• Our hope-filled future is bound up in sharing the story of Jesus, in discipling others, in bringing those disciples together into communities of believers, and in developing and releasing those believers to create other communities... till Jesus the King comes again!

Urgent Need for Church Planters Revisited

Posted on July 20, 2011 by wtdavid

I think it is worth sharing a rather lengthy quote from the book, Global Church Planting, to underscore again what we were talking about in Tuesday’s post.  This comes from a section titled: “New Coworkers Recruited from the Church Plants Expand the Missionary Force”:

“One of the most noteworthy features of Paul’s mission was his recruitment of coworkers from the various churches he planted.  He recruits from the harvest for the next harvest.  “The majority of Paul’s coworkers came from the new churches that he had established .… The ‘home churches’ of these workers acknowledge that they share in the responsibility for the expansion of the kingdom of God by providing missionary workers who help Paul” (Schnabel 2008, 255).  Though Paul’s initial church-planting teams were sent out from Syrian Antioch and were composed of Jewish background believers, he did not look to Antioch alone for new missionary recruits.  Rather he recruited them from the churches he had planted, and the coworkers were increasingly of Gentile, not Jewish, origin (Ollrog 1979, 62).  For example, about three years after the estimated time of Timothy’s conversion in Lystra on the first missionary journey (Acts 14) Paul took him on as a missionary apprentice (Acts 16:1-3).  Soon after that Timothy began working semi-independently of Paul in Thessalonica (Acts 17:14; 1 Thess. 3:1-5), Macedonia (Acts 19:22), Corinth (1 Cor 4:17), Philippi (Phil. 2:19), and Ephesus (1 Time. 3:14-15)”

What made this quote ‘come alive’ for me was when one of the leaders from the French church we attend approached me last week and said that the church should consider ways to send ‘workers’ to work with us.  This is a church that WT had a major part in establishing.

We need to be recruiting from the harvest for the next harvest.

Filed under: Church planting, Mobilization | 2 Comments »

Urgent Need for Church Planters

Posted on July 19, 2011 by wtdavid

For the past year, we have been talking about the “crisis opportunity” we are facing in terms of our need for new workers.  We all recognize that there is an urgent need for more workers to multiply disciples and communities of believers.  Ask anyone of our teams and they will tell you that their number one need is for more people to participate in ministry.

Normally, we look to see this need fulfilled by workers coming from one of our Sending Countries: Australia, Canada or the US.  However, while recently reading through the book, Global Church Planting, I was reminded of a mobilization hub that I had been overlooking, that is, the very community of believers we are involved in establishing.  We often hear that “the resources are in the harvest”, but I don’t think I had ever fully made the connection between our need and the possibility of that need being fulfilled by some in our actual church plants.

If discipling is at the heart of what we do, it must include seeking to develop a heart for the world in those we are discipling.  These disciples would then in turn train
others to have this same attitude, this same heart for the world.

So praying to the Lord of the harvest to send out more workers means seeing workers mobilized from Australia, Canada and the US as well as from the very communities of believers we are establishing.

Filed under: Church planting, Mobilization | 10 Comments »

What’s Our Work (2)?

Posted on June 3, 2011 by wtdavid

Here’s one possible response to the question I raised in yesterday’s post from Craig Ott and Gene Wilson in their book, Global Church Planting:

“From the outset national must be trained to do all essential ministries: evangelism, preaching, teaching, counseling, administration.  The church planter must surrender the desire to have “up front” ministry.  His or her primary role is behind the scenes, equipping others.  The church planter who loves to preach must learn to focus on equipping others to preach; the church planter who is gifted in counseling will need to shift emphasis to empowering others to counsel.
The lay sermons will probably not be as homiletically polished or theologically astute as those the missionary could preach. But the reward will be the development of truly empowered local leaders who will serve the church well after the church planter has departed. The missionary is constantly working himself or herself out of a job, performing a ministry only so long as necessary to train a national.  Indeed, apart from evangelism and initial follow-up, if a national is not available and willing to be trained, the ministry should probably not be initiated.  This may make for a slower start but will result, we believe, in a more solid finish for the church plant.”

One of the essential attitudes, though, needed to keep our hearts and minds focused on the endpoint is gospel humility.  Without a heart mastered by Jesus, convinced
of His incredible love for us, we could not keep an other-centered focus, where we would always seek to equip others in ministry and release them to that task.

 

 

Filed under: Church planting, Gospel, Humility | Leave a comment »

What’s Our Work?

Posted on June 2, 2011 by wtdavid

I like the way one writer describes our work as “that ministry which through evangelism and discipleship establishes reproducing kingdom communities of believers in Jesus Christ …” From the very start, we must be about developing, empowering and releasing local believers into ministry. Otherwise, our work will not give rise to ‘multigenerational reproduction.’

Craig Ott and Gene Wilson in their book, Global Church Planting, put it this way: “When the response is slow, church planters should pray patiently, sow the gospel and make strong disciples using indigenous principles.  There will be pressure to shift to another approach, to assume the pastoral role, or to become the primary “doers” of the ministry.  But this is counterproductive in the long run. Expatriate workers who do this may plant a church – even a large church – but will not launch a CPM, and they may in the process set a negative precedent that hurts multiplication for another generation.”

This process of developing, empowering and releasing others into ministry does not happen through a one, two, three step method.  It is more of an ‘art’, directed by the Spirit.  Yet, though the process may not be straightforward, we must always keep in mind the image (the endpoint, in other words) we are ‘painting’ from the beginning.  If we do not prayerfully work towards making strong disciples and giving them the ministry, we will fall back into becoming the primary doers of ministry.

What are the ways we can keep our minds and hearts focused on that endpoint?

 

Filed under: Church planting, Delegation | Leave a comment »

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