Month / November 2010

by johnkking

So Much Potential!

A few weeks ago I was attending a “Pass the Salt” luncheon. It meets most Wednesdays here in Murfreesboro and the focus is encouraging believers to exert kingdom influence in the marketplace. A good friend was speaking. He told amazing stories about God’s move among Muslim people in Africa. The message that God is touching historically resistant people captured the attention of another man who was present.

The second guy introduced himself to me and we started talking about some of the trips I had made to Africa with the speaker. Eventually our mutual friend started talking with both of us. The guy I had just met asked the speaker to mentor him in doing the same kind of outreach here in some neighborhoods where he had been working for a while. The speaker suggested I would be the better candidate for training and mentoring him, so a new relationship was begun.

We have been meeting weekly for just over a month. This brother clearly has a heart for the neighborhoods he mentioned and has gained credibility among several people there. As I introduced him to Discovery Bible Studies (DBS) he started to see that they may hold great potential. While it took him a few meetings to get his brain wrapped around the counter-intuitive approaches, he quickly grasped the concept of a Person of Peace opening his/her family to the good news of the kingdom and he was convinced he already knew some (last week he expressed there may be as many as 17).

After he set up the first gatherings through one of these possible Persons of Peace he called to see if we could meet quickly so I could review what should take place in a DBS. Our schedules allowed us to meet immediately and we reviewed the eight questions that drive these studies. He was excited about what would come from this gathering.

Last Wednesday he shared that there were seven people present for the DBS. They were all invited by a guy who had just been released from jail two weeks ago. Five of the seven were totally unchurched. Each found the format enjoyable and non-threatening. One confessed he usually stayed away from religious discussions, but this was different. Another participated freely even though she usually did not talk in group settings. It will be interesting hearing how their second Discovering God study went when we meet again.

While this group is very much in the infant stage, I wanted to share about it to tell about a specific point. The guy that I am training/mentoring told me that he needed to talk about an idea he had. He was just “running it by” me and was not sure whether he was set on this yet, but wanted my input. He said, “I am thinking I will facilitate the group for about six meetings and then hand it off to the Person of Peace.” Though I am confident I had already talked with him about the need to train the Person of Peace to facilitate much earlier than that, it was obvious this had not sunk in, yet.

I reminded him that the goal is to make sure everything we do is reproducible. Those who are participating need to be able to do what we do in a DBS from day one. This is one reason we keep all the discussion tied to that day’s passage and always steer the conversation back by saying, “Help me see where you find that in the verses we read.” We want anyone to be able to reproduce what happens in a DBS.

Then I reiterated that he should not facilitate more than two or three of the gatherings. The earlier he gets the Person of Peace to agree to facilitate the greater the likelihood is that additional DBSs will multiply from this one. As God’s Spirit produces transformation in the lives of these people, they will begin to talk about what is happening in the studies with others. This is when they will probably ask about inviting new people to the group. Rather than doing that, it is better to begin coaching that group member in facilitating a study where that new person invites other family and friends to participate. If this person has seen the Person of Peace facilitate the DBS, then he/she is more likely to be willing to give it a try. The longer it takes for the transition to happen, the less likely it will happen. Then the whole process is restricted by the ability of one person to facilitate multiple studies.

This is why we talk about focusing on the few to reach the many and going slow to go fast. This process of reproduction benefits those who learn to facilitate a second-generation group. They are studying these passages that reveal God’s character multiple times. First, with their original group. Second, when they are being trained to facilitate the second-generation group. Third, with the second-generation group. Also, they are quickly imitating what they have witnessed and this process has them handling God’s Word at successively deeper levels.

Often when believers first hear about this process they doubt it can really happen. Even if they believe it happened in India or Africa, they are sure it cannot happen here in America. What they really doubt is that what happens in such a discovery study can produce enough positive effects that participants will become motivated to help others experience it, too. They are really revealing that their handling of Scriptures does not produce enough fruit in their lives to motivate them to share what they are learning with others. If they are not willing to pass this on, they cannot envision DBSs accomplishing more.

Recent interviews with people in the U.S. who are being blessed by such DBSs drove this point home for me. People who are discipling multiple people who are facilitating DBSs realized that around the fourth or fifth studies the participants recognized that they were being changed by what happens in the gatherings. Upon this realization they begin actively telling others about Discovering God. As they talk it up, they eventually encounter others who are open to experiencing the same and second, third or fourth generation groups begin. The key is keeping this easily reproducible so those who start talking it up are able to envision themselves facilitating this group or coaching the Peron of Peace to facilitate it from day one.

The guy I am discipling said something astute about the Person of Peace who pulled together this first group–“He has so much potential! I could see him reaching so many people.”

by johnkking

Why Not Here?

Recently I was asked if I have a theory for why Church Planting Movements (CPMs) happen in some places and not in others. I do and I am sharing that answer below.

Simply put, the more “churched” people are, the more likely they are resistant to disciple making movements. We have always seen a strong correlation. CPM works in the highly resistant, radical Hindu and Muslim areas of northern India more than in the southern areas where Churches of Christ, Baptist, et al missionaries have operated for generations.

Our approach (what Western people grew up experiencing) is actually a highly contextualized gospel presentation/modeling that developed in response to the highly individualistic rationalistic-enlightenment of Western Europe and the U.S. But the very same reasons why it appealed to several generations of Americans are the same reasons why it is being rejected by post-enlightenment people in those same regions and why it bore little fruit in pre-enlightenment people groups in other parts of the world..

I know, you are glazing over. I understand. I do too, just reading back over it. While I am tempted to delete that last paragraph, I will leave it because it may connect with other things you have read. Let me use an analogy, though.

Near where I live there is a large farm that is surrounded by subdivisions on two sides and an industrial park on the other two sides. It is just a matter of time before that land is bought out and converted to one of these two uses. Until that happens, there is some high-tech farming going on there to raise cotton. They use herbicides to poison the ground cover in the spring and then use huge no-till equipment to plant the cotton in perfectly aligned rows. At the peak time they use some Star Wars-like apparatuses to apply more herbicides to the weeds growing between those rows and fertilizers on the cotton. Recently they have used specialized machinery to harvest that cotton and pack it in bales about the size of a tractor-trailer trailer.

All of that technology works here in Murfreesboro. Would it work in sub-Saharan Africa? Yes, but would it be practical? No.

Highly educated people like me have tried to take a highly contextualized gospel presentation/modeling method (comparable to the high-tech farming) to people groups who rejected it because it is so foreign. Yes, even if they know it will work for us here, they are quite sure it will not work for them there. Even if we use it there successfully, they will attribute that to us because we are different from them. They have seen lots of our stuff work only as long as we are there to prop it up with our money and our foreign ways.

But Jesus lived and discipled in a far different culture than our Western world. His life was lived with people with worldviews much more like those of sub-Saharan Africa and rural China than like ours.

CPM feels like a natural fit to people groups who still have a strong sense of multi-generational extended family. Such families feel like our Western evangelism is more closely akin to kidnapping and brainwashing (like we might view a cult). To reach them it is best to use a slower process that simultaneously exposes many of the family members to the worldview-shaping stories of Israel’s God and Jesus, the Father’s final answer to humanity’s problems. When such a process is facilitated by a family member, he/she intuitively raises issues as an insider, unlike we would because we are outsiders. Here the family comes to consensus.

Now here is the challenge for us, if I am correct. How much are the people there in your situation more like the Western worldview than the pre-enlightenment worldview? Maybe the region of the world where you live is in transition. Because of rapid urbanization and increased financial resources, mega-cities more nearly resemble the Western world from the outside. But are they?

Likely you’ve heard the old adage: “You can take the boy out of the country, but you cannot take the country out of the boy.” How does this apply? While they may be doggedly pursuing Western wealth, fashions and power, are they still rural people in their inner being? I do not know.

I firmly believe that the CPM critical elements will have to be applied differently in urban settings than in rural settings. They will have to be tailor-fitted for each people group.

Within one of the African nations where a friend worked extensively, there are multiple CPMs within the same geographic region. One is among people who grew up in an ancient church heritage (comparable to the Russian Orthodox). There is another for Muslim Background Believers. There is another for former Animists. The starting worldview for these three groups is radically different and attempting to address all in the same setting with the same strategies would preclude reaching any of them.

Okay, I anticipate you want me to ground all of this in Scripture—as you should. Think with me about why there are four gospels in our New Testaments.

Each is an accurate presentation of the good news of Jesus for four different people groups with four different worldviews. Matthew presents Jesus for the Jewish background believers. Mark presents Jesus for the Roman worldview. Luke presents Jesus for the Gentile background believer. And John presents Jesus for the Eastern worldview people who were conducting their trading excursions into the province of Asia.

The Jesus film has met with more success in Muslim African regions than in most of Asia. A young Cambodian church planter told a friend he knew why. “The Jesus Film uses the wrong gospel. If it used John’s gospel instead of Luke’s it would be more fruitful here,” he opined.

Now what do we do here in America? We chop up the four and then put the pieces together in chronological order and call it a Harmony of the Gospels. Our actions could be seen as presumptuous. It looks as though we believe God needs our help to get it right. I believe this is an example of our cultural imperialism.

Back to the opening question, again. Why haven’t any of the guys I worked with in jail become church planters planting churches that plant churches? I am attempting to do this in a highly churched area. Every guy in this jail (except possibly a couple of Laotians at one point) brings a mental image of “church” to every Discovery Bible Study. Some of their experiences help and some hurt. Much like a marriage counselor working with a couple, they bring their family of origin and their marriage experiences into every discussion of family—whether they realize it or not. You can deconstruct that (and sometimes you must) and/or you can try to quickly train them in healthy ways to deal with challenges rather than digging through their past dysfunctional coping skills.

I’ve tried the later. My fruit says I probably need to also do more of the former. I thought the brother who trained me was too confrontational on these matters and wanted to try a different approach. I think I have kept some people engaged in the conversation longer than he would, but he certainly has room to challenge whether or not that has produced the results I wanted. He stays overly busy with people who want to give something new a try so he does not worry about those who will have to chew on this for a long while. Because I have stayed with a congregation that I had already spent 13 years modeling very traditional approaches, I was forced to attempt different approaches.

I pray for the day when there are CPMs in middle Tennessee. I am currently training a group of six and then also a couple of individuals who have a passion for refugees and/or college students in this area. Recently I have heard that there are some exciting things happening among Hispanics and Latinos in California. I pray for the day when it happens among some of the 136 different people groups in the Nashville region.