Day 2 AM, Level One CPM Training Notes (Unedited)

 2009-05-26 AM Session

(Bold type – David Watson)

 

John 14 and 15

Find verses dealing with love and obedience

 

God spells love O-B-E-Y

 

Obedience and legalism may look the same on the outside, but legalism is motivated by compliance to outside opinion or to an organization, external motivation; obedience is motivated by love that flows.

 

Legalism: Law without relationship

 

Once we understand that our obedience flows out of our love for God, He responds with promises. There are amazing promises that result. What are some of them?

 

Promises as a result of loving obedience:

A trouble-free heart

The Comforter (The Holy Spirit) will come.

 

Acts 5:32 We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.

Whatever you ask for will be given to you. – You’re so connected to God you know what to ask for.

 

He will make a home for us. An eternal home.

 

John 14:18 – I will not abandon you.

If we have faith in Him, we will do greater things (than Jesus). Jesus had started 0 churches at that point. The Church in Jerusalem was begun at Pentecost.

 

The Father will love you also.

 

He will prepare a place for us, but he will also take us there.

 

His Peace He will give to us.

 

He will prune us for fruitfulness. He will make us fruitful.

 

He will send an advocate to remind us, to teach us (all the things he had said).

 

John 15:14 – Friendship with God!

 

Abide in me and I will abide in you.

 

We will suffer persecution.

 

Joy – his joy and our joy will be complete.

 

14:18 – He will not leave us as orphans.

 

The Father and Son will make their home in us.

 

He will teach us everything the Father taught him. He does not withhold anything in that intimate relationship.

 

David Watson:

What would life be like, individually and corporately, if our love is so great that it results in the kind of obedience John talks about? Why are our lives messed up? Because we’re not obedient. Why are we not obedient? Because we don’t love him enough. The connection is an incredibly deep part of our relationship with God. It’s a symbiotic relationship. God benefits also. He created us to live in relationship with Him. When we do that, everything will be all right. Joy does not mean happiness. The root of joy is that I am right with God and I know it. You can be in a dungeon under persecution and torture and still experience joy knowing you are right with God. This abuse is not because of sin. None of us are perfect. But what is the desire of God for us – to be perfect. Jesus said, “Be perfect, as my Father in heaven is perfect.” Can we achieve that goal? No. Are we to strive for that goal? Yes. Church planting in difficult situations does not happen until his people are living out Deuteronomy [6:4] and John [14 & 15] and many other passages. Church planting is not a task we do, it’s a life we live. If you think of it as a job, go get another job. It is a lifestyle. You are always a church planter. When you’ve been cheated at the store, how you respond indicates whether you love God or not and whether you love God or not. When the telemarketer calls, how we respond to that telemarketer – even though we’ll never see them – gives an indication of who Christ is in us. Do I like telemarketing? Absolutely not, but I made a commitment a long time ago to be nice to them. You never know if you might meet this person. They know the demographics of where they are calling. You say things sometimes without even recognizing we’re saying them. How we respond to drivers. How we respond to others in stressful moments – all of this is a picture of our lifestyle. We will make mistakes. But there is repentance, making it right with the people you’ve offended and forgiving those who have offended you. We can walk around with a chip on our shoulder, daring people to knock it off and it’s a miserable way to live. OR, we can choose to love our neighbor as ourselves. We can choose to express God’s love, express obedience that is perceived as love by others. This is the kind of life we need to be living – a new creation, to be a blessing to others, to be a light or a lamp that has been put up on a mantle. To be a city set on a hill. I had never fully recognized the significance of this until I went to the Middle East, driving along in a dark, dreary landscape, and then turned a corner to see a city made of white stone. Most of us hide because we’re not happy with who we are because we’re not who God has called us to be. Hiding doesn’t change anything. It’s only by facing it, confessing it, and letting the Spirit cleanse it that your life begins to change to a life that can make a difference. Church planting is not a job. All Christians should be living lifestyles that out of their very nature of being a born-again follower of Jesus Christ will draw people to them and ask, “Why is your life so different?” Spiritual people who want spiritual things they see in your life will come near if we are spiritually conspicuous. Nobody wants obnoxious religious people. Everyone has been created with that desire in their heart to be connected to their Creator, even if it’s been so covered up by scars that no one knows it’s there.

 

I want you to list all the things you’ve listed since you’ve started – aha! Moments, things you learned from lecture, from study of the Word, or discussion.

 

Break

 

Now, list 3 most important things you’ve learned of all of these.

 

Each group share your top 3 things, beginning with the top 1 thing.

Make disciples, not converts

 

Our responsibility is to coach others to plant churches

 

Perfect power is when your life speaks by your example.

 

Identify our role as we work with the Holy Spirit

 

Church planting is a lifestyle, not a job

 

To make an impact on the lost, you have to live the Deut. 6:4 lifestyle

 

Expect failure

 

People read Bible readers before they read the Bible.

 

Ask questions, don’t teach!

 

John 6:35 – Those who hear and learn come to God.

 

The Spirit will teach us and remind us of everything!

 

Training to obedience is key. (this is done by obeying)

 

Love = Obedience.

 

Coaching an unbeliever to be a facilitator

 

Keep it simple!

 

Inject the DNA of doing church from the beginning

Getting the DNA established is essential to the DBS.

 

Passion for more fruit – it’s what Jesus wants for us – having a passion for more multiplication is a Jesus thing.

 

New believers are in control and taught by God rather than us.

 

Don’t expect lost people to act like saved people.

 

Go to a pre-existing group, don’t create a group. (Don’t extract people)

 

Anyone can be a church planter.

 

New communities start with nonbelievers.

 

Sharing thankfulness leads to worship, sharing needs leads to prayer, sharing others’ needs leads to intercession and sharing how to meet others’ needs leads to ministry.

 

Focus on Scripture and not human opinion.

 

We are not perfect, but we should be striving to be perfect.

 

Present the Gospel, don’t explain it.

 

Joy does not mean happiness, it means you are right with God.

 

Coaching people in a group, mentors, leaders

 

Group memory functions better than individual memory

 

Initially the DBS is a week-by-week thing, don’t ask people to commit for 15, 28 weeks up front; build relationship and go from there.

 

Communities are not forced, they’re developed. Your attitude, your approach, how you relate to people determines whether or not you can start a church. It’s joining people where they are and putting the Gospel in that social silo.

 

I was worried about heresy; as we were discovering the word, but with the obedience factor and being in the word, you will be guided by the Living God.

 

The one thing that impacted me is that CPM needs to make a revolution in me first. Church planting has to start in our own heart first.

 

Importance of seeing what Jesus DID (not just what He said).

 

When working with the Muslims, use a clean Bible, not one that is written in.

 

There is no point in having a church if you don’t serve the community around you.

 

Clubs meet for themselves, churches meet for the community. We need to do both, minister internally and externally. It can’t be one or the other. Church is inclusive.

 

Prayer is so important, praying for divine appointments and divine connections. We need the leading of God’s Spirit to be able to make those connections. That is the root of how we operate.

 

Measuring what we planned to do, but report what GOD has accomplished (David Watson).

 

 

LECTURE – DAVID WATSON

GROUP PROCESS

Jesus did not call A disciple. He never trained a disciple by himself. Smallest group was 3. Jesus used the group process. Even when he was speaking in public, his group was there and then he explained it to them in private. I cannot overemphasize how vastly important this is. Groups remember better than individuals. How many of you as you sat around the table were reminded of things that were said that you had forgotten. A group of people remember better than any individual. How do you move group memory into individual memory? By sharing. Writing it down. Then you take what the group learned and move it to potential individual memory and by putting it in writing, it allows us to take a snapshot of what the group learned and pour it into ourselves. Then, what the group has learned collectively moves to every individual in the group having “group” memory. Even here, with 18 groups in the room, we have time for all to interact. Did you hear things today that were said by other groups that your group didn’t catch? Everyone’s hands raised. Supergroup memory being moved to group memory. See how valuable this is for studying the Word of God? When you study it alone, you never get it all. When you study it in group where there is dialog and interaction it comes alive. A proclamation type of teaching is different from a dialog type of teaching. Group process is a teaching method. It is also a proclamation. How many in your groups have had someone share what God said to an individual? Sometimes God speaks through us to the group. He even does this through lost people. Proclamation = preaching. Our method has been one guy up front pushing it out to someone else, but you don’t know what happens. In the group process you always know what happens to it. If it is not in Scripture in the group process, they will say, “Where did you get that? Show us in the Bible.” Comes back to Scripture as our authority. New groups that are lost, you have to give them a lot of time and leeway. You have to give them more exposure to the word so their thinking comes in line with the plumb line of Scripture. We want people to be perfect from Day 1. We want this to be a church. But if we do that, people walk away from it. It’s not about an institution. It’s a process. It’s relationship. Church has missed out on what the Bible says church should be. I am not “dissing” church. They are doing many good things, great things. The focus here is the lost. I think the Gospel makes it clear that one of the functions of church is to reach out to the lost. We are focusing on that. Worship may be something else. Personal development is something else. Part of being the Body of Christ is recognizing that there are various things the body needs. Our focus in here happens to be lostness. Jesus said, “I came to seek and save that which is lost.” We need to stay focused on that. How does church relate to lost people. I am not saying churches that don’t relate to lost people are bad, but they are not going to start churches. That doesn’t make them a bad church. When you hear me making comparisons, it’s about reaching out to lost people.

 

Group process is focusing on the simple meaning of the word. A person who does not have the Holy Spirit – can you expect the “deeper” meaning. The KISS principle applies. Keep it simple, saint. : ) We want to keep it simple because we’re dealing with lost people. Is heresy ever based on the simple truth of the Bible or the “deeper” meanings? You can always track heresy back to a highly educated, thoughtful person who applies a deeper meaning and misses out on the simple things. Jesus said you must become like a child. Do children think in “deeper meanings?” Not usually. Jesus says you have to be born again. We don’t have to think about making birth happen.

 

Now, six of you from different tables than yesterday, come up here for a team meeting.

 

Let’s begin our group time as we always do.

What are you thankful for?

 

Thankful for my family’s healthy

Thankful for the weather outside

Thankful for my family

Thankful for the network of people I get the privilege of working with around the world

Thankful for a great vacation in Canada where I got to see great things God is doing

Thankful for a job in this economy

Thankful for my group of 12

Thankful for just a trip to Haiti that I took. I had a great team to work with. We were there to help start building an orphanage. So encouraging; great group of people. People in the country were amazing.

 

What needs do you have?

Wisdom in the difficult job market out there; navigating the future

Wisdom in making right decisions in my life; currently in a relationship with a Christian woman, need guidance

My toilet broke this morning and I need it to be fixed

My parents need to transition into senior care facility; right timing

One of our team members has been arrested on Somali border; please pray for our team member

My sister-in-law is due at end of the month

My church is going through a huge change; welcoming a new senior pastor. My pastor for 24 years is leaving. Everyone is excited and everyone is sad. Smooth transition between the two.

My 16-year-old daughter and my wife had a meltdown; wisdom in navigating that.

 

What can we do to help one another?

I have a wrench. I have a little experience.

Prayer. I believe prayer is a very essential tool. When we pray, God honors that.

Prayer is primary.

 

Let’s stop and take time and pray for the needs that have been expressed.

 

As you were facilitating this last week on the Deuteronomy passage, did you run into any problems?

 

More of a challenge and a conviction that we are placing priority on public ministry and church planting.

Impressing these things on my children! There’s a difference between exposure and impression! Grew up in a family where my father exposed us, but not necessarily impressed. I want to do it in a way that my wife would call ‘fragrant’

Challenge for the love that we are to have for God; that that would be natural and comes out of us, as opposed to something we conjure up, that we put on as a face; have it be something that flows naturally and that everyone can see.

 

You don’t need to have any special training

Greatest bottleneck to replication is certification, whether it’s an ordination or a diploma; if you require certification to lead, you stop the replication process. Even if we put that requirement in emotionally, we stop the replication process. Everything we do has to be doable by the simplest person in the group!

 

What else did you learn from last week?

 

One thing that struck me is: Am I the same on the outside as on the inside? As a family last night we sat around and talked about that. It was a great discussion.

 

That’s one of the assignments you have: With whom will you share what you learned?

 

Anything else you’ve learned as a process? A big part of what we’re dealing with is process, as well as content.

 

I’ve always thought that I’ve had to start a group rather than join a group. That’s a big aha!

If they toss me out, I shouldn’t be there.

 

Our whole world is built of what I call ‘social silos’ and some of us have multiple ones. Inside the silo we have common content. Our way of doing church planting has been to draw people from different silos. But when you do that, how do you become accountable to one another? How do you care for and love one another? Churches have been struggling with that for a long time. You have programs to get people to break out of their silos. The simple answer is to bring the Gospel into existing silos and allow the Gospel into existing silos. The leadership and relationship and communication issues are already resolved, since there are already leaders, relationship and communication. Help people identify the silos they relate to and take the Gospel into those silos. Some people relate to several. If you get a super-connector of many silos, that person can often become an incredible church planter. Relationships, not just contacts!

 

Any questions arising out of your groups? Process questions from yesterday?

 

Something that I was pleasantly surprised about was how comfortable it was to talk. I don’t like small groups. When I came into the room yesterday I thought I would see long tables I could hide at. Instead I had the feeling when I saw all these tables and we were assigned to a table. When we sat down and started discussing, it was comfortable. That comfort increased my ability to talk and react and to learn and to share. I was pleasantly surprised. I’ve gotten more out of it than I thought I would!!

 

What do you mean by process?

 

Process is how we’re doing it, rather than content. How we’re doing it now, pulling people out and having them participate. If I had a chocolate cake and gave you a slice of cake, would you like that? But what if I put my hand in it and grabbed globs of it would you still be happy with that? The content wouldn’t be different, but the process/presentation would be. The room was daunting at first, but the process has drawn you into it. How we proceed, how we process with people makes a difference. The messenger is the first thing. The messenger has to be right. The message is right. The next element is how do we communicate it (the process)?

 

It makes it so much easier to understand because from the process of discussing and reviewing there might be a piece someone else has that I missed. So many people can see so many different things. With our limited time and abilities, we get more.

 

What was 1 becomes 10. Instead of 20 minutes, you have 200 man-minutes focused on the issue. Instead of 1 perspective, you have 10 perspectives. It increases what we learn in group settings. The process is vitally important to what we’re doing. Learning how to enhance that process is a skill set that raises you from being a good church planter to being a great church planter. Great ones understand process. The process is relevant not to me, the church planter, but to the group I want to share the Gospel with. In an Islamic setting, this would be an all-male group or my wife would be working with a female group with a lot of kids running around. Needs to reflect the culture of the RECIPIENT of the Gospel. We who are church planters have to be examining worldview, group dynamics in their context, and adapting ourselves in that context. That’s our new lesson for today: CULTURE. The group process, how we interact, is culture. There are many dimensions to community, and to culture. Sometimes it’s geographic, sociologic, anthropological, biological. Many dimensions to the process; no one dimension defines the whole process. How many of you go to work out and sit on a bike by a guy every day, but don’t know his name. How do we process in community. God thought about that.

Turn with me to John chapter 20, vs. 21-23

“Again Jesus said, ‘‘Peace, be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.””

 

How are you going to interpret that? This is a tough one. Most of us avoid talking about this. Many pastors avoid this passage. I don’t want the responsibility of being the one who gives or withholds forgiveness. How do we interpret this passage and why is it important to culture?

 

Jesus is up in heaven. The most wonderful zip code of the universe, way beyond anything here: Streets of gold, seas of crystal, gates of pearl, jewels and diamonds. Jesus is there and He is the Agent of Creation of all that is. One day Jesus is enjoying His creation and the Father comes and says, “It’s time.” “Man has wondered a long way from what he was intended to be. In the free will we gave him, he has sinned so much that he is banned from our presence. Here’s the plan. I want you to go to the planet earth and you are going to be born of an unwed mother. You are going to be a bastard child. You are going to be born in poverty. But you will still be God, but you are going to give up a lot of your godly powers. You are going to be different from any human being and different from Us. You are going to grow up among humans. You will select some and train them and give them our interpretation of the words of the prophets we’ve sent to mankind. They are going to reject you and they are going to kill you and you are going to die the most agonizing death ever invented. Suppose Jesus had said, “No. Not Me.” Would we have forgiveness today? All it takes to refuse forgiveness is to refuse to share the Gospel. Refuse to go to that social silo. Every moment we choose who will hear and who will not have opportunity to receive. Every day we make that choice. Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you. Where was He? Where did He go? A banana peel from hell. When he died, where did he go for those three days? Hell. He encompassed all of creation in that short life span he had on earth. As the Father has sent me, I send you. If we don’t go, we are withholding forgiveness from that silo.

 

Turn with me to Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 11.

This is Paul writing to the church at Philippi. This is Paul writing to the church.

“Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus who, being the very nature of God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

 

What brought salvation?
Christ’s obedience brought salvation.

What will bring salvation to every social silo on the planet?

Our obedience.

Paul wrote, “Our attitude should be the same as that of Jesus” He didn’t grasp on to being God. He let it go. He became a slave. Out of that, he was able to bring salvation for all of us. Here is a picture for you and me. Our job is to leave behind whatever we call our culture and take, in obedience, the Gospel to other cultures; other cultural silos, other parts of society. Jesus said, “As I have obeyed the Father, I expect you to obey me and go as I have asked you to go.” We have to leave behind our comfort zones and go to areas where we would not normally go. That’s what it takes. It’s always hard going into a new social silo. It takes obedience and courage to push into those silos. If we say no to doing that, we say that silo is not worthy of salvation. Is that the choice we should make?

 

When you go back to your groups, turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. Read the whole chapter to build context. Focus on verses 19 through 23. Do the 3-column study with your group on those verses. Then go to chapter 7 and I want you to work with verse 17 through verse 24 and do the 3-column study on that. Add a fourth column: Why is this important for church planting? Take your journal and fold both pages in: 1^st Scripture; 2^nd Scripture in my own words; 3^rd why is this important to me and what will I do about it; 4^th Why is this important for church planting – DO IT AS A GROUP ACTIVITY!

 

Any questions?

 

Break for lunch. Return at 1:15 p.m.