House2House Stories

Blessing Muslims Here and Overseas

H2H — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:59:48 +0000

A believer in the United States had been praying for a few years to meet a person of peace during his regular visits to the local mosque. One day a young Muslim man almost knocked him down as they accidentally bumped into each other… Quickly a friendship developed based on a deeply felt, heart-level connection. An invitation was soon extended, and accepted, for the young man and five other friends of his to come to the believer’s house for halal tea. These young men had been sent to the States by their government to earn a Masters degree in Economics. Their wives and children had soon come to join them.

That simple tea developed into much more and over the next three to four years they did life together while studying the kingdom of God. They would feast together and then study their respective Scriptures as a group. Over and over these studies would eventually lead to Jesus, his kingdom, his personhood, and his message. These were glorious times and God would show up.

After growing close together, the students invited their new American friends to visit their extended families back in their home country. That trip was nothing short of a travelling feast as they moved from home to home enjoying the warmth of hospitality. They not only met with family members, but with scholars, including one of the founding members of an Islamic movement in the region. The scholar insisted that they visit his home too on their next visit. All of these doors opened because of the love that was shown for the visiting students.

These new friends shared that their views of Christians had changed forever. The kingdom of God spreads and grows like leaven. One of the group, who had usually appeared to be the hardest, shared his change of perspective with a local house church member

“When I came to your country I was so full of judgement and criticism. Then I met you and your friends and God has changed my heart. I did not know that people like you existed”

Muslims are not expecting kindness from Evangelicals and when we show it to them it melts their hearts.

While visiting the students’ home country, the Holy Spirit planted an idea to visit the country once or twice a year and to lead dialogue tours. When this idea was shared with the Muslim host families they loved it. Their only request was that this would be done with a Muslim partner organization to keep everything legal. This is a reasonable request and cooperative efforts are currently under-way with a Muslim Center in the U.S. that specializes in dialogue tours.

In May and June of 2011 there will be an exploratory trip where the American believers will meet with key Muslim leaders in the country to work on organizing the dialogue tour. They will be staying with Muslim families who are eager to meet these American Christians who showed such kindness to their relatives. This is an open door for the kingdom of God to expand into these networks. The prayer is that an organizational center can be established in the capital and a second leading city with the blessing of Islamic leaders. The visa would be granted with the understanding that the Americans come as “faith-based diplomats.” Every effort is made to honor relationships and keep everything transparent and open.

Editor’s note – To protect the innocent, this article has had names and locations removed. Anyone interested in reaching the author can contact H2H.

Are you in Christ? Then consider yourself ordained!

H2H — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 10:00:43 +0000

By Alan Knox

One of my favorite passages in Scripture in Hebrews 10:19-25. On some of my old blog templates, I even included a quote of part of that passage (Hebrews 10:24-25) in the header. Obviously, that section says alot about gathering together, but gathering is not the focus of the passage.

Instead, in Hebrews 10:19-25, the author provides ordination credentials for all of those who are in Christ! That’s right, according to this passage, if you are in Christ, then you are an ordained priest with as much priestly authority as any other follower of Jesus Christ.

In Hebrews chapter 9, the author spells out that Jesus Christ is a high priest above and beyond the levitical priesthood. Then, at the beginning of chapter 10, he tells us that Jesus’ sacrifice is better than the “shadow” sacrifices spelled out in the Old Testament, and that Jesus’ sacrifice ended the need for any other sacrifice. Leading into the section that we’re studying, he wrote, “Where there is forgiveness of these [sins and lawless deeds - see previous verse], there is no longer any offering for sin.” (Hebrews 10:18 ESV)

Hebrews 10:19-25 begins with a reminder of some of the benefits we have in Jesus Christ:

Therefore, brothers [and sisters], since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God… (Hebrews 10:19-21 ESV)

Notice the “priestly” and “temple/tabernacle” language used in this passage: “freedom [confidence] to enter the holiest places,” “by the blood,” “way… through the curtain,” “great priest,” “house of God.” The author is putting this section of his letter into the context of the priesthood. While he has already told us that the old temple, priesthood, and sacrifices were only a shadow of the reality in Christ, he is now going to tell us about the new priesthood and temple. (He already said that a new sacrifice is not necessary.)

What follows in Hebrews 10:22-25 is our expected response to this new priesthood. In other words, he is going to tell us about our functions as priests of the new covenant. What are those functions? He breaks them down into three commands/exhortations: 1) Draw near to God, 2) Hold fast to the confession, and 3) Consider one another.

In the next few days, I’m going to publish a post about each of those functions. But for now, I simple suggest that each of those are placed in priestly terms. Each of these exhortation are the responsibilities of those who are in Christ – that is, for those who have a new and living way into the presence of God through Christ and for those who have Christ as a great (better than “high”) priest.

Notice that later in the letter the author will talk about “leaders.” Yes, there are leaders among the church, but those leaders do not hold more of a priestly function than any other follower of Jesus Christ. These functions and responsibilities are presented to all followers of Jesus Christ.

Again… All those who have the benefits of Christ listed in Hebrews 10:19-21 are thus also responsible for living out the exhortations found in Hebrews 10:22-25.

Alan Knox is I am a PhD student in biblical theology and a web developer. He is part of a hybrid (less institutional, more simple) church called Messiah Baptist Church.

Upgrading the Operating System of the Church

H2H — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 23:24:09 +0000

by Neil Cole

Computer software upgrades can be a blessing and a curse. They come with fanfare and promise. Sometimes they deliver on the promise; at other times, they deliver nothing but headaches.

The software is often updated in secrecy and then released to the public without any true testing of how the changes will interact with third-party products. You may be the one to discover that the upgrade doesn’t work with the important systems you rely on every day. System patches and new plug – ins are released to try to mend the problems after the fact. For this reason, many experts suggest that you wait several months to adopt a new upgrade, so that others can be the lab rats that either ﬁnd the cheese at the end of the maze or become trapped in the process. Once the early adopter rats are happily consuming a wealth of fresh cheddar, then you can safely make the switch.

What would happen if everyone stopped upgrading? The consequence would make a poor upgrade seem like the greatest breakthrough since the light bulb. Why? If we stop upgrading, we stop growing, learning, and becoming better. We need to improve, all the time. Granted, this leaves us with the potential for poor-quality upgrades, but that is better than no upgrades at all.

For some reason, the church is always the slowest to upgrade. Our conservative religious nature, which borders on superstition, tends to make everything sacred (especially things that are not meant to be so) and therefore untouchable. The result is that the church is often left behind, and soon irrelevant. When a ministry is blessed by God, we consider it His endorsement of the method. Long after the method is out of sync with culture and out of step with any good results, we still consider it God ’ s way and keep it going—often for decades or even centuries. Making changes in the church is often considered heretical and blasphemous. The sound of the eight lethal words of church management still echo in the boardrooms of the Western churches: “But we’ve never done it that way before.”

In software, as in the church, some upgrades are routine and minor, aimed at making the system a little better equipped to face the challenges of the day. Usually, a new feature or two, along with necessary patches, are added to the same basic system. In those cases, the upgrade usually bears the same ﬁrst digit but is a fractionally higher number; the move is from 2.3 to 2.4, or maybe from 2.3 to 2.3.1.

Occasionally an upgrade changes the entire system. When blended technology, lessons learned by experience and testing, and breakthroughs in computer technology itself all demand a new system, patches and added features are not enough. The old system must be scrapped and the new one put in its place. Those upgrades are demarked by a change in the ﬁrst digit of the software — from 2.7 to 3.0.

Of course, there is a learning curve that comes with this new upgrade, but the new advancements are so valuable that they make the learning worthwhile. A short time after this occurs, an entire industry can step up and make the old systems and hardware that supported them entirely obsolete. Stores discontinue the old technology as the whole industry moves forward. Remember DOS and ﬂoppy disks?

A good upgrade does a few things. It makes operation simpler and more intuitive. It also is more powerful in accomplishing all its important tasks. Finally, a good upgrade opens up the software to whole new markets that would never have tried to use the product in the past.

There have been two major upgrades in church formation, since Acts, that have changed the entire system. The ﬁrst occurred dramatically during the rule of the Emperor Constantine. The church shifted from an underground, grassroots, organic movement to a more institutionalized organization. I believe the second is occurring now.

church 1.0

The ﬁrst-century church was Church 1.0, with its minor differences. The Jerusalem church would have been the original Church 1.0. Antioch would be Church 1.1. The Galatian churches, started in the ﬁrst journey of Paul and Barnabas, would represent Church 1.2. Corinth would represent a change to 1.3, as Paul added some patches to how he approached church. The Ephesian church would be Church 1.4. And so the changes went on, through two centuries of church life, kept simple and organic by oppression and persecution from ten Roman emperors. Heresies emerged and were purged. There was the establishment of regional bishops and institutionalization of some of the forms of Christianity during this period, but overall the church remained a grassroots, marginalized movement under the heat of intense persecution.

All that changed in 313 A.D., when Constantine declared that the empire would not only tolerate Christianity but restore to the church all lost property. He was the ﬁrst “Christian” emperor; Christianity went instantly from the margins to the mainstream, and everything changed. Christianity became the state religion, and the church did not change much from that point on. This was the shift to Church 2.0 and all its eventual variants.

church 2.0

Over the centuries, after Constantine, the Western church evolved in many ways, but none has been a signiﬁcant systemic change. There was establishment of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, and for hundreds of years there were very few changes. The Reformation split the Western church into the Roman Church and the volatile Protestant church, or Church 2.1. In spite of the differences, the institutional system remained mostly unchanged. The Reformation set loose (and persecuted) the Anabaptists, but this was just a change from Church 2.1 to 2.2. Whether the church adapts to reach coal miners in eighteenth – century England or postmodern pilgrims in the twenty – ﬁrst century, most of the changes have been patches and plug-ins to the Church 2.0 system. Whether you are talking about high church or low, Pentecostal or Reformed, the church has remained in the 2.0 range of upgrades. From Baptist to Brethren, from Mennonite to Methodist, the changes in the system are relatively untouched over the centuries. Music or no music? Pipe organ or electric guitar? Whether seeing tall ceilings with stained – glass windows, or meeting in a box building without windows, the actual system of church has gone relatively unchanged.

You have the priests or pastors, the Sunday service with singing and a sermon, the weekly offering, the pulpit with pews, and the church building. These have been constants since the fourth century. Even if you move the whole show into a house instead of a church building, if the system hasn’t changed you have only shrunk the church, not transformed it. Changing the style of music does not upgrade the system. Turning down the lights and turning up the volume is a simple patch to the same old system. Choirs and hymns or praise bands and fog machines, kneeling, or standing are miniscule changes to the system. Sermonizing with topical messages or expositional ones is not changing the system; it’s making minor adjustments. Sunday schools or small groups as secondary learning environments are not a systemic change at all, just a variation on the same old operational system.

Although most of the advances to Church 2.0 over the centuries have been plug-ins and patches to the same old system, there have been anomalies along the way. Usually, these anomalies are the result of rampant persecution driving the church back to the old default system. One could say that these are examples of going back to the Church 1.0 system, because their 2.0 system crashed in the face of extreme heat. The radical Anabaptist churches are an example. The Chinese house church phenomenon is also a departure from the expression of the Church 2.0 system. These experiments are really not the norm and have not, to date, inﬂuenced the church as a whole in any permanent fashion, except perhaps to say that they are part of the learning that has led to this new operating system — Church 3.0.

church 3.0

I believe that the second major shift is occurring now, in our lifetime. Many people want to go back to the beginning again. As much as I am enamored of what I learned about the church of the ﬁrst century, we simply cannot go back; we can only go forward. Granted, if we went back it would be a vast improvement on where we have been more recently. I have to ask, though: Could we do even better than Church 1.0? Some may ﬁnd even such a question as this heretical. It is only a question, but it bears consideration.

Could we actually improve on the ﬁrst – century church? A careful study of Acts reveals that even in the ﬁrst decades of the church there was profound improvement as people learned from experience. Why not seek more improvements today, building on the foundation of two thousand years of mistakes? I believe it is possible. I think we can see the awesome impact and rapid spread that the ﬁrst century saw, but we also can beneﬁt from two thousand years of learning and use today’s technological advances.

Imagine if the apostle Paul could buy an airline ticket and be across the world in twelve hours instead of twelve years. Imagine what he would do with the Internet and the ability to see events unfold globally and instantaneously. Our ability to understand culture and translate languages today is built on two thousand years of mistakes along with the successes they produced. Perhaps more than any other beneﬁt we have is looking in hindsight at how easily institutionalization took over the church. It was no longer people in relationship to one another, but an organized system. Armed with that knowledge, we can now move forward. The early church ﬂew blindly into a trap of a religious hierarchical system that kept her in the dark ages for hundreds of years. History can train us for the future, if we listen to it. No, Church 3.0 is not a shift downward in church life or quality. It is an upgrade in every sense of the word, perhaps even rising above the early church. Why would we suspect that God is content with our going backwards? Why wouldn’t He want us to grow and develop in better ways?

The best upgrades do a few things. First they allow greater power in what you want to accomplish, and Church 3.0 is a huge boost in raw spiritual power. Every part of the body of Christ can function at a much higher level. A second thing you may look for in an upgrade is to move to a simpler and more intuitive way of using the system. This upgrade to Church 3.0 is certainly that, in many ways. It is built on simplicity and potency bound together to increase speed and power in the inﬂuence that the church can and should have. Third, upgrades take advantage of the latest discoveries in technology and help you interact better with all the other electronics you may use. Church 3.0 is far and away better at being ﬂuid, mixing with multiple expressions of church structure, and overcoming the world’s obstacles. Fourth, an upgrade should have greater capacity to accommodate much more information, functionality, and storage. Finally, some cool new features in an upgrade should signiﬁcantly improve the system’s performance and make it much more fun to use. Church 3.0 is so enjoyable that it is quite common for those who have made the switch to comment that they could never go back to the old system.

Do not be deceived into thinking that this is just another patch to the same old system; it is a radical change from the core of the church. Church 3.0 has rebuilt the function of the church in every sense, from the smallest to the largest capacity. The chart below, developed by Paul Kaak and me, demonstrates that the coming changes are polar shifts that will mean a fundamental change in church, from the core.

(Read the rest of the introduction here [PDF])

[This is from the introduction to Church 3.0: Upgrades for the Future of the Church ^{(aff link)}, which is a treatise on viral church multiplication movements. Also available on Kindle ^{(aff link)}.]

The DNA of a Church Planting Movement (part 2)

H2H — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 07:49:35 +0000

by Rich Hagler – June 19, 2011

(Note: This is part two – part one is here)

6. Gather Together. Based on Acts 2:42-47, we can simply define a church as “a group of believers with one or more leaders, regularly gathering together to obey the commands of Christ.” As in New Testament times, church gatherings in CPMs are generally rather small and relational by design (between 10-25 adults, often meeting in homes), simple in their function (See Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 14:26), and therefore easily reproducible by the people in the churches themselves.

According to Scripture, one of the most effective ways to gather interested people together and start a new church is through a “Person of Peace” (Luke 10:6). A Person of Peace (POP) is often a seeker or new convert who welcomes the evangelist and opens the door to share the Good News with their relational networks of unsaved family, friends, and acquaintances.

Prominent Scriptural examples of Persons of Peace include “the Samaritan women at the well” (John 4), who shared her prophetic, transformational encounter with Jesus with the men in her city, who, in turn, “went out of the city, and were coming to Him” (v. 30); and “Cornelius” (Acts 10), who “called together his relatives and close friends” (v. 24) for Peter to share the Good News about Jesus.

If at all possible, it is best to have the Person of Peace (rather than the evangelist) share their life-transforming testimony of Jesus with their family and friends as this promotes conversions, facilitates the POPs growth, and helps transition the initial gathering into a new church, preferably with the POP as the leader (mentored by a more experienced leader). This is an essential first step in the process of multiplying the church in a CPM.

As is apparent from the biblical examples above, bringing the Gospel to the seeker in the harvest and establishing a new church in the midst of their unsaved relational network is an incredibly effective way at keeping them connected with their relational network and maximizing the possibility of multiplying the Gospel and new churches through them – recovering the pattern Jesus taught His disciples in Luke 10:1-24.

To discover these incredibly valuable Persons of Peace, it is best simply to train everyone interested in how to make disciples, leaders, and plant churches (especially seekers and new converts), and then look for the POPs to identify themselves through their God-given passion, gifts, and the fruit they bear.

In summary, our friend Neil Cole highlights the dramatic paradigm shifts in our understanding of both disciple-making and church planting through CPMs: “Most people need to raise their expectation of what a disciple is and lower their requirement of what a church is.” To which I would only add, “…until they are biblical.”

7. Develop Leaders. Leaders of CPMs often speak of “the self-control required to train new converts to plant new churches, rather than to do the work themselves.” The Apostle Paul modeled this to his young disciple Timothy:

“The things you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).

Paul makes a number of fabulous points here. First, as much as possible, include your developing leaders whenever you do ministry. Paul worked side-by-side with his leaders-in-training because he knew these biblical patterns were “better caught than taught.”

Second, Paul instructed his developing leaders (like Timothy) to pass along what they were learning to their own leaders-in-training. Paul demonstrates this through the “leadership mentoring chain” in the Scripture above, revealing 4 generations of exponentially multiplying leadership: “Paul” to “Timothy,” to “Faithful Men,” to “Others also.”

Third, beyond the cognitive transfer of information, Paul’s training was Spirit-led, organic, and “Just-in-Time.” Throughout his epistles, we see Paul focusing his training on resolving the presenting problem his developing leaders or churches were experiencing (just-in-time), who then immediately applied that solution with their own leaders-in-training and churches. This Just-in-Time training is one effective way of mentoring. In addition, note that Paul’s training was obedience and application-based, giving out only as much training in one sitting as his developing leaders could immediately put into “practice” (Philippians 4:9).

Fourth, it’s important to observe here Jesus and Paul’s pattern of leadership development and seek to follow it (e.g. Luke 10:1-24). It’s easily remembered by the acronym M-A-W-L:

MODEL – Show others how to lead by briefly modeling biblical ministry, leadership, and life patterns (Mark 3:14; Philippians 4:9; 2 Timothy 2:2).

ASSIST – Give new leaders responsibilities and explain how to do it. Allow them to do it after modeling only a few times, and then help them as needed (Matthew 10:1-42; Mark 6:1-7; Luke 10:2-13; Titus 1:5).

WATCH – Oversee from a distance, checking in occasionally. Give advice when requested, and address problems when needed (Luke 10:17-20; Mark 6:12, 30; Acts 14:23).

LEAVE – Entrust your new leaders to God, His Spirit, and His Word. Leave them in charge, and move on to other ministry (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:9-11, 20:28-29). (4)

To underline the importance of leadership development, Dr. George Patterson has stated on numerous occasions, “The continual development of new leaders is the rate-limiting factor for the ongoing health and rapid expansion of any CPM.”

For a treasure trove of CPM training and mentoring resources, see George’s website “Mentor and Multiply.” (5)

8. Multiply the Church. The Church is a living organism and, like all healthy organisms, God’s intention for her is to be fruitful and multiply. What may be more surprising is that the resources (“laborers”) for a fruitful CPM harvest are not only in the Body, but in the harvest itself as we observed above with Persons of Peace in Luke 10. It naturally follows, therefore, that:

* Every believer should be a disciple of Jesus.

* Every disciple should be a disciple-maker.

* Every disciple’s home can be a house church.

* And every church can aim to be a leadership-training and church-planting center.

A key transition in becoming a CPM is when new converts start new churches, who in turn start new churches, who start even more new churches, etc. (i.e. multiple-generations of new church plants). This rapid growth is symptomatic of a movement in the multiplication stage. For this to take place, the church must believe that reproduction is both natural and easily doable, with new converts equipped and empowered to win the lost, disciple them, and gather them together into new churches that plant more new churches — equipping made possible through the “leadership mentoring chains” mentioned above.

It’s important to note that research has shown that if a church doesn’t plant at least 1 new church within its’ first year, it most likely never will. This necessitates from the outset that we incorporate the expectation of rapid multiplication of disciples, leaders, and churches into the DNA of all CPMs.

Finally, to meet the challenge of Jesus’ Great Commission to disciple all nations, we need to carefully consider the structure of the churches we plant to maximize their disciple-making and multiplication potential. Sometimes, without meaning to, our churches create barriers to making disciples and multiplying churches. In the New Testament, however, we find a great deal of freedom and flexibility regarding such potential barriers as the meeting place, day, and hour; the size of the gathering and how they function; leadership qualifications and how they are governed; as well as funding and other important elements.

Though it made many uncomfortable, early Jewish Christians started churches among the Samaritans and Gentiles that often looked and functioned very different from their own (e.g. Acts 15:1-35). Likewise, the churches we plant should not necessarily be like the churches to which we are accustomed, but ones based on the biblical disciple-making patterns of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, which have proven to bear much fruit and multiply in CPMs.

So why is a Church Planting Movement so special?

Because both Scripture and abundant real-life testimonies reveal how CPMs hold the greatest potential for the largest number of lost individuals to glorify God by becoming disciples of Christ and creating multiplying movements of new churches, which in turn, hold the greatest potential for massive moral and societal transformation.

Please join us in praying and working toward “the Lord of the Harvest raising up laborers from His harvest,” so that there will be Church Planting Movements in every tribe, tongue, and nation in fulfillment of Jesus’ Great Commission.

Notes

As a starting place for further study on CPMs, I recommend two excellent resources below, from which I have borrowed for this article.

Garrison, David. Church Planting Movements <http://www.missions.com/Downloads/WordDocs/CPM%20Booklet.pdf>.

Sergeant, Curtis. First Steps <http://www.e3partners.org/Document.Doc?id=180>.

Resources Cited

1. Patterson, Dr. George. The Basic Commands of Christ <http://mentorandmultiply.com.

2. Sergeant, Curtis. Discovery Bible Study Series <http://www.e3partners.org/Document.Doc?id=180> (p. 75-8).

3. Cole, Neil. Life Transformation Groups <http://www.cmaresources.org/ltg>.

4. Sergeant, Curtis. Model – Assist – Watch – Leave <http://www.e3partners.org/Document.Doc?id=180> (p. 84).

5. Patterson, Dr. George. Mentor and Multiply <http://mentorandmultiply.com>.

——————————————-

Since 1993 Rich Hagler has been following the Holy Spirit’s lead in making disciples of Jesus and training leaders to plant House Churches that multiply to fulfill the Great Commission, which is why he is so passionate about Church Planting Movements. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Rich joyfully gave his life to Jesus in 1979, freeing him from a life of self-indulgence while doing graduate studies and coaching college basketball. His desire for greater love and intimacy with the Father and heart for the lost inspired him to serve for the next 14 years as a pastor in San Francisco, New York City, Washington DC, and as a church planter in Los Angeles. Rich and his wife Kimberly are missionaries with Church Resource Ministries (CRM) in Portland, Oregon. He can be reached at richhagler@comcast.net.

The DNA of a Church Planting Movement (part 1)

H2H — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 07:49:28 +0000

by Rich Hagler – June 19, 2011

Over the past 20 years, I’ve been reading startling accounts of God initiating Church Planting Movements in every corner of the globe as hundreds, thousands, even ten of thousands are coming to faith in Christ. These new converts, as they exponentially spread their newfound faith throughout their relational networks, creating explosive movements of multiplying cells and house churches, are awe inspiring. And if that weren’t enough, their frequent testimonies of signs, wonders, and miracles as a catalyst for this tremendous growth – just like in the Book of Acts – are just that, miraculous.

One such example is the Mode of Deliverance Ministry (MOD) led by our friend Rodrick Gilbert in North India. Rodrick began MOD with a handful of teenage boys “who wanted to know more about God” in the slums of Delhi in 1992. He has now trained these young men and others to assist him in leading a Church Planting Movement (CPM) that has multiplied throughout 7 states in Northern India. Through teaching and implementing the simple, easily reproducible discipleship and church planting patterns found in the Scriptures, MOD has seen 164,000 new converts baptized, 15,500 new churches planted, and 15,500 new lay and bi-vocational people trained and sent out as church planters over the last 18 years. What’s more, Rodrick leads not 1 but 3 CPMs — one focusing on urban Hindus, another on rural Hindus, and the third on Muslims. Yeah God!

So what is a Church Planting Movement?

Missiologist David Garrison defines a Church Planting Movement as “a rapid and multiplicative increase of indigenous churches-planting-churches within a given people group or population segment.” Let’s break that down a bit.

First, it is rapid. A CPM occurs with the rapid increase of seekers and new converts who plant new churches each year.

Second, there is multiplicative increase. This means not simply incremental increase, like adding a new church or two through mostly transfer-growth, as we see in some places in North America. Instead, CPMs rapidly multiply new disciples, leaders, and churches at every level, with 2 churches becoming 4, 4 churches becoming 8 or 10, and so forth.

Third, these are indigenous churches-planting-churches. Though the Gospel may, of necessity, enter a new people group or population through an outsider or missionary, in a CPM the momentum quickly becomes indigenous, meaning that the initiative for planting new churches switches to the people in the churches. In other words, they “work and own the movement for themselves.”

8 Primary Themes in a Church Planting Movement

Jesus throughout the Gospels (e.g. Matthew 10:1-23; Mark 6:7-13, 30; Luke 10:1-24), and the Apostle Paul throughout Acts and his Epistles (e.g. Acts 2:37-27, 14:21-28), are the models for 8 primary themes that are essential in establishing a healthy, rapidly multiplying CPM of new disciples, leaders, and churches.

It’s important to keep in mind that these 8 primary themes or patterns are not necessarily sequential, but are meant to work together and are often done all at the same time, as the Holy Spirit leads in various circumstances.

1. Intimacy with God. God is the author of any church planting movement. To abide in the intimacy and love of God and to follow the Holy Spirit’s voice are, therefore, absolutely essential for both our personal walk of faith and a CPM’s effectiveness. It cannot be emphasized enough that this was the continual desire of Jesus’ disciples.

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing” (Jesus to His disciples, John 15:5).

Numerous reports reveal that abiding in deep intimacy with God and following the Holy Spirit are the dominant spiritual realities wherever CPMs are multiplying around the world. Yet all too often, here in the West, we rely on the application of good principles and methodologies, instead of seeking God’s heart and leading through relationship with Him.

From his unique, non-Western perspective, Rodrick Gilbert recently reinforced this point to me: “The one thing that is most required in the West is that we need to be desperate for intimacy with Jesus through the Holy Spirit!”

2. Develop Vision. Having a Spirit-inspired vision is critical. Jesus summarizes His overall vision for all His disciples, including us, in His Great Commission.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:14-18; Luke 24:44-49; John 20:21; Acts 1:8, underlined for emphasis).

Jesus’ vision is a HUGE, ALL-ENCOMPASSING ONE! Thankfully, the Holy Spirit breaks this vision down and personalizes it for each of us according to our gifts and callings. Yet within that context, it is incredibly exciting to see God fulfilling His vision today through the raising up of men and women with apostolic gifts and a passion for the lost – as catalysts, trainers, and implementers – to help initiate CPMs in unreached people groups, countries, regions, and cities across the globe.

3. Passionate Prayer and Fasting for the Harvest. Passionate prayer and fasting for the unsaved and more laborers in the harvest are Jesus’ primary means for breaking up the hardened spiritual soil and preparing the hearts of the lost to receive the Good News.

“The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Jesus to His disciples in Luke 10:2; Matthew 17:21).

To underline the importance of such radical, passionate praying, an American missionary friend of ours in Indonesia, who is “learning CPMs by doing” with Muslims, recently emailed me the following:

“The primary focus is on prayer. All of these people who have seen significant numbers of churches planted were involved in hours of prayer a day … We have always spent lots of hours in prayer per week, but this is a new challenge… to increase that to multiple hours a day of praying. It is really a challenge!”

Obviously such passionate prayer and fasting comes from a Spirit-inspired hunger to see God’s Kingdom come and from fully embracing a simple, focused, cross-bearing lifestyle that Christ commends to all His disciples, both of which are common among those involved in a CPM (Matthew 10:9-10; Luke 9:23-26; 10:3-4).

4. Abundant Gospel Sowing. Jesus teaches in the Parable of the 4 Soils that after a farmer breaks up the ground, he must scatter the seed plentifully as only a portion of it will fall on the good soil and bear much fruit (Matthew 13:3-9; 2 Corinthians 9:6). The same is true for us – we must sow Jesus’ Good News plentifully. Successful CPM practitioners frequently declare that, “The most common mistake is not evangelizing enough!”

These practitioners have also found that this abundant Gospel sowing is incredibly fruitful when done by new converts, who have been equipped to share their testimony with their unsaved family and friends, because of the immediacy and power of these new converts’ testimony and the fact that they have the most unsaved friends the day they are converted.

Frequently, such Spirit-inspired evangelism is also accompanied by signs, wonders, and miracles, which both verify the presence and power of God and make the truth of the Gospel even more compelling and undeniable to the unsaved (e.g. Mark 16:14-18; Luke 4:18-19, 10:6-9; John 4:4-30; 1 Corinthians 14:24-25).

As Rodrick Gilbert adds, “One of the primary purposes of the Holy Spirit is to prove Jesus to the lost through signs and wonders to bring them to faith.”

5. Make Disciples. In the Great Commission, Jesus commanded His disciples to “Go” and “Make disciples” by “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). Our mandate as disciples, therefore, includes multiplying ourselves through making more disciples and teaching them to obey Jesus (“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” John 14:15). Especially note here that Jesus teaches the primary motivation for obedience is a loving relationship with Him, correcting any of our tendencies toward legalistic observance.

Missionary George Patterson has helpfully summarized all of Jesus’ commands in Scripture into 7 broad categories called “The Basic Commands of Christ.” They provide a great resource for disciple-making as we seek to apply them in love and as the Holy Spirit leads.

* Repent, Believe, and Receive the Holy Spirit for conversion (Mark 1:15; John 3:16; 20:22).

* Be Baptized and confirm repentance and new life in Christ (Matthew 28:18-20).

* Love God, fellow believers, the lost, the needy, and your enemies (Matthew 6:14-15; Luke 10:25-37; John 13:34).

* Share the Lord’s Supper and worship Him (Matthew 26:26-28).

* Pray at all times through the Holy Spirit, intercession, family and private devotions, healing, and spiritual warfare (Luke 18:1; John 14:16, 16:24).

* Give generously of your time, treasure, and talents (Luke 6:38).

* Make Disciples by being a witness, teaching God’s Word, shepherding new believers, and training leaders (John 21:15-17; Acts 1:8). (1)

These Basic Commands of Christ, as well as Jesus’ 7 miraculous signs in John’s Gospel and other similar themes in an interactive Bible study series are a proven evangelistic and disciple-making tool in a CPM. Each theme can help seekers and new converts discover for themselves “Who God is?” and “Why did Jesus come?” etc. They further provide group members the dual opportunity to make a commitment “to live what they have learned” and “to tell others about it” – some of the crucial fundamentals in disciple-making. (2)

Another helpful resource to initially train and multiply disciples is Neil Cole’s “Life Transformation Groups.” An LTG is made up of two or three people, all of the same gender, who read large chunks of Scripture daily and then meet together weekly to discuss what they read, for personal accountability, and to pray for their lost family and friends. Neil recommends that a group not grow past three but rather multiply into two groups. (3)

Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that just like an infant in successful child-raising, the best day to begin this relational journey of disciple-making in a CPM is the first day you meet a seeker or new convert, because of their incredible receptivity and before any unbiblical patterns are laid down that will have to be unlearned later.