 He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” Throughout the gospels, Jesus presents principles for ministry through parables. These principles are then modeled by Jesus and applied in his assignments for the disciples. This particular parable includes a number of important principles for discipleship and has been an influential part of shaping the Everywhere to Everywhere training weekend event. Nathan and Kari Shank, long term workers and movement catalysts in India, have unpacked the parable of the growing seed in their training manual Four Fields of Kingdom Growth. [Download the manual for free HERE] The Five Parts of the Four Fields In Four Fields of Kingdom Growth, Shank points out that in the parable of the growing seed there are four contexts or fields. There is also a fifth element that is important in every movement of God. He offers a key question for each that focus both our kingdom work strategy and our training of new believers.
Field #4 - The Harvested Field - Eventually a season of harvest comes and the farmer is there to cut and bundle the harvest. Key Question: How do I form a new believers into groups or churches? Leader Multiplication - Generational Multiplication Potential - Out of the harvest comes both fruit for this year and seed for the coming growing season. Key Question: How do I develop and multiply a movement leaders who are raising up leaders? Jesus says that this is what the kingdom of God is like. It seems then that the parable of the growing seed could be a helpful framework around which to build a life of discipleship and ministry. It is the framework that has shaped much of the training we do at Everywhere to Everywhere events across the Midwest. And within it are principles that have been observed in every movement of kingdom expansion throughout history. Every disciple of Jesus should be trained and able to identify and understand how to enter the fields of lostness in their context, whether that be a Muslim village in Central Asia or their suburban neighborhood in Denver or Wichita. Every disciple of Jesus should be trained and able to proclaim the good news of the gospel with anyone, anywhere and anytime. Every disciple of Jesus should be trained and able to disciple new believers into a mature, healthy and growing relationship with Jesus and into the lifestyle of disciple making. And every disciple of Jesus should be trained and able to gather believers together as the body of Christ. The final element, leadership multiplication, is an important part of healthy discipleship and kingdom growth. The Apostle Paul always had two to three disciples with him who he was training up and releasing into ministry. Without the multiplication of leadership, the making of disciples will always come to a bottleneck. But as young disciples take what they have learned and pass it on to other disciples who will pass it on to others (2 Timothy 2:2), the kingdom will expand, our churches will grow and great commission discipleship will be a reality. This is exactly what we see in this parable, in the workings of Jesus and in the unfolding story of the the growth of the early church in the book of Acts. This is what we see in the the great movements of kingdom expansion throughout history. And this is what we see happening in the kingdom movements spreading across countries all around the world today. The Kingdom parables serve as a framework for understanding Jesus’ kingdom agenda across the gospel accounts. Jesus’ kingdom agenda serves as a working job description for both his disciples and our lives and ministries.” The four fields framework also creates a helpful rubric against which we can assess our own discipleship journey. It is a bit of a diagnostic tool which can help us see the places where we need more discipleship and training so that we can become the kind of kingdom agents that Jesus has called us to be. Just as he was sent, he is sending us into a lost and broken world to be his ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20) and witnesses (Acts 1:8). Your Assignment Work through the following questions to help you understand where you might need additional training in order to step into your role as an ambassador and witness.
If you answered “no” to any of these questions or just felt unsure of whether you understand what or how to step into these kingdom assignments, find your pastor or a trusted mentor and ask them to help you get equipped. Check out the great training opportunities at the No Place Left website. However you respond, do something! Amidst this need to learn to do the work of the kingdom, we must remember that applying the principles of this parable to the ministry of making disciples and planting churches demands dependency on the Holy Spirit. It is the work of the Holy Spirit - the unknown doer in the parable - that causes the seed to sprout and to grow. As Christ’s disciples, there is a path laid out in the parable for how we can join in the work of the Spirit, but it is the Spirit that brings the growth. This was the understanding of Paul, who in 1 Corinthians 3:6 says, “I planted, Apollos watered but it was God who made it grow.” There are things that Paul and Apollos need to do and to train others to do, but spiritual fruit is always because of the power of God. My hope is that this parable will help you discover some of the places where you need more training or encouragement to become those who go and make disciples. Did you find this article helpful? Share it with a friend.
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 This Christmas break our family visited the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas and learned all about the race to the moon. The men and women who worked on that program were asked to do what seemed impossible. They had to work toward answers to questions that they did not yet know existed. They needed to develop systems that were not yet developed. The vision to put a man on the moon was far bigger than their own capacities and yet they did it. They worked with a determination that would get their men to the moon.
“. . . but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus.” - Luke 5:19 If you are not familiar with the story of the paralytic whose friends would let nothing stop them from getting him into the healing presence of Jesus, I’d encourage you to stop and read the short story in Luke 5:17-26. These were men whose determination would let nothing stop them from bringing their friend to the feet of Jesus. They were men of stubborn perseverance who knew their ultimate objective and were determined to achieve that objective no matter the obstacles and no matter the cost. This is a theme Jesus brings us back to again and again in the book of Luke. A man loses a single lamb and he leaves the ninety-nine others to search far and wide for it. A woman loses a single silver coin and sweeps the house in search of it despite the nine others she has in her pocket. Relentless searching seems to be the appropriate response in the kingdom of God to the reality of the lost. And celebration is the appropriate response to finding what was lost. What’s It Going To Take I first heard the term “Wig-Take” in 2007 in Chang Mai Thailand. Our trainer was telling of his work in SE Asia among an unreached people group numbering in the millions. He was sharing the plan that he and his team had developed to reach the entire people group. They had started in prayer with a simple question that he called a Wig-Take question: What is it going to take to reach this people group? I’d grown up with questions like, “How can we get more people to come to our church?” a vision which suddenly seemed stunningly inadequate in light of his vision to reach an entire people group; a remote ethnic group of nearly 2 million people with no gospel access and no known believers and who were largely illiterate. It began to seem even more inadequate as he shared stories of their work among these people and what God was doing. This question presupposes a vision that is bigger than me. It’s presupposes a God sized vision, a vision I could never accomplish alone. Pastor Chris Galanos writes about how he discovered the Wig-Take principles and explains it this way, “What’s It Going to Take to Reach Everyone in the People Group?” Not what can I do or what can you do. Not what have others done before us. Not what’s possible. No. What’s it going to take? That’s the question we must ask! We have to be willing to do whatever it’s going to take! [read the whole article] Our trainer in Thailand challenged us with the statement, “If your vision is something you can accomplish by yourself, your vision is probably too small.” I want to encourage you to begin to dream and pray for a God sized vision for your context. Perhaps you live in a city: What is it going to take to reach everyone in your city? Perhaps you live in a small rural town: What is it going to take to reach everyone in your county? Perhaps you are working among a remote group of people in Africa: What is it going to take to reach ALL of them? Pray to the Lord of the harvest for a God sized vision and then begin to ask yourself, what is it going to take? Are we willing to do whatever it is going to take?  When a student says to me, "You're so talented, I could never do what you do." I shouldn't be flattered. Transferability in the ministry context is the idea the that the tools, strategies and methods that we use in ministry could be easily copied and used by anyone we are working with. Another way of talking about this is to ask the question:
Is it reproducible? Could my 14 year old son use a particular method or ministry tool? Could he do what I'm doing? And could he help someone else do it? These are important considerations when we think about making disciples who can make disciples. When Jesus gave us the great commission, his command was to make disciples and teach them to obey all that he commanded. In that regard, everyone who is a disciple of Jesus should be making disciples of Jesus. If the process has somehow become overly complicated, if our methods require so much knowledge or training or expertise that the average follower of Jesus can't obey Jesus, then we've got something wrong. If we desire to see our disciples make disciples then we have to begin to examine what we are doing to disciple them and ask a few questions:
If the answer to any of those questions is NO then we may need to ruthlessly evaluate what we are doing and how we are teaching. Movements are not built on the expertise and charisma of a few but on the on the priesthood of all believers equipped and released to make disciples who make disciples. Disciples need faith, they need vision, they need to be released with authority to do the work. But they also need to be equipped with tools that they can use and teach others to use. And to do that, we must evaluate the tools and methodologies we are using and determine if they are reproducible. Image Credit [check out Giving Up Control, a great ebook by A. J. DeJonge for $0.99 on Kindle]  When my family and I returned from Turkey in 2012, one of the biggest challenges we faced was the level of fear and misunderstanding that we saw in well meaning Christians toward Muslims. We had spent nearly five years building relationships with Muslims who had become our dear friends and it broke our hearts to think that fear, misunderstanding and misinformation were paralyzing the church and preventing them from even saying hello to Muslims here in the U.S. let alone telling them good news about Jesus Christ. In all honesty, my first response was one of bitterness toward the church but God in his grace soon moved me to compassion and understanding. Our friends didn’t share our experience of loving relationships with wonderful Muslim neighbors and friends. It was at about that same time that a friend told me about the Bridges Study. The Bridges Study is a six lesson DVD study that can be used with small groups or Sunday school classes. As I’ve helped groups go through the study, I’ve seen it break down fear and remove misunderstanding as participants grow closer to Jesus as they step out in faith. Crescent Project founder, Fouad Masri, hosts the study which includes great teaching, inspiring testimonies and actionable next steps. I think every church should take their members through the Bridges Study. Here are five reasons why.
The Bridges Study will help you learn about Islam and Muslims through a Biblical/Missional Lens. Everyone is learning something about Islam and about Muslims. The source of that learning is generally the media or media personalities and the motivations behind those talking is often quite different. Some just want everyone to get along. Others want to warn us of hidden plots to take over America. The Bridges Study however presents great information in six thirty minute lessons through a Biblical lens that believes that God wants to see all Muslims repent and believe and follow Jesus. Participants often report that the Bridges Study lowered their fear, increased their understanding and gave them a heart to begin to pray regularly for Muslims to come to faith and look for opportunities to build relationships. The Bridges Study will strengthen the faith of those who go through it. Whenever we step outside of our comfort zones, we have an opportunity to be stretched and see our faith grow. One of the surprising benefits of working to mobilize the church to share the love of Jesus with Muslims was that as people began to explore learning about Islam and about how to share their faith with Muslims, their own faith began to grow. I’ve seen many who have taken the Bridges Study and met a Muslim suddenly reading their Bibles far more regularly because their new Muslim friends ask them questions they’ve never been asked before. Their prayer lives increase. As God begins to use them, their faith grows. The Bridges Study will help those who participate to be Christ’s ambassadors. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says that we are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. One of the cornerstone lessons of the Bridges Study is the four attitudes of an ambassador. It is a lesson that is crucial to understand if we are to share Jesus love with Muslims and as so many participants point out, with anyone. The Bridges Study will invite participants to step out in risk taking obedience to Jesus together with others. After each lesson, there is an action step to take. These are designed to get you out of the living room and into a relationship with a new friend. The goal is to give your new Muslim friend an opportunity to respond to the gospel and be connected with a true follower of Christ. It also gives you and your group an opportunity to step out in risk taking obedience to Jesus together. It gives you the chance to run after the things of God together! There is very little that is more exhilarating than step out in faith with a group of friends for the glory of God! Passive faith becomes active. Shallow fellowship become deep. And God will use your group to share the gospel with Muslims in your community. You’ll be running together! The Bridges Study will help you to be a part of seeing Muslims come to faith in Christ and worship Him. Many of the people I work with struggle to believe that God could use them to introduce a Muslim to a life transforming relationship with Jesus. But as participants begin to step out in faith, God begins to use them, to give them opportunities to share and to love well. Jesus tells us that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few and then he commands us to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out more workers into his harvest fields. The fields are his and he wants to use you to see Muslims come to faith in Christ. He has used people just like you all across the world. The Bridges Study was created first and foremost to help mobilize more harvesters into the harvest among Muslims. Start a Bridges Study today and join God in his miraculous movement in the Muslim world. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BRIDGES STUDY Click here to watch Session 4 to get of feel for the study After participating in an Everywhere to Everywhere (E2E) training weekend, many ask the question, "What next?" The Bridges Study can be a great next step as you return to your home church. Invite others to join you in exploring how God might want to use you - and your church - to reach the Muslim world. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT E2E  When you read the gospels and the book of Acts, one thing stands out - everyone is talking about Jesus. Boldly. In fact the idea of bold proclimation of the gospel comes up in nearly every chapter of the book of Acts. Regardless of risk or response, it is what those following Jesus did. They seemed to believe that if the sowed the gospel broadly, they would reap an abundant harvest. They seemed to believe that when Jesus said the harvest was plentiful, he was telling the truth. They believed and trusted in the gospel. Sometimes when my pastor shares a story about sharing the gospel with someone he's met on a plane or at a gas station, others will say, "He's so gifted at sharing the gospel." While my pastor is a truly gifted man in a lot of different aspects of life and ministery, I usually take a moment to disagree with that statement. You see it's not so much that he is gifted at sharing the gospel, it's that he is sharing the gospel. He sows abundently and guess what, he reaps more abundantly than most. It is as Jesus and the scriptures say it is. Wayne Gretsky once quipped that he missed 100% of the shots that he never took. And so as followers of Jesus, we need to find ways to share the gospel. We are to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8) and to be His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20) and both of those require us to say something. The outcome is in the hands of the Holy Spirit and not for us to worry about. We just need to share. One tool that I have been taught that I have found to be very helpful is the Three Circles tool for sharing the gospel. I like it for a number of reasons but mostly because it is simple enough for my 12 year old to be able to use. Some might push back saying that it is too simple - fair enough. If you want to add Bible verses or other things, you can certainly do that. But the reality of someone coming to faith is not dependant on a perfect gospel presentation - it's dependant of the Holy Spirit's work in the heart of the one who is lost. Four Spiritual Laws, Roman's Road, The Way of the Master, the Cross Diagram - they all work. Not because they are somehow the perfect presentation of the gospel but because people of faith use them. When we step out in faith to enter into gospel conversations, God shows up. Below are a number of examples of the Three Circles Gospel presentation. Jimmy Scroggins, who developed the Three Circles tool, has a great five video training series which is really helpful. CLICK HERE TO START TRAINING NOW! Three Circles in other languages: (Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Russian, German, Chinese, Nepali, Italian, Turkish, Urdu, Arabic)  Do you have a plan to disciple new believers? How about a plan to continue to disciple mature believers?
Do you have a discipleship plan? In the great commission (Matthew 28:18-20), Jesus told us to go and make disciples. It was the last thing he commanded his followers to do. In order to be able to obey Jesus, it would be helpful to have a plan for making disciples. With this short article, I want to introduce some principles for beginning discipleship. But lets start by learning from the word of God. Discovery Bible Study Read Matthew 28:18-20 two times to yourself and then answer these questions.
How did you answer the questions above? Who should make disciples? As I read the passage, it seems pretty clear that everyone who is a disciple should be making disciples. If I am going to teach someone to obey everything that Jesus commanded, then this command is one of those commands. Jesus gives us a command to make disciples. Making disciples is Jesus' plan for kingdom growth. It's that simple. Here are a few ideas to help us begin to make a plan for discipleship that we can use and that we can train everyone to use. Discipleship Lessons Short Term Discipleship - getting started for new believers Long Term Discipleship - keeping moving for maturing believers Short Term Discipleship Short Term Discipleship should lay the foundation on which the new believer will build his or her life in Christ. It's sort of like boot camp for a soldier. They learn the basics but more importantly learn what it means to be a soldier. Here are a few guidelines for thinking about creating or finding a discipleship plan for new believers.
What a disciple does in the first three months of faith, shapes the DNA of the faith they will live out the rest of their lives. If the disciple is asked to passively observe the work of the church, passivity will likely be the DNA. Some examples of Short term discipleship plans can be found below. The main thing is to find or create a simple plan that you can use to help new believers in Jesus to begin a life obeying Jesus and growing in maturity. We have to be intentional to make disciples. We have to train our new disciples how to make disciples. When we do this, by the grace of God and with the help of the Holy Spirit, we begin to see multiplication. Long Term Discipleship A long term discipleship plan must move new disciples from milk to meat, giving them the tools to move into a lifetime of discipleship through dependence on the word of God and the working of the Holy Spirit. We'll talk more about long term discipleship in a future post. Learn it. Apply it. Share it. Today. *The ideas in this article come from pages 59 - 71 in Four Fields of Kingdom Growth. (read it for free here) Short Term Discipleship Plans
 The three column Bible study method is something I learned to use from a missionary trainer in 2010. It is a way to interact with the word of God. By prayerfully using this method, we can discover the truths of scripture for ourselves. By teaching our disciples this method - the people we are investing in - we can teach them to feed on the word of God for themselves, helping them to grow into deeper and deeper maturity in the Lord. It doesn’t require a degree in theology, it only requires a desire to grow in the Lord, your Bible, a piece of paper and some time. A few things to consider The three column Bible study methods works better with smaller sections of scripture. You could use it with full chapters, but I generally use it with passages of four to eight verses in length. While you could use this method every day, I generally use it as a few times a month or when I feel the need to really dig into a passage of scripture or a set of scriptures on a particular topic. Finally, remember, this is a tool. Tools have their place, but they are not in and of themselves anything special. It’s just another way to study scripture and to learn to listen to the voice of God. How to do it Divide a sheet of paper into three columns. In the first column copy the passage of scripture that you are studying word for word from your Bible. Take your time doing this, meditating on the words as you write. In the process of copying the passage word for word, you will actually read through it several times. After you have finished copying down the passage, take a few minutes to pray for the Holy Spirit to give you insight into the scripture and to reveal to you the lessons that He would like you to learn from it. In the second column, reread the passage. Think about what it means. Then do your best to paraphrase, or re-write, the passage in your own words. Work through the entire passage re-writing it in your own words in the second column. When you finish, take a few minutes to meditate on the entire passage. Ask the Lord to reveal to you what you need to apply from the passage into your own life.
Finally, take a few moments to pray for help from the Lord to apply what you have learned in your study of the passage this very day. And be sure to share with someone what you learned. Learn it - Apply it - Share it - Today. As we learn from scripture and apply it to our lives and share it with others, we will grow in maturity in the Lord. An Example  I've learned a lot about making disciples from Curtis Sergeant. You can read more about Curtis at www.obeygc2.com. Curtis has put together 28 videos that are for those wanting to learn how to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples. They are a great resource and I think you will find these extremely helpful. I would encourage you to take the next 28 days to watch one video each day. Most are between 3 - 7 minutes long. You can watch all of the videos here: Multiplication Concepts And just to get you started, I'll post the first four videos below.  There is that in the Gospel which demands expression and is never satisfied without propagating itself. We have seen again and again in the history of the Church that a Christianity which does not propagate itself languishes, if it does not perish. I was recently at a seminar where Randy Friesen shared about the pomogranate. It's a fruit that isn't all that common in North America and yet it has a pecular place in the Bible. It is the fruit that is found adorning the hems of the robes of the priests (Exodus 28; Exodus 39) and is the only fruit decorating the the temple (1 Kings 7; 2 Kings 25; 2 Chronicles 3). Why such a special place for this special fruit? It has to do with God's heart for multiplication. Throughout scripture we see princlples of multiplication and the idea that the glory of the Lord would spread throughout the earth. Genesis chapter one is filled with hints God's heart for multiplication. God's desire is to see his love, grace and salvation multiplied and we see in the methods of Jesus how he intends to do this: through disciples who make disciples who make disciples. And that is the beauty of the pomegranate. It is the only fruit which is 100% seed. In every pomegranate, every bit of nourishement in it's fruit also carries the seed for reproduction. And that is the way it is to be in Christ's church. We have too often fallen into the habbit of depending on the professionals to do the work of entering fields of lostness, sharing the good news of the gospel and discipling new believers. But the expectation of Jesus and the example of the gospels, the book of Acts, the epistles and anywhere in church history where kingdom expansion is taking place is that all who call on the name of Jesus to be saved are also obeying Jesus and making disciples. In Christ, we are made to reproduce. The Church isn't an apple where most of us are fruit and a few of us are made to do the work of making disciples. The church is a pomegranate and each us is compelled to obey Jesus and make disciples. It will look different for everyone, but we all have a part to play. Do you know your part? And do you know how to make disciples? Have you been equipped to enter into gospel conversations, to share your testimony and the a clear proclamation of the gospel and to lead someone to faith? And when they come to faith, are you prepared to train your new believing friend in the foundations of what it means to follow Jesus and make Him Lord of their lives? If not, we'd love to help you learn. |
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