Here is a question for you: Are you training or teaching your disciples?

You may be wondering, is there a difference?

There is a difference and despite the differences, they are both used powerfully by God to raise up disciples. Both are valuable and important, but we too often try to teach things that we should be training.

-- Teaching is the  passing on and receiving of information to gain knowledge.

-- Training is the passing on and mastering of skills.

Again, both are important.  

But consider the picture above. A man is helping a younger person become a bicycle mechanic.

There are many ways to become a bicycle mechanic. My wife once bought be a book called "Bicycle Maintenance" and it gave instructions on how to fix all sorts of problems that happen with a bicycle. There were even lots of pictures.

Reading a book is one way to learn about fixing my bicycle.

But I never really became a bicycle mechanic - I had a lot of knowledge, but I didn't master the skills. That is because fixing a bicycle is more about learning skills than it is about gaining a bunch of knowledge.  

To become a competent bicycle mechanic, what I need to do is spend time with a bicycle mechanic - like the boy in the picture above.  

I need to change hundreds of bicycle inner tubes. I need to adjust hundreds of bicycle break problems. I need to take a apart and put back together hundreds of bicycles. 
 
Because the only way to get competent at fixing bikes is to fix lots of bikes.

Some aspects of being a bicycle mechanic are really just about knowledge.  

• What size of tube goes in what type of bike tire?
• Where can I find the parts I need to fix bikes?
• When do I need to replace bearings?

But most of the work of a bicycle mechanic is a skill. And there is really only one way to get competent at a skill.
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Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice.

And it is that way in almost every area of life.

Anything that you do well, you do it well because you have done it a lot. You have mastered a skill.

So now let's step back and look at how we make disciples. Much of what we know to do in order to obey Jesus are actually skills that we have learned. We don't just know about prayer, we have become better at prayer as we have prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed.

We don't just know about reading our Bibles. We are a lot better at reading God's word and interacting with it and learning from it now than when we first began.

And with both, there was probably someone who modeled for you what prayer is and how to read your Bible and walked with you until you figured it out.

What are the things that disciples of Jesus do?

I would encourage you to make a list of five to ten things that you wish every member of your church was doing regularly as a disciple of Jesus and then ask yourself, "Has someone trained them to do that?"

I'll give you one example. We all know that as disciples of Jesus we are commanded to tell others about the gospel. One way to do that is to share our personal testimony. Paul did this frequently in the book of Acts.  And we should learn to share testimonies of what God has done in our lives as well. The 15 second testimony is one simple way to train others to share their testimony.

         Learn How: Share Your 15 Second Testimony

We won't be confident to share what we are not competent to share.

Learn it.  Apply it.  Share it.  Today.

photo credit

​Last week we shared seven podcasts that we have found helpful to fuel the missions fire.  Today we’d like to add to that list of resources and share with you seven video channels that will help you train unto the harvest and cast vision for the great commission.   Some are focused purely on training and equipping the local church.  Others are focused on helping the local church catch God’s vision for the nations.  All have been inspiring and helpful and we hope they will do the same for you.

Everywhere to Everywhere (E2E) works to multiply healthy disciples and raise up missional leaders.  We are challenged to inspire believers to cultivate a heart for the least reached locally, nationally and globally and to provide tools that will help them make a difference.

We hope that these seven video channels will support that effort.

At the bottom of the post, we’ve shared one video from each of these sites to give you a bit of the flavor of their content and we hope you will explore more.

​[READ ALL OF THE 7 SERIES BLOG POSTS]
 
MB Mission
https://vimeo.com/mbmission

MB Mission believes in the power of story.  Their videos will take you into the heart of mission all across the world, telling the stories of God’s engagement with and through his people.  Powerful testimonies will encourage and inspire you.

Global Frontier Missions
https://www.youtube.com/user/gfmvideos​
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Their GFM 101 series of videos have been especially helpful for casting vision with local churches and individuals.  These short videos do a great job of unpacking the great commission and some key concepts that missionaries are wrestling with today.

Frontiers USA
https://vimeo.com/frontiersusa
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​Frontiers is one of the largest mission agencies focusing specifically on the Muslim world.  These inspiring videos tell the story of God's working through his people across the Muslim world.

No Place Left Training
https://www.youtube.com/npltraining
The No Place Left Network are a group of like minded individuals and churches who are working to see movements of disciples making disciples spread across the globe until there is no place left (Romans 15:23).  In order to work toward that goal, they have been developing simple and accessible training tools.  These they freely give to anyone who is interested in being a disciple who makes disciples and we have incorporated these tools into our Everywhere to Everywhere training events.  The 411 Training module is a key component of E2E. 

Curtis Sergeant Training for Multiplication
https://www.youtube.com/curtissergeant
Curtis is one of the foremost trainers in movement methodology and has been a catalytic part of movements across the globe.  His 28 multiplication concepts videos are a great first step into thinking about multiplication.  They are accessible and easily understandable and at less than 10 minutes, each can be watched over a lunch break or after work. 

Engage Africa
https://www.youtube.com/engageafrica
Engage Africa has put together a series of five videos unpacking their work to see multiplying movements happen across Africa.  Hosted by African pastors and practitioners, these videos allow us to learn from local leaders on the ground in Africa.  Filled with powerful teaching and amazing testimony, these videos are a great tool for learning about missions and movement.

Pioneers USA
https://vimeo.com/pioneersusa
Pioneers is another large mission agency whose focus is on unreached people groups across the globe.  Their videos do a good job of telling the story of what God is doing among the nations. They also have a series of videos to help train and equip sending churches - great for pastors and mission committees.
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If you know of other video channels like these, feel free to share them in the comments below.

  I first met Any McCullough at an international church in Central Asia.  He was on an short trip preparing to move to our city and we had the privilege of taking them out to eat that day.  As a language coach and a friend, I got to have a bit of a front row seat to the settling of his family and team into the cross cultural context of ministry.  What I observed impressed me in so many ways and so when I saw he had written a book on how we should enter into new cultures, I was excited.

Global Humility: Attitudes for Mission is powerful, insightful and a must read for anyone interested in cross-cultural ministry.  Broken into six different sections,  Andy explores all facets of cross cultural work through the lens of what he believes is the most important aspect of this work: humility.  Filled with first hand experience, personal stories, Biblical insight and sharp observation, Global Humility is a must read for anyone interested in learning from the global church and in moving cross-culturally as an ambassador of Christ.  We will certainly be incorporating some of the lessons into the Becoming a Cross Cultural Ambassodor session of E2E.

In Andy’s own words, he hopes that this book will stimulate, provoke and challenge you and cause you to pray more, cause you to think about the world in a humbler way with a broader perspective.

Global Humility does just that.  

Andy writes in an easy to read way that is engaging and insightful.   There are so many nuggets of wisdom in this book and so here are some those nuggets that I found as I read: one from each chapter.  I hope this will give you a taste of what the book is all about and motivate you to order your own today.

Click Here to Get Global Humility*

Section 1 - Moral Humility: Thinking About Sin

Chapter 1 - Tamar: Voice from the Margins
One of the great sins of those who cross cultures, particularly those who travel from the powerful to the powerless, is the sin of judging.  The centre judges the margins. The strong judge the weak. The missionary judges the heathen. The Christian judges the non-Christian.

Chapter 2 - The Sins of Jonah
Humility is reading scripture and identifying with its weak characters.  If Jonah had such gaping flaws, the chances are we do too. Jonah does not have much to teach us about strategy, but a whole load to teach us about our hearts.

Chapter 3 - The Men from James
The word of the gospel is able to keep and build the believers.  All of the tree is in the seed. Everything is an enormous mature tree was originally in the seed;  all the DNA necessary. A seed needs planting and watering and needs space clearing out for it to grow (James 1:21), but does not need adding to.  So with the gospel of the grace of God in Christ!

Chapter 4 - Softening Your Certainty
Our greatest theologians have only read the first line of the first page of an infinite library which is the knowledge of God.  May our speech, our self-perception and our approach to God and others be softer!

Chapter 5 - Humanity as Victim
We must not forget that Sin as Tyrant is as big a theme in the biblical witness as Sin as Choice.  The latter is still true, and the Christian formulation of sin includes both, but one of the things that makes Christianity unique as a world religion is the picture of sin as a power oppressing humankind and hence, necessitating a Savior.  Islam, for instance, would teach Sin as Choice but not Sin as Tyrant. We, however, have a Savior who came not to judge but to save the world! If we can see people in this way, then instead of blaming we will serve and instead of judging we will empathise.

Section 2 - Public Humility: Thinking About the World

Chapter 6 - Whose Story?
The geographical heartlands of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam are still where they have always been, and the faithful go their on pilgrimage.  Not so with Christianity.

Chapter 7 - On Memory
When introducing yourself to someone from a high-context culture, they don’t just want to know who you are as an individual, but who your father and grandfather were, where your people come from originally, where your village is.  Third generation urban migrants still talk about their village, even if they have never been there. One of the major differences between identity in the East and the West is the role of memory.

Section 3 - Semantic Humility: Thinking About Language
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Chapter 8 - Nimrod Versus Abram
That is why Christian mission must be dominated by an Abrahamic ‘go’ rather than a Nimrodian ‘come’.  In multicultural cities and towns of Europe the same dynamic is true. There are many in your town who can never come to your church, the geographic, linguistic, cultural barriers are too many.  You may think your church is accessible because it has a good website and a wheelchair ramp, but what about emotional and cultural accessibility? Instead, you must go to them!

Chapter 9 - Heart Language
In any cross-cultural relationship, language is an invisible power differential.  If our whole desire is to see local responsibility, local leadership, local ownership in the Church, one of the most decisive ways to achieve this is local language.

Chapter 10 - Translatability
One of the most important things about Christianity is its translatability.  I can talk to God in my own heart language. God can speak to me (through the scriptures) in my own mother tongue.  I don’t have to learn a sacred language - the gospel invades my language and renders it sacred!

Section 4 - Intercultural Humility: Thinking About Differences

Chapter 11 - Whose Reason?
Have you ever noticed that in the Old Testament there are very few ‘photographic’ descriptions of appearance, whether of people or of buildings?  But there is an obsession with the process of building. This because in the East, verbs are more important than nouns. For the biblical writers, describing what the temple looked like was not as important as describing how it was made.

Chapter 12 - I Am Because We Are
We have learned that when Westerners talk about church as ‘family’ they mean something very different to what Easterners expect.  If you are going to use that word, are you prepared to live up to the implications? Family pool financial resources to send a nephew to university, or to buy a married couple a house.  Family find jobs for each other. Family is invasive, comments on everything, admits no no-go areas.

Chapter 13 - Honour Motivation
There is a Turkish proverb, ‘A stone is weighty in its place.’  Where you are from, where you are known, you have weight.

Chapter 14 - Multisense
… if we discount all form and ritual, then we are making informality a gospel essential, when it is only a cultural preference.  We must learn to contextualize to high-context cultures!

Section 5 - Incarnational Humility: Thinking About Leadership

Chapter 15 - Contextualize Yourself!
Although it is rare for cross-cultural workers to genuinely ‘become’ local, the effort that you make to expose yourself to the same lifestyle as those you are seeking to reach - your schooling options, accomodation, work hours, food - will go a long way to communicating the compassion of Christ who lived among Jewish men as a Jewish man.

Chapter 16 - Sent Like Jesus
We are servants of the Sent One!  Jesus’ incarnation is the model for our incarnation.  His vulnerability is the template for our vulnerability.  His humility, the prototype for our humility. His pain, the pattern for our pain.

Chapter 17 - Scaffolding
Reaching the unreached requires collaboration between different apostolic spheres, open-handedness and a non-possessive approach.

Chapter 18 - Leadership is Not Like Riding a Bicycle
The science of leadership is one of the most prevalent forms of neo-colonialism around in the Church today.

Section 6 - Theological Humility: Thinking About Thinking

Chapter 19 - Narrative
The goal of missions is indigenous expression of ancient truth.  The danger for missionaries is bringing the gospel plus something additional.

Chapter 20 - Parable
Jesus was unafraid to say ‘the kingdom of heaven is like . . .’  In fact, he knew that the only way our tiny human brains could conceive of the divine was through the medium of comparison to the material, everyday world.

Chapter 21 - Theology as a Verb
Theology should be taught as a verb and not as a noun.  To theolog-ise. Especially cross-culturally. We must teach people how to think, not what to think.

Chapter 22 - De-Westernising Your Eschatology
Eurocentrism is rarely more evident in Bible interpretation than in the history of the interpretation of Revelation.

Chapter 23 - Apostolic Plurality
If an Indian reads a verse one way, and an Inuit reads it another way, because of cultural lenses affecting their reading, who is right?  Who is wrong? And how can these be reconciled? How different should a Middle Eastern theology be from a North American theology? I know this is a mind boggling question, but we have to have the courage to ask it.

Click Here to Get Global Humility*


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​Take a moment to watch Andy talk about his book below.

* The links to this book are affiliate links.

In 1792, William Carey published his rather long titled manifesto of missions, An Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.  The title reflects the times in which he lived both in its length and in its use of the word "heathen" and yet, its publication along with his subsequent founding of the Baptist Missionary Society later that same year began what we now know as the modern missions movement.  

Many were to follow in Cary’s footsteps, taking the gospel from the West where it had been firmly established for over 1,000 years to the East and South where it had yet to be shared.  In 1900 Africa was less than 10% Christian.(1)  In 1950, 100 years after Hudson Taylor arrived, the population of Christians in China  was a mere 3.4 million out of a total population of 550 million.

This was the reality in which the paradigm of modern missions developed.  It was the need of the hour. The vast majority of those whose faith in Christ compelled them to take the great commission seriously lived in the West and so, through much sacrifice, they supported and sent their sons and daughters to what David Bryant calls “the widest end of the gap.”

The world in which they lived dictated that they sail slowly to these lands, that they send occasional correspondence back to home churches which remained far away, across a vast expanse of land and ocean.  The work of missions then was “over there” and it was left to those who felt called to go. For the rest of us, “over here”, well we did our best to support their work, to pray, to give to the missionaries and occasionally, to go ourselves.  But mostly we got on with the work of doing church in places where we were the majority culture.

And the paradigm through which we view the great commission increasingly became something for someone else to do.  

Doug Birdsall, quoted in the book Western Christians in Global Mission says, “The Great Commission is for every church in every culture in every generation.  There are no exclusions. But . . . every church in every culture in every generation must determine the way in which they respond to this responsibility -- in a way that is appropriate to time and context."​

For those in  William Carey’s and Hudson Taylor’s time, sending missionaries overseas was the only responsible response to the vast numbers of people living outside of any real access to the gospel.  The only way to bring the gospel to China was to go there. Those generations in those churches determined the best way to complete the great commission was to send missionaries.

The problem is that this paradigm for how to complete the great commission became the status quo and each new generation of churches simply continued to do what previous generations had done.  They improved upon the mistakes of previous generations thankfully, but the basic idea of mission stayed the same and the church by and large, remained on the outside looking in.

In the last twenty years however, the context of our world has changed in unprecedented ways.  Those changes demand that this generation reassess the church’s role in Jesus commission to His church as we see it in Matthew 28:18-20.  We cannot continue to merely do what previous generations in the West have done.   To do so would be irresponsible!

Unprecedented Change
When Hudson Taylor went to China in the 1850s, his friends and sending churches back in England knew very little about China.  None of them had ever met anyone from China. It was quite literally on the other side of a very big world.

Today, we can learn anything we want about China with a click of a button.  Nearly everything we own was made in China and with very little effort, we can befriend a Chinese student who wants to practice English online.  Over 350,000 Chinese are studying in U.S. universities and there are Chinese restaurants in most every town. Because of entrepreneurial opportunities, every city in America has Chinese residents.

And it’s not just China. Sioux Falls  - a small Midwestern city in South Dakota of just under 200,000, is home to over 140 different languages from countries all over the world.  A vast majority of the workforce at John Morrell - Sioux Falls’ third largest employer - is foreign born. Just up the road at South Dakota State University in Brookings, students from all over the world are working toward both bachelors and advanced degrees.

Globalization is a reality that has moved forward at a lightning quick pace.  Driven by technological advances that have connected our world like never before, by the rise of English as a global trade language and by the greatest migrations of people the world has ever known, globalization is changing the context of the world in which we live.

And it is this changing context that demands we rethink the role local churches and individual Christians play in in the great commission.

Unprecedented Opportunities
​Global migration is increasing rapidly.  According to PEW Research, in 2015, nearly 250 million people lived outside of the their country of birth.  This is three times more than in 1960. This is due in part to the global refugee crisis but also to the rise of a global middle class.  More and more people across the globe are simply able to immigrate to wealthier countries. They come for education, for a better job or to avoid some of the inherent challenges of making a life in a developing country.  

A friend of mine immigrated with his parents to Canada when he was fourteen.  His father was an entrepreneur and had started several successful businesses in Western China but was continually frustrated by the communist government bureaucracy and so decided he’d try his luck in Canada.  

My friend was Hui Chinese, a Muslim minority people. He had been raised in a Muslim home and educated in Chinese schools where he was indoctrinated with atheistic teaching. His chance of meeting a Christian or hearing the gospel in his hometown in China was slim to none.  

Global migration trends mean that the chances are increasingly likely that you will have a neighbor, a co-worker or perhaps a doctor who comes from another country.  Your children will go to school with children who may not speak English at home. You may say hello to a young man at a coffee shop like I did with my friend and discover that he is part of a people group of nearly 14 million people that is less than 0.01% Christian.

Global Migration creates tremendous new opportunities for churches in the West.  It would be irresponsible to ignore these opportunities and so I’d like to offer a few ideas for how you can step into the work that God is doing here as he brings the nations to us.

First, begin praying!  God is on the move and He’s inviting you into his mission to reach the nations. You may need to begin praying first for your own heart - I get that. There is a lot in the news that would lead you to be fearful of this talk of  global migration trends. You may be nervous or scared or even filled with thoughts and ideas that are decidedly not like Jesus.  Dive into the scriptures and let God’s word shape your heart as you pray for Jesus to take away your fear and replace it with compassion.

And then begin praying for the nations among us.  Pray for opportunities to build relationships with people who have not heard the good news of Jesus.  Pray for their blessing and protection. Pray that they would have an opportunity to respond to the gospel.  

Start praying and don’t stop.

Next, do some research.  Who is coming to your town?  Where are they coming from and why?  What do they believe? Are they African or Latin American Christians - our brothers and sisters in Christ from whom we could learn a thing or two?  Are they Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist? Are they from an unreached people group or perhaps even from an unengaged people group?

You can learn a lot about people groups at the two sites listed below.  These are two organizations working to keep the church informed on how we are doing with the Great Commission.  

• www.peoplegroups.org
• www.joshuaproject.net
• Largest 100 Unreached People Groups

Finally, meet someone!  Say hello.  Bring a plate of cookies to someone’s door.  Be a good neighbor.

It is not nearly as difficult or complicated as we seem to think it will be.  Being a good neighbor doesn’t require a degree in rocket science.

Are their things you’ll want and need to learn?  Of course.

Will you need to enter the relationship with humility, actively seeking to learn from and about your new friend?  Yes.

Will there be a language barrier? That depends, but if there is, you’ll have an amazing opportunity to practice humility and show kindness by having them help you learn some of their language as you help them learn English.

Will you get to try new foods?  Probably, and you’ll most likely be overwhelmed by your new friend’s hospitality. 

Will it be hard?  Absolutely yes.  Relationships generally have their ups and downs and cross cultural relationships are no different.  How you respond during the hard moments can and will be a powerful testimony to the transformative work of Jesus in your life.

Here is the reality.  You may be the one whom Christ uses to bring one of His lost sheep into His kingdom.  He will do that and is doing that everyday all across the globe.  You can say, “Yes, I want to be a part of what God is doing.” or you can say "no".  

It’s up to you.

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.