I recall that some Sawi tribesmen who worked for me or brought me food, firewood, etc. wanted to be paid with colorful beads or tobacco. Unlike Roman Catholic priests in the region, I declined to be a bead or tobacco merchant on the grounds that steel tools, salt, fishing line, fishhooks, soap, nails, etc., would benefit the people much more than baubles and smoke (though these latter items of course would have cost me much less, especially in terms of air freight).

I dispensed medicine free of charge to the ill but strengthened the remarkable work ethic the people already had by requiring them to work for everything else they wanted from me. Learning that a Roman Catholic priest in another area was reputedly doling out goods free of charge to anyone who asked, three Sawi men asked me, “Can he do that because he is richer than you, or is it just that he loves the people of that other tribe more than you love us?”

I replied, “If indeed he gives them things other than medicine free of charge it is because he sees them as children and himself as their father. If I saw you as children I could do the same. But I know you are men just as much as I am a man; that is why I require you to work for the things you need.” They were quite pleased to know I regarded them as men, so that was the end of that.

Some missionaries teach the Ten Commandments by rote but fail to exemplify lessons such as these, lessons so basic to helping redeemed people contribute to the edification of the overall society. I taught key Sawi men how to teach the gospel, yes, but I also taught them to own and operate their own retail stores and tithe their weekly profits.

Exploitive outside merchants are loathe to come in and compete with reasonable markups set by honest local merchants, so I deflected considerable predatory encroachment by teaching Sawi Christians how to be merchants.

If Christianity in some regions is “a mile wide and one inch deep,” I suspect missionary failure in matters of common sense teaching of ethics is partly responsible. I also believe that failure to link the gospel effectively with redemptive analogies may leave converts with a weaker appreciation for the marvel of God’s grace.

In our work, medicine, hygiene, economics, introducing new crops and education progressed hand-in-hand with the work of church planting. This was largely true of all the ministries carried out by evangelicals in what was then Irian Jaya, now Papua. Eventually, though, if the missionary stays too long, he generates a dependency syndrome which hinders both the growth of the church and the social and economic development of the society. People have to be given space and time to apply what they have been taught, thereby claiming ownership of it by fitting it to their own culture and environment.

When people visit the Waodani, they look around and think, “Wow, these people have nothing!” People from the outside think the Waodani are poor because they don’t have three-bedroom ramblers with wall-to-wall carpeting, double garages so full of stuff the cars never fit and, I guess, because they never take vacations to exotic places like Disney World.

So, on speaking tours I began describing these jungle dwellers as “People who all have water front property, multiple houses and spend most of their time hunting and fishing.” The most common response I have gotten when describing the Waodani this way is, “Wow, would I ever like to live like that!” I agree completely.

Mincaye, on the other hand, sees the way we “Outsiders” live here in “The foreigner’s place” and makes comments like; “Why, never sitting, do the foreigners run around and around in their car things speaking to each other on their talking things but never hunting or fishing or telling stories to each other?” After traveling and speaking with me in the U.S., Canada and Europe, Mincaye is always greatly relieved to get back to his thatched roof hut, with the open fire wafting smoke in his face, eating whatever happens to be in the cooking pot. He sits around in jungle-stained clothes and the look on his face tells it all. He would not live in North America for all the green paper and little pieces of plastic he could carry. He doesn’t understand how money and credit cards work but he knows foreigners can’t leave home without them.

Mincaye is a rich man. Or, he was until someone taught him to drive a golf cart and he started thinking how much fun it would be to take his 57 grandchildren for rides up and down the Nemompade airstrip where we used to live together. Now he wants his own golf cart (which means he would need a charging station, and a solar panel farm to power it, and a shop to maintain it, and spare parts to keep it running….)

From my life experiences with the Waodani—and other people groups in Africa, Asia and South America who live simply and materially contentedly—I have learned that it is unreasonable to evaluate their “lack” based on our distorted and exaggerated perception of need. When we try to meet phantom needs of people who live at a lower material standard than we have learned to consider “minimal,” we not only fall into a trap that keeps us from seeing their real needs but we also tempt them into a snare that can raise their perception of need beyond what their economy can support.

When we project poverty on people where it doesn’t exist, we also overlook the actual poverty with which they struggle. Solomon said it well, “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. As goods increase so do those who consume them” (Ecc 5:10–11).

Dangerous Charity

Often charity to help the poor attracts more people into poverty. One example I have noticed takes place when North Americans try to care for the needs of orphans in cultures different from our own. If you build really nice orphanages and provide good food and a great education, lots more children in those places become orphans. I see this happen all over. When we attempt to eradicate poverty through charity, we often attract more people into “needing” charity. It is possible to create need where it did not exist by projecting our standards, values and perception of need onto others.

So what is poverty? We in the “Wealthy West” have little understanding of “poverty.” As our standard of living has risen in developed countries, our perception of poverty has changed.

Consider how our definition of an orphan is different from most other cultures. In the U.S., you are an orphan if your mother and father have died. In South America (where I grew up), as in other contexts where extended family structures are intact, you are not really considered an orphan as long as you have a living grandparent, uncle, aunt or older brother or sister who is capable of helping take care of you. So when North Americans build an orphanage in South America, we “create” orphans by tempting family members to take advantage of our well-intentioned largess. This is seldom in the best interest of those children who are “orphaned” by our desire to meet what we perceive as their need.

Provoking Poverty

In the same way, proximity and exposure to wealth can provoke a sense of poverty. A group of North Americans going on a short-term mission—with our international cell phones, iPads, fancy clothes and fat wallets to buy curios and spend on hotels and restaurants—can create more comparative poverty than most of us can imagine.

But, all of that is not the issue. Do we have a responsibility to care for the poor? Yes. 1 Cor 8:11–15 hits the nail on the head. Let me summarize—“No Christ follower should have too much while anyone else has too little.” So, should we all become poor so that we are no longer responsible? No. Paul also points out that this teaching is not intended to put the poor at ease and to burden the wealthy (2 Th 3:6-12).

Among people living simply amidst abundant resources, poverty is not measured in annual income or net worth, but in “what I have in comparison to what those around me have.” In such contexts poverty is more of an attitude and a mood than an actual state of having or not having something. In such contexts, contentment is the secret. Some people think 1 Timothy 6:6 says “Godliness is a means of gain,” but really it says “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” Where there is godliness with contentment there is no perceived “poverty” until discontentment has been stirred.

Building Up Christ’s Body

Our goal in planting Christ’s church where it doesn’t exist must be to produce churches that are self-propagating, self-governing and self-supporting; especially where the members come from a background of hopelessness, powerlessness and inadequate resources. The most important aspect of church planting is whatever that fledgling congregation needs most. In a growing number of cases, the greatest need new churches have is to become self-supporting.

Giving handouts creates more problems than it solves. It is like casting out demons with long leases. Break the lease or they will come back and bring more roommates (Lk 11:24–26). Where the Church is being established among people that perceive themselves as powerless, there is a great need for deep discipleship, wrestling with the roots of poverty at the community level rather than concentrating on the individual.

Financial help that does not develop sustainable, local, financial self-sufficiency is much more likely to create poverty than it is to meet real needs. Until we realize that we can’t overcome poverty with handouts, we will never be much help in completing Christ’s Great Commission.

As followers of Christ we must fight poverty through discipleship rather than covering it with spiritual frosting. Either we do God’s will God’s way or we aren’t doing His will at all. Discipleship means teaching others what we have learned so they can teach others to care for their community’s physical, economic, emotional and spiritual needs on a sustainable basis! (2 Tim 2:2, Mt 28:19–20)

Manufactured Elements

At one point in Radical, I described the various elements that we in America have manufactured for growing a church.1 I want to revisit the discussion I began there and take it further so we can better explore what a church might look like if it properly valued the wrong people.
It’s commonly assumed that if you and I want to be a part of a growing church today, we need a few simple elements.
First, we need a good performance. In an entertainment-driven culture, we need someone who can captivate the crowds. If we don’t have a charismatic communicator, we’re sunk from the start. Even if we have to show him on video, we get a good speaker. And for a bonus, we surround the speaker with quality music and arts.
Next, we need a place to hold the crowds who will come. This usually means investing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in a facility to house the performance. The more attractive the environment, the better.
Then once the crowds get there, we need something to keep them coming back. So we start programs—first-class, top-of-the-line programs—for kids, youth, and families, for every age and stage. And in order to have those programs, we need professionals to run them. That way parents can drop their kids off at the door, and the professionals can handle ministry for them. We don’t want people trying this at home.
There it is: a performance at a place filled with programs run by professionals. The problem, though, is the one p we have left out of the equation: the people of God.

People, Not Performances

What if growing the church was never intended to depend on creating a good performance with all the right people on the stage? Where did we get the idea that this was necessary? Certainly Scripture instructs us to gather for worship.2 This is nonnegotiable but not necessarily in the way we usually think about it.
Imagine being in a church on the other side of the world where it is illegal for the church even to exist. You wait until midnight, when everyone else in the village is asleep, to quietly leave your house. Under the cover of darkness, you sneak down winding roads and past silent houses, looking around every corner to make sure no one is following you. You know that if you or anyone else from your church is caught, you may never see your home again. For that matter, you may never see the light of day again.
Yet you continue on until you round a bend, and there you see a small house with a faint light emanating from it. Checking one last time to make sure you have not been tailed, you slip inside. There you are greeted by a small band of brothers and sisters who have made the same long trek. As you look at their weary but expectant faces, you realize something: Not one of them has come because a great communicator has been scheduled to speak. Not one is present because a cool band is scheduled to play. No, all are there simply because they desire to gather with the people of God, and they are willing to risk their lives to be together.
Performance has nothing to do with it. People have everything to do with it.
Whenever I am in churches overseas like the one just depicted, I am reminded of how much we have filled our contemporary worship environments with performance elements such as elaborate stage sets, state-of-the-art sound systems, and high-definition video screens. I am also struck by our reliance upon having just the right speaker and just the right musician who can attract the most people to a worship service. But what if the church itself—the people of God gathered in one place—is intended to be the attraction, regardless of who is teaching or singing that day? This is enough for our brothers and sisters around the world.
But is it enough for us?
I am haunted by this question on Sundays as I stand in a nice auditorium with a quality sound system and large video screens on the wall, all designed to spotlight select people on stage. It’s not that everything in this scene is necessarily wrong, but I do wonder what in this scene is biblically best and practically healthy for the people of God. I have more questions than I have answers on this issue, and I am grateful for leaders in our worship ministry who are willing to ask the questions with me.
I mentioned earlier that we recently cut 83 percent of our worship budget. We did this not only to free up resources for urgent needs around the world but also to scale back our emphasis on nonessential elements of corporate worship. We want to focus on ways we can cultivate the best people: a people who love to pray together, fast together, confess sin together, sing together, and study together; a people who depend more on the Word that is spoken than on the one who speaks it; a people who are gripped in music more by the content of the song than by the appeal of the singer; and a people who define worship less by the quality of a slick performance and more by the commitment of a humble people who gather week after week simply to behold the glory of God as they surrender their lives to him.

Where Will Our Lives Count?

Isn’t this the model of Jesus? During his ministry on earth, he spent more time with twelve men than with everyone else put together. In John 17, where he recounts his ministry before going to the cross, he doesn’t mention the multitudes he preached to or the miracles he performed. As spectacular as those events were, they were not his primary focus. Instead, forty times Jesus speaks to and about the men in whom he had invested his life. They were his focus.
When he came to his ascension, Jesus had no buildings or programs to point to and no crowds to boast of. Indeed, most of the crowds had walked away. Just 120 unschooled, ordinary people were gathered—a small group with a small band of leaders.
And he had given them one command as their commission: make disciples. Do with others what I have done with you, Jesus had said. Don’t sit in a classroom; share your lives. Don’t build extravagant places; build extraordinary people. Make disciples who will make disciples who will make disciples, and together multiply this gospel to all peoples. This is the simple command that was to drive the church. And this is the simple command that is to drive each of our lives.
I don’t want this command to be treated as optional in my life or in anyone else's life in the church I pastor. Personally, I have an intentional disciple-making plan that involves sharing life with and multiplying the gospel through my family, a small group of men within our church, and church planters we are sending out from our church. I don’t want to imply that this plan is always smooth in practice or easy to implement. Like you, I am constantly beset by the busyness of life and the responsibilities of leadership, and if I am not careful, disciple making fades into the background. As a result, I want to act intentionally, for if I forsake the priority of people, then I will miss the purpose of God.
Every one of our pastors and church staff has designed similar disciple-making plans. In addition, we help all new members in our church to outline their plans for how they will be involved in making disciples of all nations.3 The key for all of us is an intense desire and intentional effort to make every one of our lives count for the multiplication of the gospel in the world.
Regardless of your place in the church, remember that you are not intended to be sidelined in the kingdom of God. You may at times feel like the wrong person, thinking you are not gifted enough, smart enough, talented enough, or qualified enough to engage in effective ministry. This is simply not true. You have the Word of God before you, the Spirit of God in you, and the command of God to you: make disciples of all nations. So whether you are a businessman or a businesswoman, a lawyer or a doctor, a consultant or a construction worker, a teacher or a student, an on-the-go professional or an on-the-go stay-at-home mom, I implore you to ask God to make your life count where you live for the spread of the gospel and the declaration of his glory to the ends of the earth.

A Better Way

A house church leader in Asia once wrote how persecution in his country had stripped his church of its resources. Yet, in his mind, this had been a good thing. “We soon found that rather than being weakened by the removal of all external props, we were actually much stronger because our faith in God was purer,” he wrote. “We didn’t have any opportunity to love the ‘things’ of God, so we just learned to love God! We had no plans or programs to keep running, so we just sought the face of Jesus!…We don’t believe the world needs another single church building. They need Jesus, and they need to worship and grow in God’s grace with other believers… according to the pattern of the first church in the New Testament.” Then this house church leader concluded, “When we finally reach the end of all our useless programs and give up in desperation, Jesus will always be there to show us a better way—his way.”4
This is the beauty of the plan of God, particularly when we contrast it with the plans we create that are dependent on performances, places, programs, and professionals. If the spread of the gospel is dependent on these things, we will never reach the ends of the earth. We will never have enough resources, staff, buildings, events, or activities to reach all the people in our community, much less all the peoples in the world.
But we will always have enough people. Even if they seem like the wrong people.
If eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee were enough to launch the gospel to the ends of the earth, then a church with a handful of members can spread the gospel in and beyond a community, regardless of the amount of material resources it has. The plan of God is certainly not confined to large churches or gifted leaders. The plan of God is for every person among the people of God to count for the advancement of the kingdom of God.
What if each of us were actually making disciples who were making disciples who were making disciples? Is it too idealistic to dream that the church of God, unleashed for the purpose of God, might actually reach the ends of the earth with the gospel? Is that realistic? You bet it is. In fact, it’s guaranteed. Jesus has promised that every nation, tribe, tongue, and people are going to hear the gospel, and it is going to happen through all of us.5­f
Endnotes
1 David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah, 2010), 48–50.
2 Hebrews 10:24–25.
3 You can find a template for our new member disciple-making plans on our church’s website. Go to www.brookhills.org/ne/impacthtml, and click on “Homework Assignment #3.”
4 Quoted in Brother Yun, Peter Xu Yongze, and Enoch Wang with Paul Hattaway, Back to Jerusalem (Waynesboro: Gabriel, 2003), 64, 108, 133–4.
5 Matthew 24:14; Revelation 7:9–10; Romans 10:13–15.

Manufactured Elements

At one point in Radical, I described the various elements that we in America have manufactured for growing a church.¹ I want to revisit the discussion I began there and take it further so we can better explore what a church might look like if it properly valued the wrong people.
It’s commonly assumed that if you and I want to be a part of a growing church today, we need a few simple elements.
First, we need a good performance. In an entertainment-driven culture, we need someone who can captivate the crowds. If we don’t have a charismatic communicator, we’re sunk from the start. Even if we have to show him on video, we get a good speaker. And for a bonus, we surround the speaker with quality music and arts.
Next, we need a place to hold the crowds who will come. This usually means investing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in a facility to house the performance. The more attractive the environment, the better.
Then once the crowds get there, we need something to keep them coming back. So we start programs—first-class, top-of-the-line programs—for kids, youth, and families, for every age and stage. And in order to have those programs, we need professionals to run them. That way parents can drop their kids off at the door, and the professionals can handle ministry for them. We don’t want people trying this at home.
There it is: a performance at a place filled with programs run by professionals. The problem, though, is the one p we have left out of the equation: the people of God.

People, Not Performances

What if growing the church was never intended to depend on creating a good performance with all the right people on the stage? Where did we get the idea that this was necessary? Certainly Scripture instructs us to gather for worship.² This is nonnegotiable but not necessarily in the way we usually think about it.
Imagine being in a church on the other side of the world where it is illegal for the church even to exist. You wait until midnight, when everyone else in the village is asleep, to quietly leave your house. Under the cover of darkness, you sneak down winding roads and past silent houses, looking around every corner to make sure no one is following you. You know that if you or anyone else from your church is caught, you may never see your home again. For that matter, you may never see the light of day again.
Yet you continue on until you round a bend, and there you see a small house with a faint light emanating from it. Checking one last time to make sure you have not been tailed, you slip inside. There you are greeted by a small band of brothers and sisters who have made the same long trek. As you look at their weary but expectant faces, you realize something: Not one of them has come because a great communicator has been scheduled to speak. Not one is present because a cool band is scheduled to play. No, all are there simply because they desire to gather with the people of God, and they are willing to risk their lives to be together.
Performance has nothing to do with it. People have everything to do with it.
Whenever I am in churches overseas like the one just depicted, I am reminded of how much we have filled our contemporary worship environments with performance elements such as elaborate stage sets, state-of-the-art sound systems, and high-definition video screens. I am also struck by our reliance upon having just the right speaker and just the right musician who can attract the most people to a worship service. But what if the church itself—the people of God gathered in one place—is intended to be the attraction, regardless of who is teaching or singing that day? This is enough for our brothers and sisters around the world.
But is it enough for us?
I am haunted by this question on Sundays as I stand in a nice auditorium with a quality sound system and large video screens on the wall, all designed to spotlight select people on stage. It’s not that everything in this scene is necessarily wrong, but I do wonder what in this scene is biblically best and practically healthy for the people of God. I have more questions than I have answers on this issue, and I am grateful for leaders in our worship ministry who are willing to ask the questions with me.
I mentioned earlier that we recently cut 83 percent of our worship budget. We did this not only to free up resources for urgent needs around the world but also to scale back our emphasis on nonessential elements of corporate worship. We want to focus on ways we can cultivate the best people: a people who love to pray together, fast together, confess sin together, sing together, and study together; a people who depend more on the Word that is spoken than on the one who speaks it; a people who are gripped in music more by the content of the song than by the appeal of the singer; and a people who define worship less by the quality of a slick performance and more by the commitment of a humble people who gather week after week simply to behold the glory of God as they surrender their lives to him.

Where Will Our Lives Count?

Isn’t this the model of Jesus? During his ministry on earth, he spent more time with twelve men than with everyone else put together. In John 17, where he recounts his ministry before going to the cross, he doesn’t mention the multitudes he preached to or the miracles he performed. As spectacular as those events were, they were not his primary focus. Instead, forty times Jesus speaks to and about the men in whom he had invested his life. They were his focus.
When he came to his ascension, Jesus had no buildings or programs to point to and no crowds to boast of. Indeed, most of the crowds had walked away. Just 120 unschooled, ordinary people were gathered—a small group with a small band of leaders.
And he had given them one command as their commission: make disciples. Do with others what I have done with you, Jesus had said. Don’t sit in a classroom; share your lives. Don’t build extravagant places; build extraordinary people. Make disciples who will make disciples who will make disciples, and together multiply this gospel to all peoples. This is the simple command that was to drive the church. And this is the simple command that is to drive each of our lives.
I don’t want this command to be treated as optional in my life or in anyone else's life in the church I pastor. Personally, I have an intentional disciple-making plan that involves sharing life with and multiplying the gospel through my family, a small group of men within our church, and church planters we are sending out from our church. I don’t want to imply that this plan is always smooth in practice or easy to implement. Like you, I am constantly beset by the busyness of life and the responsibilities of leadership, and if I am not careful, disciple making fades into the background. As a result, I want to act intentionally, for if I forsake the priority of people, then I will miss the purpose of God.
Every one of our pastors and church staff has designed similar disciple-making plans. In addition, we help all new members in our church to outline their plans for how they will be involved in making disciples of all nations.³ The key for all of us is an intense desire and intentional effort to make every one of our lives count for the multiplication of the gospel in the world.
Regardless of your place in the church, remember that you are not intended to be sidelined in the kingdom of God. You may at times feel like the wrong person, thinking you are not gifted enough, smart enough, talented enough, or qualified enough to engage in effective ministry. This is simply not true. You have the Word of God before you, the Spirit of God in you, and the command of God to you: make disciples of all nations. So whether you are a businessman or a businesswoman, a lawyer or a doctor, a consultant or a construction worker, a teacher or a student, an on-the-go professional or an on-the-go stay-at-home mom, I implore you to ask God to make your life count where you live for the spread of the gospel and the declaration of his glory to the ends of the earth.

A Better Way

A house church leader in Asia once wrote how persecution in his country had stripped his church of its resources. Yet, in his mind, this had been a good thing. “We soon found that rather than being weakened by the removal of all external props, we were actually much stronger because our faith in God was purer,” he wrote. “We didn’t have any opportunity to love the ‘things’ of God, so we just learned to love God! We had no plans or programs to keep running, so we just sought the face of Jesus!…We don’t believe the world needs another single church building. They need Jesus, and they need to worship and grow in God’s grace with other believers… according to the pattern of the first church in the New Testament.” Then this house church leader concluded, “When we finally reach the end of all our useless programs and give up in desperation, Jesus will always be there to show us a better way—his way.”⁴
This is the beauty of the plan of God, particularly when we contrast it with the plans we create that are dependent on performances, places, programs, and professionals. If the spread of the gospel is dependent on these things, we will never reach the ends of the earth. We will never have enough resources, staff, buildings, events, or activities to reach all the people in our community, much less all the peoples in the world.
But we will always have enough people. Even if they seem like the wrong people.
If eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee were enough to launch the gospel to the ends of the earth, then a church with a handful of members can spread the gospel in and beyond a community, regardless of the amount of material resources it has. The plan of God is certainly not confined to large churches or gifted leaders. The plan of God is for every person among the people of God to count for the advancement of the kingdom of God.
What if each of us were actually making disciples who were making disciples who were making disciples? Is it too idealistic to dream that the church of God, unleashed for the purpose of God, might actually reach the ends of the earth with the gospel? Is that realistic? You bet it is. In fact, it’s guaranteed. Jesus has promised that every nation, tribe, tongue, and people are going to hear the gospel, and it is going to happen through all of us.⁵­f

How is it that “all of Asia” heard the word of the Lord in just two years (Acts 19:8–12)?

How can the house church movement in the West complement effective congregational models like that of Real Life Ministries (featured in the Jan-Feb 2011 issue of MF)?

A network of leaders in India offers fresh insight through their integration of knowledge and power.

As in the West, “post-harvest loss” is still a major issue, and some controversy surrounds these movements. But we can still learn a great deal from the fruit our Indian brothers and sisters are seeing as they seek to multiply NT churches with spiritual power, rescuing Christ’s Ekklesia¹ from the barrenness and impotence common in today’s “church.”

While the Mar/Apr 2011 MF on Church Planting Movements (CPMs) was being finished, Gene Davis² invited me to join him in meeting CPM leaders in India. Thus I was privileged to spend four weeks interviewing and learning directly from leaders of rapidly growing CPMs. These leaders, along with their expatriate colleagues, provided invaluable feedback throughout the development of this article.

One highlight of my trip was the Global Summit on Market/Workplace Ministries³ in Bangalore, where 160 leaders from 21 countries met to learn how to develop self-funding CPMs in their own lands.

Field Insights into Luke 10

(This analysis of this chapter isn’t uniquely Indian; Rick Warren recently offered similar observations on this passage.⁴)

Send with Power (v. 1, 19)

Empower all disciples to do all that we are to do: proclaim the Kingdom, perform miracles, baptize new believers, and serve the Lord’s table. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (Jn 20:21).

Work with Others (v. 1)

George Patterson and Galen Currah list ten reasons to work in pairs.⁵ Here are three:

• Traveling in groups is consistent NT practice.
• There is more power when a group agrees in prayer.
• Groups bring a wider variety of giftings.

Prepare by Prayerwalking⁶ (v. 1–2)

Summit testimonies particularly emphasized prayerwalking—claiming the land, listening together to God’s Spirit, and agreeing on-site with Jesus’ plans.

In one instance, prayer was focused on just one of two adjacent, identical apartment buildings. In subsequent outreach, 75% of the residents in this building welcomed visitors offering to tell them about Jesus, compared with only 25% in the other building.

Beg God to Thrust Out Workers (v. 2)

Jesus highlighted the vast need and commanded his disciples to beg for more workers. Then He sent them to look for “persons of peace” (v.5-6). As many have noted, “The resources [laborers] are in the harvest.”

Be Wise Amidst Opposition (v. 3)

Those going to new villages to preach and hand out tracts used to frequently be beaten up and rejected. Since learning to prayerwalk until the “person of peace” is revealed, they seldom have this experience.

Go Empty-Handed (v. 3–4)

The resources we bring may attract a crowd, but they can also inhibit local ownership and multiplication. God’s power is most evident when ours is absent. Our testimony is strengthened when God works ahead of us and provides through those who receive us.

Seek out the Person of Peace (v. 5–6)

The hospitable homeowner will generally be a person of local credibility, whose acceptance will encourage others to respond positively as well.

Establish Relationships (v. 7–8)

First enjoy fellowship with the person of peace, staying in one place and relaxing over food, eating and drinking “whatever is set before you.”

Show God’s Care and Power (v. 8)

My Indian friends have great insight into the essential components of effectual prayer for healing—holiness, faith, the Spirit’s leading, laying on hands, etc. (God began answering my own prayers for others’ healing in India in a way I had not previously experienced.)

Proclaim God’s Kingdom (v. 9)

Once the person of peace has experienced God’s Kingdom through relationship with someone who demonstrates God’s power, they will want to learn more and be trained to reproduce.

Continue Mentoring (v. 17–24)

When the 72 reported back, Jesus redirected their priorities. Church reproduction stalls without ongoing mentoring which generates plans, and teaching to support those plans.

Rapidly Multiplying Churches commonly…

• cultivate scattering to family, friends and workplace (for multiplication), as well as gathering (for edification). Scattering maximizes the church’s local engagement.
• equip reproductive disciplers rather than entertaining passive church audiences. This leads the church to rapid multiplication.
• focus on the Great Commission, and not just local needs. This makes the church obedient.
• emphasize both Word and power (instead of just right doctrine), so that disciples proclaim God’s Kingdom effectively. Power confirms the truth of God’s Word.
• prioritize going where Christ is not yet named. This leads the church to disciple all peoples in every place.

Key Principles

Obedience Begins with Listening

Tarry daily with God as before the king of highest authority—until He releases you. Wait for guidance and power, then obey in faith. Resist the urge to rush into self-assigned activity, or to ask God to bless plans made solely on the basis of available resources.

Goals Multiply Fruit

Prayerfully develop increasing annual goals for baptisms, disciples baptizing others, self-funding, giving, etc. Measurable goals fuel multiplication, and deliver us from “bump into” guidance.

Baptism Initiates Laborers

Emphasize obedience to all of Christ’s seven basic commands, starting with baptism as the first step toward teaching others to obey.

Swift Obedience Fuels Rapid Growth

Baptize new believers immediately (even if with just a bucket until immersion is practical), then urge immediate obedience in witnessing to and baptizing others.

Multiplication Involves Everyone

Teach everyone, including women and children, to reproduce, and give them the same authority to make disciples which Christ has given you—to go, to baptize, and to teach others to obey.

Ministry Should Happen Everywhere

Coach believers to start discipling others wherever they gather—in their own home and workplace, and in the homes of family, friends and co-workers.

Local Witness Deepens Consecration

Witness first to family and friends, even when it seems easier to witness to strangers who don’t know your faults. Witnessing to family and friends deepens God’s work in your own life. You are also usually the best person to win and disciple those closest to you.

Surprises

No Buildings, Payrolls, or Labels

Gary Edmonds⁷ observes, “The naive manner in which US funds are deployed globally is not helping the global church. We have created an international welfare system that undermines the faith and interdependence of the people of God.” These bivocational leaders have broken this cycle by recognizing labels, buildings and salaries as an impediment to church multiplication. The financial assistance they accept is for travel, training and literature to accelerate the spread of CPMs throughout India, and to other lands.

Christ Only Has One Body

The NT refers only to one “church” in each locality (believers meeting in homes and more public venues), with traveling elders sharing responsibility for both the saved and the unsaved in their locality. God’s Kingdom suffers when “church” buildings come to represent divisions between believers. All who seek together to obey Jesus are His Church.

Buildings May Slow Multiplication

Jesus’ Church is found wherever a few believers gather in His name to obey all that the NT specifies (especially commands that cannot be fulfilled by a lone individual). Multiplication stalls when “church” comes to revolve around a building or a person, to which we go and bring others. Jesus didn’t tell us to build buildings, but He did command us to disciple all nations. When we focus on going and making obedient disciples (our job), Jesus builds His Ekklesia (His job).

These Movements Reduce Persecution

As God is bringing large numbers of Hindus and Muslims to Himself in these movements, obedience to all of Christ’s seven main commands is encouraged in ways that respect the birth communities of the new believers.⁸ This reduces the frequency with which “conversions to Christianity” trigger intense persecution which hinders others from responding.

Jesus’ Presence Accompanies Obedience

Reminiscent of William Carey’s Enquiry, one rapid movement among Muslims holds that Jesus’ promise to be with us depends on our obedience to Mt 28:19–20.

The Whole Church Must Be Engaged

The recognition and valuation of women—in anything and everything that is done by the men, from apostolic leadership to the baptism of new believers—is vital to the rapid spread of Jesus’ Kingdom in India and many other nations around the world.

Americans Often Aren’t Learners

Many Americans visiting India are so eager to teach that they miss the opportunity to learn from leaders who are seeing greater fruit than they are. These humble Indian leaders generally defer to the Americans’ agenda until invited to share what God has taught them.

Rapid Growth Generates Suspicion

The faster these movements grow, the more difficult they become to track—especially if they lack buildings and other obvious Christian trappings. And David Garrison tells me the leaders I met are leading “some of the biggest harvests in the world today.”⁹ Professional researchers I met in India are developing new methods of verifying and correcting the growth estimates. Yet any reporting of big numbers, especially from India, prompts some to simply dismiss these movements as wild exaggeration. Until research can verify the numbers involved, let us test and learn from these movements, and rejoice in growth that outpaces our ability to measure it!

Adoption is Better than Orphanages

These leaders are increasingly opening their homes to needy children, and their example could lead toward the placement of all needy children in families. David Platt’s church (see the Nov/Dec 2000 MF) has modeled a similar dynamic in providing homes for all the foster children in their county.¹⁰ May God do something new in our day for neglected children!

Pentecost Celebrations Fuel Growth

This network of CPMs has seen tremendous growth as individual leaders disciple throughout the year toward an annual goal of 3,000 or more immersions on or by Pentecost.¹¹ This vision is now spreading into the 10/40 Window.

From Driven to Disciplemaker

The effective Indian leaders I met have abandoned the “driven-ness” common among Christian workers to become relaxed, relational disciplemakers. Instead of living to “prove” their worthiness and need for a building and a salary, these leaders are becoming bivocational and discipling just a few, who disciple others, in more generations than they can track. The result is a more effective testimony to the abundant life Christ offers now:

• One man has a disciple in each of twelve districts of his state. Each month they all meet in a different district for five days of prayer and planning, learning from and supporting one another in their oversight of rapidly multiplying house churches. Together they estimate that 100,000 people have been baptized through this network, and they expect to see half of their state baptized over the next few years!
• Another pastored seven small churches for 14 years, each day of the week spent serving a different church. A year ago he quit pastoring to focus on making reproducing disciplers through house churches. Now he estimates 40,000 baptisms in one year through the generations of disciplers within his network.
• A third once worked 16-hour days overseeing a region for his denomination. After learning to multiply disciples through house churches, he encouraged 100 fellow pastors to start house churches; 619 were started in three months’ time! Now he estimates that more than 100,000 have been baptized through his generations of disciples, while he also enjoys fruitful work with his wife and children among their high-caste, land-owning Hindu neighbors.

Major Influences

Dr. Victor Choudhrie, a Senior Fellow of both the American and British College of Surgeons, resigned in 1992 as Director of Christian Medical College to take up full-time training of house church leaders.

Choudhrie’s parents were baptized by Dr. Donald McGavran, who later founded the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary.

However where the growth McGavran promoted became inaccurately associated with increasing the size and number of churches dependent on buildings and salaried pastors (and producing mostly “spectator” Christians), Choudhrie pursued multiplication of more reproducible churches, with bivocational pastors and in which everyone is equipped and expected to engage in ministry.

Gene Davis, the American with whom I traveled in India, has assisted Indian leaders for decades in applying George Patterson’s principles of Obedience Oriented Discipleship. (This is central to Perspectives lesson 13—Spontaneous Multiplication of Churches.¹²)

Neil Gamble¹³ is another American who spent more than half his time over nine years training house church leaders in India, and has worked closely with Choudhrie.

Choudhrie’s Starfish Alliance¹⁴ parallels the Starfish Vision and Starfish Manifesto¹⁵ of Wolfgang Simson, who had previously worked with Jim Montgomery in DAWN Ministries.¹⁶ In isolation from one another, God led Choudhrie and Simson simultaneously and independently to very similar conclusions and appreciation for the prophetic biology of the starfish.

Next Steps

In light of unfolding world events, Dr. Choudhrie has scheduled another Summit this October specifically for those working among Muslims. Practitioners from any country are welcome, but help is needed to underwrite travel costs for those coming from Asia and the Middle East. One Campus Crusade worker in Kazakhstan, who brought a Kazakh leader to the Summit in Bangalore, wants to bring to this next training friends and mission workers from “Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and maybe Turkmenistan too.”

Interested in attending, praying or assisting? Contact me through my “author” link at the MF website.

Digging Deeper

Throughout this article I have footnoted links for further study and exploration.

George Patterson and Galen Currah’s materials are helpful for learning to multiply.¹⁷ To address concerns, study Currah’s Five Fears of Pastors.¹⁸ To learn spiritual power, work alongside those who demonstrate it. Here is one suggestion from the field:

• Help each believer plan and make five “gospel contacts” with each family member, even at the risk of persecution. Pray and practice with them their message, first approach, and appeal for faith.
• Expect God to work as you lay on hands and pray together in Jesus’ name for healing and other needs of those with whom you share.
• Aggressively promote “persons of peace” to become disciplers, baptizers and equippers.

Regarding the model of Acts 19:8–12, through which “the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power” (Acts 19:20), Choudhrie adds this insight:

Paul was in Ephesus for three years, of which he spent a fruitless three months in the synagogue; one year and nine months in the Hall. The NT does not report what he did in the third year, but it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that he visited and strengthened his disciples all over Asia. No wonder he had little post-harvest loss.

The hall of Tyrannus was situated in the middle of the fish market. (My wife recently visited the site.) Paul made tents inside the hall, as he taught to an audience who were his clients—itinerant people who needed the tents, such as the shepherds, the fishermen and petty business people who itinerated.

This captive audience not only heard teaching with their ears but also saw mighty miracles with their own eyes. This mix triggered the CPM, simply because his disciples would go and share the radical teachings as well as describe and perform signs wherever they went. (Talk to any one of our grassroots workers and he or she will tell you the latest miracle that has happened to accelerate growth.)

There are more dynamics for the success of this model: In the synagogue Paul was dealing with Jews only, once a week on the Sabbath. In the marketplace, he interacted with both Jews and Gentiles, and on a daily basis.

It does not matter how well crafted your discipleship materials are, the essential ingredients are:

• supernatural acts that catalyze CPMs, and
• continuous mentoring and monitoring of disciples to minimize post-harvest loss.

Without both components in place, any model will falter.

In addition to the 8.5×11, four-page format of this article, available through the PDF link below, it has also been attractively formatted for printing as a 5.5×8.5, eight-page booklet:

• for “duplex” printing on your home printer (short-edge binding), or
• for your local print shop to produce as a stitched booklet.

How is it that “all of Asia” heard the word of the Lord in just two years (Acts 19:8–12)?

How can the house church movement in the West complement effective congregational models like that of Real Life Ministries (featured in the Jan-Feb 2011 issue of MF)?

A network of leaders in India offers fresh insight through their integration of knowledge and power.

As in the West, “post-harvest loss” is still a major issue, and some controversy surrounds these movements. But we can still learn a great deal from the fruit our Indian brothers and sisters are seeing as they seek to multiply NT churches with spiritual power, rescuing Christ’s Ekklesia¹ from the barrenness and impotence common in today’s “church.”

While the Mar/Apr 2011 MF on Church Planting Movements (CPMs) was being finished, Gene Davis² invited me to join him in meeting CPM leaders in India. Thus I was privileged to spend four weeks interviewing and learning directly from leaders of rapidly growing CPMs. These leaders, along with their expatriate colleagues, provided invaluable feedback throughout the development of this article.

One highlight of my trip was the Global Summit on Market/Workplace Ministries³ in Bangalore, where 160 leaders from 21 countries met to learn how to develop self-funding CPMs in their own lands.

Field Insights into Luke 10

(This analysis of this chapter isn’t uniquely Indian; Rick Warren recently offered similar observations on this passage.⁴)

Send with Power (v. 1, 19)

Empower all disciples to do all that we are to do: proclaim the Kingdom, perform miracles, baptize new believers, and serve the Lord’s table. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (Jn 20:21).

Work with Others (v. 1)

George Patterson and Galen Currah list ten reasons to work in pairs.⁵ Here are three:

• Traveling in groups is consistent NT practice.
• There is more power when a group agrees in prayer.
• Groups bring a wider variety of giftings.

Prepare by Prayerwalking⁶ (v. 1–2)

Summit testimonies particularly emphasized prayerwalking—claiming the land, listening together to God’s Spirit, and agreeing on-site with Jesus’ plans.

In one instance, prayer was focused on just one of two adjacent, identical apartment buildings. In subsequent outreach, 75% of the residents in this building welcomed visitors offering to tell them about Jesus, compared with only 25% in the other building.

Beg God to Thrust Out Workers (v. 2)

Jesus highlighted the vast need and commanded his disciples to beg for more workers. Then He sent them to look for “persons of peace” (v.5-6). As many have noted, “The resources [laborers] are in the harvest.”

Be Wise Amidst Opposition (v. 3)

Those going to new villages to preach and hand out tracts used to frequently be beaten up and rejected. Since learning to prayerwalk until the “person of peace” is revealed, they seldom have this experience.

Go Empty-Handed (v. 3–4)

The resources we bring may attract a crowd, but they can also inhibit local ownership and multiplication. God’s power is most evident when ours is absent. Our testimony is strengthened when God works ahead of us and provides through those who receive us.

Seek out the Person of Peace (v. 5–6)

The hospitable homeowner will generally be a person of local credibility, whose acceptance will encourage others to respond positively as well.

Establish Relationships (v. 7–8)

First enjoy fellowship with the person of peace, staying in one place and relaxing over food, eating and drinking “whatever is set before you.”

Show God’s Care and Power (v. 8)

My Indian friends have great insight into the essential components of effectual prayer for healing—holiness, faith, the Spirit’s leading, laying on hands, etc. (God began answering my own prayers for others’ healing in India in a way I had not previously experienced.)

Proclaim God’s Kingdom (v. 9)

Once the person of peace has experienced God’s Kingdom through relationship with someone who demonstrates God’s power, they will want to learn more and be trained to reproduce.

Continue Mentoring (v. 17–24)

When the 72 reported back, Jesus redirected their priorities. Church reproduction stalls without ongoing mentoring which generates plans, and teaching to support those plans.

Rapidly Multiplying Churches commonly…

• cultivate scattering to family, friends and workplace (for multiplication), as well as gathering (for edification). Scattering maximizes the church’s local engagement.
• equip reproductive disciplers rather than entertaining passive church audiences. This leads the church to rapid multiplication.
• focus on the Great Commission, and not just local needs. This makes the church obedient.
• emphasize both Word and power (instead of just right doctrine), so that disciples proclaim God’s Kingdom effectively. Power confirms the truth of God’s Word.
• prioritize going where Christ is not yet named. This leads the church to disciple all peoples in every place.

Key Principles

Obedience Begins with Listening

Tarry daily with God as before the king of highest authority—until He releases you. Wait for guidance and power, then obey in faith. Resist the urge to rush into self-assigned activity, or to ask God to bless plans made solely on the basis of available resources.

Goals Multiply Fruit

Prayerfully develop increasing annual goals for baptisms, disciples baptizing others, self-funding, giving, etc. Measurable goals fuel multiplication, and deliver us from “bump into” guidance.

Baptism Initiates Laborers

Emphasize obedience to all of Christ’s seven basic commands, starting with baptism as the first step toward teaching others to obey.

Swift Obedience Fuels Rapid Growth

Baptize new believers immediately (even if with just a bucket until immersion is practical), then urge immediate obedience in witnessing to and baptizing others.

Multiplication Involves Everyone

Teach everyone, including women and children, to reproduce, and give them the same authority to make disciples which Christ has given you—to go, to baptize, and to teach others to obey.

Ministry Should Happen Everywhere

Coach believers to start discipling others wherever they gather—in their own home and workplace, and in the homes of family, friends and co-workers.

Local Witness Deepens Consecration

Witness first to family and friends, even when it seems easier to witness to strangers who don’t know your faults. Witnessing to family and friends deepens God’s work in your own life. You are also usually the best person to win and disciple those closest to you.

Surprises

No Buildings, Payrolls, or Labels

Gary Edmonds⁷ observes, “The naive manner in which US funds are deployed globally is not helping the global church. We have created an international welfare system that undermines the faith and interdependence of the people of God.” These bivocational leaders have broken this cycle by recognizing labels, buildings and salaries as an impediment to church multiplication. The financial assistance they accept is for travel, training and literature to accelerate the spread of CPMs throughout India, and to other lands.

Christ Only Has One Body

The NT refers only to one “church” in each locality (believers meeting in homes and more public venues), with traveling elders sharing responsibility for both the saved and the unsaved in their locality. God’s Kingdom suffers when “church” buildings come to represent divisions between believers. All who seek together to obey Jesus are His Church.

Buildings May Slow Multiplication

Jesus’ Church is found wherever a few believers gather in His name to obey all that the NT specifies (especially commands that cannot be fulfilled by a lone individual). Multiplication stalls when “church” comes to revolve around a building or a person, to which we go and bring others. Jesus didn’t tell us to build buildings, but He did command us to disciple all nations. When we focus on going and making obedient disciples (our job), Jesus builds His Ekklesia (His job).

These Movements Reduce Persecution

As God is bringing large numbers of Hindus and Muslims to Himself in these movements, obedience to all of Christ’s seven main commands is encouraged in ways that respect the birth communities of the new believers.⁸ This reduces the frequency with which “conversions to Christianity” trigger intense persecution which hinders others from responding.

Jesus’ Presence Accompanies Obedience

Reminiscent of William Carey’s Enquiry, one rapid movement among Muslims holds that Jesus’ promise to be with us depends on our obedience to Mt 28:19–20.

The Whole Church Must Be Engaged

The recognition and valuation of women—in anything and everything that is done by the men, from apostolic leadership to the baptism of new believers—is vital to the rapid spread of Jesus’ Kingdom in India and many other nations around the world.

Americans Often Aren’t Learners

Many Americans visiting India are so eager to teach that they miss the opportunity to learn from leaders who are seeing greater fruit than they are. These humble Indian leaders generally defer to the Americans’ agenda until invited to share what God has taught them.

Rapid Growth Generates Suspicion

The faster these movements grow, the more difficult they become to track—especially if they lack buildings and other obvious Christian trappings. And David Garrison tells me the leaders I met are leading “some of the biggest harvests in the world today.”⁹ Professional researchers I met in India are developing new methods of verifying and correcting the growth estimates. Yet any reporting of big numbers, especially from India, prompts some to simply dismiss these movements as wild exaggeration. Until research can verify the numbers involved, let us test and learn from these movements, and rejoice in growth that outpaces our ability to measure it!

Adoption is Better than Orphanages

These leaders are increasingly opening their homes to needy children, and their example could lead toward the placement of all needy children in families. David Platt’s church (see the Nov/Dec 2000 MF) has modeled a similar dynamic in providing homes for all the foster children in their county.¹⁰ May God do something new in our day for neglected children!

Pentecost Celebrations Fuel Growth

This network of CPMs has seen tremendous growth as individual leaders disciple throughout the year toward an annual goal of 3,000 or more immersions on or by Pentecost.¹¹ This vision is now spreading into the 10/40 Window.

From Driven to Disciplemaker

The effective Indian leaders I met have abandoned the “driven-ness” common among Christian workers to become relaxed, relational disciplemakers. Instead of living to “prove” their worthiness and need for a building and a salary, these leaders are becoming bivocational and discipling just a few, who disciple others, in more generations than they can track. The result is a more effective testimony to the abundant life Christ offers now:

• One man has a disciple in each of twelve districts of his state. Each month they all meet in a different district for five days of prayer and planning, learning from and supporting one another in their oversight of rapidly multiplying house churches. Together they estimate that 100,000 people have been baptized through this network, and they expect to see half of their state baptized over the next few years!
• Another pastored seven small churches for 14 years, each day of the week spent serving a different church. A year ago he quit pastoring to focus on making reproducing disciplers through house churches. Now he estimates 40,000 baptisms in one year through the generations of disciplers within his network.
• A third once worked 16-hour days overseeing a region for his denomination. After learning to multiply disciples through house churches, he encouraged 100 fellow pastors to start house churches; 619 were started in three months’ time! Now he estimates that more than 100,000 have been baptized through his generations of disciples, while he also enjoys fruitful work with his wife and children among their high-caste, land-owning Hindu neighbors.

Major Influences

Dr. Victor Choudhrie, a Senior Fellow of both the American and British College of Surgeons, resigned in 1992 as Director of Christian Medical College to take up full-time training of house church leaders.

Choudhrie’s parents were baptized by Dr. Donald McGavran, who later founded the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary.

However where the growth McGavran promoted became inaccurately associated with increasing the size and number of churches dependent on buildings and salaried pastors (and producing mostly “spectator” Christians), Choudhrie pursued multiplication of more reproducible churches, with bivocational pastors and in which everyone is equipped and expected to engage in ministry.

Gene Davis, the American with whom I traveled in India, has assisted Indian leaders for decades in applying George Patterson’s principles of Obedience Oriented Discipleship. (This is central to Perspectives lesson 13—Spontaneous Multiplication of Churches.¹²)

Neil Gamble¹³ is another American who spent more than half his time over nine years training house church leaders in India, and has worked closely with Choudhrie.

Choudhrie’s Starfish Alliance¹⁴ parallels the Starfish Vision and Starfish Manifesto¹⁵ of Wolfgang Simson, who had previously worked with Jim Montgomery in DAWN Ministries.¹⁶ In isolation from one another, God led Choudhrie and Simson simultaneously and independently to very similar conclusions and appreciation for the prophetic biology of the starfish.

Next Steps

In light of unfolding world events, Dr. Choudhrie has scheduled another Summit this October specifically for those working among Muslims. Practitioners from any country are welcome, but help is needed to underwrite travel costs for those coming from Asia and the Middle East. One Campus Crusade worker in Kazakhstan, who brought a Kazakh leader to the Summit in Bangalore, wants to bring to this next training friends and mission workers from “Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and maybe Turkmenistan too.”

Interested in attending, praying or assisting? Contact me through my “author” link at the MF website.

Digging Deeper

Throughout this article I have footnoted links for further study and exploration.

George Patterson and Galen Currah’s materials are helpful for learning to multiply.¹⁷ To address concerns, study Currah’s Five Fears of Pastors.¹⁸ To learn spiritual power, work alongside those who demonstrate it. Here is one suggestion from the field:

• Help each believer plan and make five “gospel contacts” with each family member, even at the risk of persecution. Pray and practice with them their message, first approach, and appeal for faith.
• Expect God to work as you lay on hands and pray together in Jesus’ name for healing and other needs of those with whom you share.
• Aggressively promote “persons of peace” to become disciplers, baptizers and equippers.

Regarding the model of Acts 19:8–12, through which “the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power” (Acts 19:20), Choudhrie adds this insight:

Paul was in Ephesus for three years, of which he spent a fruitless three months in the synagogue; one year and nine months in the Hall. The NT does not report what he did in the third year, but it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that he visited and strengthened his disciples all over Asia. No wonder he had little post-harvest loss.

The hall of Tyrannus was situated in the middle of the fish market. (My wife recently visited the site.) Paul made tents inside the hall, as he taught to an audience who were his clients—itinerant people who needed the tents, such as the shepherds, the fishermen and petty business people who itinerated.

This captive audience not only heard teaching with their ears but also saw mighty miracles with their own eyes. This mix triggered the CPM, simply because his disciples would go and share the radical teachings as well as describe and perform signs wherever they went. (Talk to any one of our grassroots workers and he or she will tell you the latest miracle that has happened to accelerate growth.)

There are more dynamics for the success of this model: In the synagogue Paul was dealing with Jews only, once a week on the Sabbath. In the marketplace, he interacted with both Jews and Gentiles, and on a daily basis.

It does not matter how well crafted your discipleship materials are, the essential ingredients are:

• supernatural acts that catalyze CPMs, and
• continuous mentoring and monitoring of disciples to minimize post-harvest loss.

Without both components in place, any model will falter.

In addition to the 8.5×11, four-page format of this article, available through the PDF link below, it has also been attractively formatted for printing as a 5.5×8.5, eight-page booklet:

• for “duplex” printing on your home printer (short-edge binding), or
• for your local print shop to produce as a stitched booklet.

The reality is that we can only succeed with your help. We need you to come alongside us and partner with us.

Here is how you can help.

Pray for us

Pray for additional staff and resources. Pray for God’s guidance and wisdom as we prepare each issue. Pray that many more would subscribe.

Support MF financially: can you send $15 a month or a yearly gift of $180?

There are thousands of Christian leaders overseas that we wish to impact with vision and insight but who often cannot afford to cover the costs of sending MF to them. We need the financial help of the people who enjoy receiving MF in order to send MF to the Christian leaders who need it. We do not want money to stand in the way of getting out the vision..

We do not require a yearly subscription but depend on the generous gifts of those who believe in what we are doing. This is similar to most churches who do not charge a fee each Sunday to people who attend but depend on their ministry partners for their income.

Can you sacrifice just $15 a month or $180 a year to keep MF going out to 60 Christian leaders around the world?  It is quite common for people to set up “automatic bill pay” from their checking account to those missionaries and organizations that they wish to support. We are asking that you consider doing that for Mission Frontiers.

Our initial goal is for 1,500 of our 95,000 readers to join our support team with a monthly donation of $15 a month. You can pay three different ways:

One, if you enjoy writing checks and would like to send in a one-time donation of $180 or a monthly check for $15, please do so.

Two, the convenience of automatic bill pay. Through your bank’s bill pay system have your funds sent to: Mission Frontiers, 1605 Elizabeth St., Pasadena CA 91104.

Three, you may also go online to www.missionfrontiers.org/donate to give. We will let you know in each issue how we are doing. We already have 14 people who have signed up to be one of the 1,500. ank you for your support.

Share Mission Frontiers with Everyone You Know

1. Share, Share, Share

Share the articles you like with all of your friends through Facebook, Email, Twitter, Google, Yahoo etc. There are icons on the webpage of each issue and each article that allows you to share the best of MF with everyone you know.

2. “Like Us” on Facebook

Let all of your friends on Facebook know that you “like us.”  Tell them about all the interesting and challenging articles that they can read and post the links for them.

3. Put a Link to MF on Your Website or Blog

Link your website to ours so that your friends can learn about us. Also consider reprinting articles from MF on your website. See restrictions below under reprinting articles.

4. Print and Email the PDFs

Every recent issue of MF and the individual articles are available for you to download from our website at http://www.missionfrontiers.org Just .click on the PDF icon for the issue or article and it will automatically download to your computer, iPad or other devices. Feel free to print and distribute as many copies of the PDFs as you like-no restrictions.

5. Reprint Articles from MF

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Request extra copies and pass them out to your pastor, missions committee and friends. Professors: order copies for your students and discuss the articles in class. You may call 626-398-2249 or email subscriptions@uscwm.org to request your extra copies. There is no charge for this, but we do appreciate donations to help cover our costs.

The reality is that we can only succeed with your help. We need you to come alongside us and partner with us.

Here is how you can help.

Pray for us

Pray for additional staff and resources. Pray for God’s guidance and wisdom as we prepare each issue. Pray that many more would subscribe.

Support MF financially: can you send $15 a month or a yearly gift of $180?

There are thousands of Christian leaders overseas that we wish to impact with vision and insight but who often cannot afford to cover the costs of sending MF to them. We need the financial help of the people who enjoy receiving MF in order to send MF to the Christian leaders who need it. We do not want money to stand in the way of getting out the vision..

We do not require a yearly subscription but depend on the generous gifts of those who believe in what we are doing. This is similar to most churches who do not charge a fee each Sunday to people who attend but depend on their ministry partners for their income.

Can you sacrifice just $15 a month or $180 a year to keep MF going out to 60 Christian leaders around the world?  It is quite common for people to set up “automatic bill pay” from their checking account to those missionaries and organizations that they wish to support. We are asking that you consider doing that for Mission Frontiers.

Our initial goal is for 1,500 of our 95,000 readers to join our support team with a monthly donation of $15 a month. You can pay three different ways:

One, if you enjoy writing checks and would like to send in a one-time donation of $180 or a monthly check for $15, please do so.

Two, the convenience of automatic bill pay. Through your bank’s bill pay system have your funds sent to: Mission Frontiers, 1605 Elizabeth St., Pasadena CA 91104.

Three, you may also go online to www.missionfrontiers.org/donate to give. We will let you know in each issue how we are doing. We already have 14 people who have signed up to be one of the 1,500. ank you for your support.

Share Mission Frontiers with Everyone You Know

1. Share, Share, Share

Share the articles you like with all of your friends through Facebook, Email, Twitter, Google, Yahoo etc. There are icons on the webpage of each issue and each article that allows you to share the best of MF with everyone you know.

2. “Like Us” on Facebook

Let all of your friends on Facebook know that you “like us.”  Tell them about all the interesting and challenging articles that they can read and post the links for them.

3. Put a Link to MF on Your Website or Blog

Link your website to ours so that your friends can learn about us. Also consider reprinting articles from MF on your website. See restrictions below under reprinting articles.

4. Print and Email the PDFs

Every recent issue of MF and the individual articles are available for you to download from our website at www.missionfrontiers.org. Just click on the PDF icon for the issue or article and it will automatically download to your computer, iPad or other devices. Feel free to print and distribute as many copies of the PDFs as you like-no restrictions.

5. Reprint Articles from MF

Do you have a non-profit magazine, newspaper, church newsletter or personal prayer letter to which you have access? Feel free to reprint articles from MF that originate with MF. Articles that originate with MF do not need prior permission to be reprinted as long as you give us credit as the source for the article. If it says “reprinted by permission of…” in the article, you must go to that original source for permission to reprint.

6. Order Extra Copies

Request extra copies and pass them out to your pastor, missions committee and friends. Professors: order copies for your students and discuss the articles in class. You may call 626-398-2249 or email subscriptions@uscwm.org to request your extra copies. There is no charge for this, but we do appreciate donations to help cover our costs.