Grand-kids are the best!

We recently had the tremendous privilege of spending a couple of days training some young adults, who in just a few weeks are heading overseas to church plant among unreached people. We started the training by saying that we had no interest in training the people sat in front of us - but rather, in seeing their spiritual grand-children and great-grand-children trained! The training we offered was for the benefit of those they would lead to faith in Jesus, and equip in turn.

For too long we have settled for so little. Seeing one individual come to faith is awesome - after all, it gets heaven partying - but in the context of the millions facing eternity without Jesus, are we really going to settle for that? Surely not! So not only must we set out to train every follower of Jesus we can, we must ensure that they in turn can train others in the same way.

Some of us feel threatened by this, as it can undermine our status and position, but our attitude should be that of John the Baptist - whose role was to point forward to  Jesus, of whom he said, "He must become greater; I must become less." (John 3:30) Our desire must be that those we train go on to far greater things than we ever will!

You will probably know the story of how Andrew, upon meeting Jesus, immediately went and told his brother, Simon Peter (John 1:40ff), but of course the story does not end there. Through various connections, sermons, conversions, mentoring relationships and church planting, we see a chain that runs from Andrew - Peter - Barnabas - Paul - Timothy - Epaphras - Archippus - Nympha who hosted a house church. It makes a fascinating study.

If we are to reach NoPlaceLeft, then we need to be constantly training trainers who train trainers, who... 

Fail to prepare and be prepared to fail

I was reading through Numbers 15 recently, as you do, and the first 12 verses deal with the correct preparations for the supplementary offerings, in excruciating detail. The amount of finest flour, and olive oil, and wine to accompany the main offering varies according to the animal being sacrificed. Please feel free to go ahead and read it for yourself!

I am not convinced that the specific amounts really matter to God, but rather it is that careful preparation which matters. As an activist such thoughts do not please me!

Charles Upham is a New Zealand hero, being the only person to be awarded two Victoria Crosses during the second world war. Having already served five years in the NZ territorial army, he enlisted in 1939, at the age of 30, and was awarded his first VC in May 1941, and his second in July 1942. He was captured that month, and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner, including time in the notorious Colditz castle.After years of preparation, his active service lasted only two and a half years, before he was captured, yet in that short period of time he was awarded two Victoria Crosses! Maybe all that training and preparation was frustrating, but how valuable it proved to be.

When Joshua and the Israelite army were faced with the walled, fortified city of Jericho, God had an unusual plan. The whole army was to walk around the city walls every day for six days, then on the seventh day they were to do so seven times! Sure enough, at the end of circuit seven, accompanied by the soldiers' shouting, the walls collapsed, and victory was achieved. What was that all about? Perhaps it was again about preparation. As the soldiers marched, their fear and doubts decreased, and confidence grew, while those looking out from the inside became more and more fearful. All that walking changed something in those inside and those outside the walls!

In Isaiah 40:3 we read of "a voice of one calling: 'In the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord..." What does that mean for us? Well I think it has to be prayer, prayer and more prayer. As we pray, and as we prayer walk, we are changed, and the spiritual atmosphere is changed, and people's hearts are opened. There is quite simply no other way.

It often feels that our nation is under a kind of fog, which prevents people from seeing God, and truth, and spiritual reality - and only as we pray can that fog be removed. Prayer is the preparation God requires of us. As we pour out our hearts, and listen for God's guidance and instructions, everything changes. We position ourselves to be ready and available for God to work in us and through us. So the transformation of the nation begins.

Train train train

This is the blog I really should not need to write. The great Commission commands us to "teach them to obey all that I have commanded you to do", which includes the Great Commission itself. So how well are most Christians being trained to fulfil this task?

It is a question I ask frequently of church-goers, and the answers vary, from the humble Anglicans who claim no training at all, to the enthusiastic Pentecostals who claim that they are "ready to go out with you right now," but when invited to share their testimony usually give a lengthy historical waffle, and a Gospel presentation which is filled with incomprehensible Christian rhetoric.

A good friend of ours says our story should be a tasty piece of bait, otherwise the fish won't be interested. For me that means my story needs to be
- short and precise - aim for a minute!
- current, explaining how Jesus still impacts my life today, not just how He once transformed it
- clear, explaining the difference between my life before and after Jesus
- not just my story, but about how Jesus' story makes all the difference.
 For how to do this, look here

Likewise our explanation of the Gospel may be theologically accurate and Biblically sound, but if it simply does not connect with our listeners, or make any sense to them, then we are doomed to failure. We have tried out a number of approaches, and I would suggest you do the same. We currently use the 3-Circles, which we have found to be extremely effective in a  Kiwi context. Have a look here

Who do we train? Everybody who is willing to be trained as a disciple-maker. Not just those we think are suitable, but everybody. Some of the most effective evangelists and disciple-makers in the New Testament are people I would not have chosen - the Samaritan woman at the well, the Demoniac, at least half of the twelve disciples, the Apostle Paul, surely the greatest church planter in history!

Much of our training has been focussed on training the capable to function in the church context. Going forward, we absolutely must seek to "equip, train and apprentice every follower of Jesus for the work of ministry as a disciple maker and church planter." (Rick Wood)

Stop Planting Churches

This is going to sound pretty arrogant, but here goes anyway: I am pretty sure that even in the tough soil of New Zealand I could plant a successful new church. I would need some help - particularly with music, as we would need quality contemporary music and therefore quality contemporary musicians. Producing outstanding expository sermons shouldn't be too problematic, I can speak pretty well and I have a good network of others I can call upon. Add in some amazing small groups, and I reckon they would flock in.

Supporters would be impressed, and maybe even increase their giving. I'd feel good about our new church. The problem of course is that in all likelihood those who come would probably all be existing Christians looking for a more fulfilling church experience, so in reality I have achieved next to nothing.

That's presumably why Jesus didn't command us to plant churches. And why He did command us to make disciples. Putting it simply, "healthy disciples will go on to form healthy churches." (Rick Wood), so making disciples must be our priority.

This is not new of course, it seems everyone is talking about making disciples these days, but sadly the focus is usually in further educating those already part of our churches - the problematic words here being "educating", and "already part of our churches." According to Jesus in the Great Commission in Matthew 28, discipleship is about obedience not knowledge, so, wherever and however you consider you are in the disciple-making business, your first self-evaluation question has to be "are the people I am discipling becoming more obedient to Jesus, and are they in turn discipling others?"

Equally important is the issue of who we are discipling. It will not be easy to motivate those who have followed Jesus for years while cheerfully ignoring the Great Commission. By contrast, new disciples of Jesus seem to get it straight away. As someone must have already said, "next year's best disciple-making disciple-maker is probably not yet a Christian." So our second self-evaluating question is "am I merely trying to disciple those already established in their following of Jesus, or am I going out into the harvest field to find disciple-making disciple-makers?"

If it sounds like I am suggesting evangelism is a prerequisite to true disciple-making, well, I am!

Here, there and everywhere

I love the church as we know it - it is the Bride of Christ, and if He loves it (and He does), who am I not to? It 'works' for significant numbers of people in some parts of the world. But, it isn't enough - there are millions and millions of people around the world who will never be reached and won for Jesus by church as we know it.

As Ralph Winter said, "Most of those yet to follow Christ will not fit into the kinds of churches we have now."

In an increasingly mobile world, I believe we must become less building based - at least in terms of owning and maintaining a building. The main advantage of being based in a permanent building is that people know where to find us - the problem is that few people are looking. People are spiritually hungry, yes, but they often (wrongly in my opinion) perceive church as the last place they will find spiritual connection, let alone an encounter with the creator of the universe. We cannot keep pretending that "if we build, they will come."

"Church planting is not about how many people we can get into a building for an event on a Sunday. It is about how many disciple makers we can equip to make more disciples and start new churches. (Rick Wood) Is the way we do Sunday church likely to equip  and develop disciple making disciple makers? Well generally speaking it isn't doing so currently.

So here's the first principle - if our goal is healthy disciples, then part of the transition will be to gather where they are comfortable, not just where it suits us. Homes (in some cultures), workplaces (and how validated would people feel if their church leader ever visited their work place?), parks (if the weather permits), cafes, McDonalds (they do healthy food too, apparently, and often provide meeting rooms for free!),  social and sports clubs, schools and University campuses...the list goes on and on.

If you have a church building, don't knock it down - thank God for it! Make it accessible to the wider community, do God-stuff in rooms other than the 'sanctuary', invite everyone in - but don't let it limit what you do in terms of disciple making and where you do it, and getting out into the harvest field. If you don't have a church building, don't worry, it is far from necessary!

Planting Churches New Zealand - an introduction

During the supposedly quieter days of summer I have been reflecting, 
always a dangerous thing. For many of the people we come into contact 
with, 'legacy' church doesn't work - I am thinking students, shift 
workers, young families and so on. I am not thinking here about the  
usual "the worship is too traditional/too modern, the sermons are too
shallow/too theological, the vicar spends too much time with 
outsiders/those who already come to church" kind of stuff, but much more 
significant and fundamental issues. 

The simple reality is that our usual way of doing church will not work in reaching many unreached Kiwis. With a very few exceptions, we are not reproducing churches, nor equipping disciples to make generations of disciples. Many of our practices are unbiblical and ineffective.



I have no intention of presenting a 1-2-3 of successful disciple making! 
But I will offer some thoughts on some foundational Biblical principles 
which any new churches need to stick to. Many of these thoughts were 
provoked by an excellent article written by Rick Wood in the Jan/Feb 
2017 edition of Mission Frontiers magazine. 

I would love this to provoke discussion, whether you agree with me or not!

Praying for a great harvest in 2017