe our life of growing as followers or disciples of Jesus. The term the Bible uses is “making disciples.” Every time this term is used in the Bible, it refers to taking non-disciples and bringing them to Christ so that by faith they become new disciples.

So, obedience to the Great Commission begins with the lost, the non-disciples.

A lot of churches and missionaries are working hard at their “discipleship” programs and plans such as Community Groups, leadership classes, new believer classes etc., but they have no plan for reaching the lost in the community.

Pushing Back the Boundaries of Lostness

It’s also easy for missionaries to get drawn into ministries of maintaining the church and lose the passion to keep pushing the boundaries of lostness for Christ’s sake. This doesn’t mean that every TEAM worker’s primary ministry is directly reaching the lost, but that all our ministries are significantly connected to intentionally reaching the lost. We may be on a team that has a great plan for reaching the lost, and we understand that our role on the team is part of that big picture, and we know how we are connected to that purpose of joining Christ in that mission.

For example:

We may be organizing the church’s small group ministry, but we will want to make a part of the small group meetings into a time to pray or plan for each individual’s personal outreach.
We may be setting up the children’s ministry, and we will want to be sure that the children are getting the Gospel clearly. We may also plan on ways we can reach out with our children’s workers to the children of the neighborhood. We can teach the children how to share the wordless book or the Gospel bracelet. We would have a plan of what to do when an unbelieving family brings their kids to Sunday School. What will our steps be to use that opportunity? How can we make that family feel especially welcome and loved?
We might be teaching in a Bible School, and we will look for ways to help our students prepare to lead their churches to reach the lost neighborhoods of their towns and cities. We can demonstrate to the students from the Bible that the whole story of the Bible is that of God seeking and saving the lost to make them His own. This was also the focus of Jesus’s ministry with His disciples. From the beginning, he told them that their discipleship was to prepare them to be “fishers of men,” and when his training time was done, he turned to the cross to complete his mission of salvation, and then he closed His discipleship time by telling them to now go fish: “Go and make disciples.”

Some questions for personal reflection:

How are you connected to winning the lost?
What do you need to do to realign your ministry so that you are part of “pushing the boundaries of lostness?”
How is the church you are planting equipping the believers to reach the lost around them?
How can you keep this passion for evangelism alive in the new church?
As you plan the year’s ministry direction and goals, how will you keep the evangelism fires burning?

Response:

In the comments below share briefly some ways you have done this in your ministry

Abiding in Christ – Laying the Right Foundation

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 17:33:33 GMT

Abiding in Christ – Laying the Right Foundation

For years as a young church planter, I longed for outside guidance and input about my efforts to plant churches. From time to time an experienced church planter would speak even just a few words into my ministry and it would give me the new thoughts and direction I needed.

I also longed for practical help that would enable me to move ahead and be more effective as I faced the different phases or aspects of planting a church:

Connecting
Winning
Discipling
Gathering and Forming
Equipping
Multiplying

I knew others had been down this road before and I wished there was a way for me to gain from their learnings without having to figure everything out again for myself.

Much of my growth and learning came from seeking out seminars and workshops, and from seeing what others were doing. And I thank the Lord, especially, for the one year an experienced missionary from another mission organization gave me an on-field internship. The things I learned there set the course for the rest of my 33 years of planting churches.

In these blog posts, I would like to offer helpful hints and useful approaches and tools and processes that might hopefully come at just the right time for some of our workers and that will ignite new visions of possibilities as we continue the Great Commission.

But even as we want to learn tools, methods, systems and processes, we need to begin with the thing that is most important, in fact indispensable, if we want to be fruitful in our work. What did Jesus say was that one indispensable practice for fruitfulness?

Abiding in Christ

John 15:4-5 “Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

“You can do nothing?” Does that seem extreme? I can plan outreaches and training. I can connect with people. I can design a disciple-making flow plan for my church. But Jesus says here that these efforts only become spiritually fruitful if they are done together with Him, together with His Spirit in us. Jesus didn’t say you will be fruitful “if you witness a lot.” He didn’t say, “if you find a good location,” or “if you develop the right strategy.” He said that abiding with Him, walking with Him closely moment by moment and day by day in dependence and loving obedience is the indispensable element to fruitfulness.

Maybe you have had the experience I have had, where I used the same methods and the same approach in one town that I used in another town nearby, but the results were completely different. Some individuals respond to a Gospel presentation completely differently than the next person. These daily experiences should remind us immediately that our methods and plans are useless unless the Lord infuses them with His life-changing power. The important thing is just to walk closely with God and follow Him, learning to listen to His Spirit and abiding in His love. I’ve heard this walk described as “constant, conscious communion with Christ.”

That doesn’t mean that plans and strategies aren’t important. They are, and they can make a big difference in our effectiveness, but Jesus reminds us that they are all empty apart from our having a real walk with Him and without the wind of the Spirit blowing (Acts 1:8). That’s why right at the beginning of the mission of the church, Jesus told his disciples not to get started yet: “He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Holy Spirit who had been promised” (Acts 1:4,5). But in verse 8 He told them to start in Jerusalem and go to the whole world. Without the Holy Spirit, don’t go! With the Holy Spirit, go!

The fruitfulness we long for in ministry comes from abiding in Christ through the Holy Spirit and doing the things the Holy Spirit leads and empowers.

Raising the Sails

Chris Galanos, in his book “From Megachurch to Multiplication,” tells the story of how he transitioned his well-organized megachurch with all its big programs into a movement of disciple-makers. He talks of how he had to change the things he was doing in the megachurch in order to do the things that are necessary for a disciple-making movement to happen. He called these essential practices “The Sails” that we need in order to catch the wind of the Holy Spirit when the wind blows. These “Sails” are:

Focus on God’s Word
Multiply Extraordinary Prayer
Go Out Among the Lost
See Groups Started
Cast Vision
Train Believers
Ongoing Coaching

These are all the necessary elements found present in Disciple-Making Movements, all things we need to have in place in order to see a movement of disciple-making happen. Chris points out that you can have a great boat and beautiful sails raised up on a strong mast, but if the wind doesn’t blow, the boat isn’t going anywhere, at least not anywhere you want it to go. The wind is the Holy Spirit who causes people to be born again (Jn 3:8) and who gives us power for witness and ministry (Acts 1:4-8).

At the same time, Chris reminds us that sails are important and if we fail to raise the sails, we will not catch the wind of the Spirit when He decides to blow. So, we will be looking in these blog posts at the sails or practices that can enable us to catch the wind when God is at work, but we want to start with recognizing that your personal walk with God in love, communion and obedience must be at the heart of everything you do, personally and as a ministry team.

Since this is true, how is your walk with God? How are you and your team members doing in this area? Could it be described as abiding in Christ? What steps could you take to focus more on Him and your walk with Him each day, individually and as a team? Here are some things that many have found helpful in practicing an abiding relationship with Christ.

Learning to Abide

Spending time in the Word and prayer daily, listening and talking with God
Obedience to the Word and the Spirit in everything
Learning to talk to God about everything throughout the day
Praying on the spot with people and for needs
Depending on God for everything and thanking God for everything that happens
Preceding every effort or plan whether small or great with dependent, believing prayer
Praying often and regularly with your ministry team
Always verbally giving God credit for any good result
Daily devotions together as a couple
Sharing communion frequently with other believers
Can you think of other things that have helped you abide in Christ? Add them in the comments!

What one thing do you think would make the biggest difference in increasing your close, dependent walk with God? Answer in the comments below.

John 15:5 “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

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