No Priorities

“We are doing missions as if there are no priorities.”

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(C. Davis, Perspectives Course speaker, Lesson 13 on Spontaneous Multiplication of Churches)

See my post on “The Great Imbalance”.

Look At The Numbers. Let’s Get Serious About The Great Commission.

The article below was written by Guy Muse. Guy is a Southern Baptist missionary to Ecuador. The article was posted on his blog, The M Blog, on December 28, 2o12.

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“As 2012 comes to an end, the global status of evangelical Christianity* finishes the year with a long way to go. Consider the following numbers:

11,342 – Number of people groups in all countries. A people group is the largest group through which the gospel can flow without encountering significant barriers of understanding and acceptance.

6,422 – Number of people groups where Evangelical Christians comprise less than 2% of the total population. These UPG stats do not include USA & Canada.

571 – Number of unreached people groups in the United States and Canada. [Note: engagement and statuses for many people groups in USA and Canada are still unknown. This number will change as more information becomes available.]

3,133 – Number of unreached people groups not engaged by anyone. A people group is engaged when a church planting strategy, consistent with Evangelical faith and practice is underway. In this respect, a people group is not engaged when it has been merely adopted, is the object of focused prayer, or is part of an advocacy strategy.

393 – Number of unreached people groups with populations at or above 100,000.

Another way of looking at these mind-boggling figures is through population numbers:

6,944,287,685 – Number of people in the above 11,342 people groups.

4,192,663,816 – Number of people in the above 6,422 people groups where Evangelical Christians comprise less than 2% of the total population.

240,245,046 – Population of the 3,133 unreached people groups not engaged by anyone.

96,381,569 – Population of unreached people groups that are not engaged by anyone, anywhere around the world.

Every one of the 6,944,287,685 persons is loved by God. Let’s not confuse numbers with real people. Each is a father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter of someone. Every single person is someone for whom Christ died.

So what does all of this mean? For me there are at least three ways to respond:

1) Indifference–not my problem, I’m not going to do anything about it, I already have a full plate of other concerns.

2) Involve myself–as we begin a new year, I am going to intentionally engage in trying to do my part in making sure the Gospel gets to the nations–I am going to inform myself, pray with understanding, give purposefully, and maybe even go myself.

3) Invite the Holy Spirit to speak to me about what He would have me do, and then do it.

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*Above information courtesy of Global Research Department of the International Mission Board.”

 (The above was posted by Guy Muse on his blog, The M Blog, December 28 , 2012.)

 

 Read Matthew 24:14.

Discipleship Multiplication Training: Day 4

Thursday was the concluding day of the Discipleship Multiplication Training event. The DMT week was a wonderful time of teaching, encouragement, and inspiration … a time of prayer, worship, and connection with people who have a passion and vision for Church Planting Movements in their communities and around the world. Below are several quotes from Day 4.

“In every Mustard Seed Movement there is a movement of prayer.”

“Lord, what will it take to see Your Kingdom come so that no place is left without Your witness?”

“Give new believers two values: Value the Authority of the Word of God and Obey the Word of God.”

“We must move from a church paradigm to a Kingdom paradigm.”

Am I Desperate?

We had a wonderful time of worship and prayer this evening at WoodsEdge Community Church in The Woodlands. WoodsEdge has hosted the Discipleship Multiplication Training event that I have been attending this week.

The Lord has used the teaching, new friendships, and conversations this week to teach me about evangelism, discipleship, and church planting.

He has also used this week to convict me about the lack of prayer in my life.

Am I desperate for God in my life, in my family, in my ministry? 

LORD, I’m desperate for You.

Discipleship Multiplication Training: Day 3

Here are some more quotes from today’s DMT in The Woodlands, Texas.

“We must structure our churches so that we can easily reproduce, expand, and reach our communities for Christ.”

“I was created for more that just inviting people to church. I was created to make disciples.”

“Don’t talk about church, religion, or politics. Talk about Jesus.”

“God’s vision for the local church is the whole world. If it isn’t the church’s, we’re asking the wrong questions about our purpose.”

Discipleship Multiplication Training: Day 2

Today was the second day of the Discipleship Multiplication Training event in The Woodlands, Texas. Below are several quotes from today’s teaching.

“God saved me to lead my family to Christ.” 

“The quicker we baptize new believers, the bolder the witness.”

“Church Planting Movements are launched on the depth of our discipleship.”

“Obstacles are the greatest opportunities for God to work.”

“The minimum requirements of discipleship are to share our story, evangelize and lead people to Christ, and disciple new believers.”

 

Discipleship Multiplication Training: Day 1

Today was the first day of a four day discipleship multiplication training in T4T – Training for Trainers. The training event is being conducted in Houston, Texas and facilitated by Steve Smith and Ying Kai.  Both taught today as did Jeff Sundell from North Carolina. These men have been used of the Lord in the rapid multiplication of disciples and churches in places such as East Asia, Nepal, and Southeast Asia.

There was a tremendous amount of information communicated today and I won’t even try to document everything. But, there were a few quotes that I took down that I thought I’d share with you this evening.

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“The closer I draw to God, the closer I draw to His purposes.”

“We must elevate the King to His rightful place. When we do we will live in greater faith.”

“Don’t try to convict people of their sins; rather, look for those in whom the Lord is already working.”

T4T Training In Bryan, Texas

T4T – Training for Trainers equips people to evangelize the unsaved and “far away from God,” disciple new believers, develop leadership, and form new CPM-type groups that repeat the process.

I will attend a T4T training event in Houston, August 6-9, and facilitate a T4T group in the fall at the church in Bryan, Texas that my family and I attend. The T4T group will be one of a number of groups that will be offered as a part of the church’s fall semester small group ministry.

I am also praying about the use of T4T for reaching the 50,000+ students enrolled at Texas A&M University, the nation’s 7th seventh largest public university that is located on our community.

If you are a member of First Baptist Church Bryan, let me encourage you to be a part of T4T this fall and spring. And, if you are in the Bryan-College Station area and are interested in reaching Aggies for Christ through T4T, please contact me.

Five HUGE Lessons From CPM

The LORD is using Church Planting Movements – the rapid multiplication of disciples and churches – to reach the “nations” of the world for Christ. These CPMs are occurring in third world and developing nations, countries such as China, India, and those of Southeast Asia. They are happening among peoples such as Muslims in Northern Africa and Central Asia, the Ketchi of Guatemala, and the Gypsies of France and Spain.

This is a fact that is documented by CPM practitioners and researchers, men such as David Garrison, Steve Addison, and Steve Smith, and missions agencies such as the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and Greater Europe Mission. Common elements and characteristics that are shared by Church Planting Movements, wherever they are taking place, among different people groups, have also been identified.

When we in the West look at and study these amazing movements of God, many of us ask the question, “Why are CPM not happening in the West, in the United States?” And, we pray, asking, “What on our side of the ‘God’s sovereignty-our responsibility’ equation can we do to ‘set the sails’ for the movement of God through the multiplication of disciples and reproducing churches?”

In an article, It’s Huge – Five Lessons The American Church Is Learning From Church Planting Movements, Carol Davis, missions strategist and mobilizer, may have some answers to the latter question. In the article, Carol identifies five lessons that American pastors are learning, and can learn, from Church Planting Movements, that when applied to our Western ministries can make a tremendous impact on the reaching and discipling of our homes and communities for Christ.

The lessons are:

1. Come & Go: The shift from inviting unbelievers to come to our programs and building to sending believers into the world.
2. Group Conversions: The shift to multiplying groups of disciples not just individual disciples.
3. Counting Generations: The shift to count and do whatever it takes to regularly and quickly get to the 4th generation and beyond of disciples, groups, and churches (II Timothy 2:2).
4. Reproducibility: The shift from lengthy training, policy-driven structures and more academic materials and the reproducibility of means, methods, tools, and structures.
5. Obedience-Based Learning: The shift from teaching  for knowledge of what the Word says – to teaching and accountability for obedience to what the Word says.

Carol expands on each of the five lessons in her article.

In the concluding paragraph, Carol writes:

“The lessons from CPMs for the U.S. church are huge. The reexamination has taken us back to the Scriptures for both principles and practice. However, the reframing and retooling continues to be a bit messy. Let us persist with the reframing and the retooling until this way of life becomes the new normal.”

There are no formulas that can be applied to our ministries that will guarantee a movement of God called Church Planting Movements. But, there are truths, principles and elements of ministry that we discover in Scripture and CPM that, when applied to our Western context ministries, will go a long way to “setting the sails” for the effective and fruitful multiplication of disciples and churches.

Carol’s article presents five huge lessons from CPM that God is teaching us today. The question is: Are we teachable … are we paying attention … will we apply these lessons to our ministries in My Town, USA?

You can read Carol’s article here.

DMT – Discipleship Multiplication Training: Ignite A Movement

I have known about the T4T-Training for Trainers material for a number of years. I have been through the six sessions, and like many of you, have read the T4T book co-authored by Steve Smith and Ying Kai.

Next month, August 6-9, I will participate in a four-day intensive T4T training event. The event is called Discipleship Multiplication Training (DMT).  The sub-title of the event is “igniting discipleship movements locally and globally.”

The DMT will be conducted in Houston, Texas and is a ministry of Greater Europe Mission. The Houston training is one of three events GEM will be conducting over the next couple of months. The other two are in Denver, Colorado and Prague, Czech Republic. Smith and Kai will facilitate the training.

This training comes at a very strategic point in our personal ministry. In September, I will begin facilitating a T4T group at our local church as a part of the church’s small group ministry. I have shared with people that the sessions will be an excellent discipleship time for old and new believers alike, but the emphasis of the material, and mine, will be evangelism, the multiplication of disciples, and the formation of new CPM church-type small groups. Once the six sessions of T4T have been completed, the groups are intended to continue as a group that worships together, evangelizes and disciples people, forms new groups, develops leaders, and repeats the process.

The DMT will also be a great equipping event as we have a vision for a Church Planting  Movement on the campus of our local university, Texas A&M. A&M is the nation’s seventh largest public university with a student enrollment of over 50,000 young men and women.

For more information about GEM’s Discipleship Multiplication Training events, check out their DMT pages here.