Day 3 AM, Church Planting Movements Training Transcripts (Unedited)

Opened in prayer by Aila.

 

Work by tables on Scripture passage Ezekiel 34

 

Responsibilities of Leaders

 

• Feed the sheep
• See the people as God’s and not their own
• Strengthen the weak
• Remain aware of the people’s needs instead of stuffing one’s self
• Be gentle and merciful rather than forceful and severe
• Are accountable, will be judged
• Serve with gentleness and nurture
• Bring back those who have strayed
• Listen to God
• Give the flock good, rich pasture
• Hear and obey God
• Follows God regardless of harsh difficulties and obstacles
• Use power to protect sheep and not harm them
• Be concerned about the lost, not allow them to perish
• Deliver the sheep from the fog of the world
• Bind up the injured and bring back the strays
• Establish a peaceful environment
• Not to neglect their call
• Find the sheep, rescue them and then restore
• Treat the sheep equitably
• Do not abuse the flock, but provide rest
• Bring them back into their own pastureland
• There will be a true shepherd who will rescue them; leader’s responsibility to introduce them to the true shepherd
• Confront when necessary
• Build them up
• Train other leaders
• Heal the wounded
• Feed them the best food
• Put the needs of the sheep above the leader’s own

 

If the leaders don’t do it, God will take away the leadership responsibility.

In order to be a good leader, you also have to be a good follower.

 

How did this make you feel?

 

• Overweight
• Filthy
• Guilty
• Gives a glimpse of the tremendous heart of a weeping God who really cares about the sheep who are so bruised and battered and weak and hurting
• Leaders need to listen more
• God the Shepherd making a covenant of peace
• Wanting to weep; we are all leaders and there’s a world to be rescued and there’s a lot for us to do
• Confirmation that God is saying, “This is what you have to be doing.” Encouraged.
• Cleared up something and will continue to bring revelation about becoming a really good follower so we can build really good leaders. From the first moment the person is being witnessed to, what kind of DNA are we putting in there?
• A deep conviction for the depth of the call; vs. 28-29, “They shall no longer be prey of the nations, nor prey for beasts.” People are prey on many levels. We see that in Recovery.
• There are so many sheep and there is a need for so many more shepherds who know the sheep. We need to train up more good shepherds who will bind up the sheep.

 

From Day 1, you treat the person (addict, drunk, whatever) you treat them as if they will be the next great Christian leader. Our job is not to select, but to provide environments where people self-select to continue growth or to drop out.

 

One of the things we need to remember is that we cannot fix the past, we can only provide a new future. So much of what we do in our planning is about fixing wrong things, the past. The reality is, that if all you do is fix the past, you never provide hope for the future. You’re bound to repeat the past over and over and over again. We have to prepare for the future, that it can be different. The questions we ask are not so much in terms of “How do I get this guy to stop drinking, doing drugs, etc., but what hope can I put in his heart so that he desires to be a different person?” If they don’t see any hope for a different future, what’s the point of changing? If we want to see change, we can’t dwell on fixing the past, we have to think in terms of giving hope for tomorrow. You can become a person who is valued by others. It’s in your hands. We’re here to help you, to give you the tools. We can’t do it for you. We can give you the environment. Sometimes just walk through your church and ask people, “What do you hope for?” and see what their answer is. We wonder why our churches just sit there and soak and nothing is happening. The leaders have failed to bring hope.

 

Behaviors are learned and they can be unlearned. When there’s no good leader to model good behavior, then people will do whatever comes naturally. Because of sin in the world, we will always naturally go lower.

 

Community is built around hope for the future. We need a vision and a hope to bring us together moving us into the future. If we want to build communities of faith, what is the hope we give them? If the leaders lose their vision and lose their hope, what hope is there for the sheep? We are the leaders. We need to keep moving. We need to keep saying, “This is who we are and what we’re about.”

 

Talks about the wild places, but God says, “Don’t sweat it, I’ll be there with you.” In Iran, there is so much depression. It’s the #1 drug dealing country in the world. It’s difficult to find hope. Our new generation of leaders when they witness to people, the first thing they say is, “Jesus has set you free. What do you want to do about it? Let me sit with you and help you see what God’s plan for your life is.”

 

God really only lets things go so far, out of love for the sheep. He steps in and does what needs to be done.

 

Proverbs 24:14 Know wisdom is thus for your soul. When you find it, you shall have a future and your hope shall not be cut off. Every DBS, potential planter of the Gospel. Christ is our wisdom. We need wisdom on the spot to give hope to the people.

 

Read Psalm 23.

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

 

 

The role of leadership is to provide the kind of environment that the Lord promised us as our shepherd. He said, “If you’re not going to do this, I’ll do it.” But the implication is that He wants us to be good shepherds. Our responsibility as leaders it to provide environment to allow the sheep to become all they can be.

 

Now, list all the things you learned yesterday and through your homework.

 

Top 3 things we learned yesterday:

 

God spells love O-B-E-Y

 

The process of delivery of the messages needs to reflect the culture of the recipients. (Chocolate cake picture)

 

The outside leader’s responsibility is to deculturalize; the inside leader’s responsibility is to culturize.

 

By not responding we are choosing for the unsaved to stay unsaved.

 

To lead, you must follow.

 

Keep it simple, sweetheart.

 

CPM is a lifestyle, not a job.

 

Take off your shoes when you are entering a culture. When we go to a neighborhood, we don’t take our culture.

 

Help discover the simple meaning of Scripture.

 

Group memory helps individual learning.

 

Leave our comfort zone as Jesus left his comfort zone.

 

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

 

Look for the natural leader right away, train, coach and empower this person as soon as possible.

 

Difference between obedience and legalism; latter is how good I am; former is how good God is.

 

The impact of group learning.

 

Concentrate on simplicity rather than complexity.

 

Don’t start a new group; infiltrate an existing group.

 

Do not bring the Christian culture, but let obedience determine the culture

 

Become like others to win some for Christ

 

CPM is an extension of the body of Christ that focuses on lostness

 

What we do in church planting is not all there is to church. We are the starting point, not the ending point. Some organizations try to be all the points. Let us focus on starting, help it to get started right, then, with the power of the Spirit they can take over and continue. If we take over the hard part and we’ve trained them in such a way that they understand their growth process, we’ve impressed upon them the commands of the Lord, then it will go in the right direction. If we start it with the right DNA, it will grow right.

 

Christian clubs serve themselves, churches serve others.

 

Jesus brought salvation through his obedience; we need to push through our uncomfortableness.

 

Expect failure.

 

My hero is Thomas Edison who tried to make the light bulb 2000 times. When asked if he was discouraged, he answered, “No, because I know 2000 ways not to make a light bulb.”

 

Church planting is not a job, but a life that you live.

 

Our lives are messed up because we don’t love God enough.

 

To be intentional every day.

 

Accept my position in life, where God called me.

 

The greatest bottleneck to replication is certification.

 

Matthew 28:18-20 – He says “Go!” not “Come.” I need to go.

 

What amazes me is that we establish a point and say, “Y’all come.” We think if we get into the general vicinity and plant our flag, that’s enough. You never stop going to households. Keep going to them.

 

Everything we do must be do-able by the simplest person in the group.

 

Never bring my culture to a place I want to reach, but be willing to adapt to the culture I want to reach.

 

Focus on the lost.

 

Do not expect the lost to behave like Christians.

 

Have more patience in that process, with the lost and with the saved.

 

Our patience is usually directly connected to our understanding of time. When things are not happening as we think they should, we get impatient. Don’t make deadlines too close. One of the lessons we have to learn, I had to learn, is stretch out the timeline and it increased patience.

 

Every day we make a choice and choose who will or will not be able to hear the Gospel.

 

In my sensitivity to the urgency of this, I’ve learned you have to go slow to go fast.

 

Acceptance of such great diversity. We should not judge somebody by the way they look or their past.

 

We can’t change the past but we can influence the future. Don’t keep looking in the rearview mirror.

 

The level that I love God dictates my level of obedience.

 

Help leaders and Christians to not act like lost people.

 

The worst sinner can become the greatest church planter.

 

Yeah, Paul.

 

 

LEADERSHIP TEAM COACHING MEETING

Part of our meetings is for ourselves to understand deeply what the Lord is talking to us about. Just as we’re leading groups to discover God, we have to continue discovering God. The moment we stop discovering God, we become disobedient. We have to always be engaged in discovering God. We have to be accountable to being in God’s word every day. The only way to do that is to ask. We need to covenant with one another to not be shy about asking, “What did you learn in God’s word today?” If they can’t answer that question, we need to say, “Every day you don’t learn more about God is a day of disobedience.” Every day we fail to deepen ourselves in God, we become more shallow. Leadership is about attraction, not enforcement.

 

Two ranchers had adjoining ranches. Their cattle were always getting mixed in. Separating them was always a problem. One of the ranchers said, “I will build a fence around my property.” So he invested a lot of money and built the fence. Cattle will push up against a fence, and lean it. You’re always repairing fences. The other rancher was watching this. It looks like a lot of work to have a fence. Cattle need water and they need salt. I will spend my money and drill a well and put out salt licks. Every day when the cattle needed water and salt, they’d come back to the well and the salt licks.

 

Churches operate the same way. IF we build fences we’re always fighting the cattle to keep them in. If we drill wells and provide salt, we don’t have to fight to keep them in.

 

In coaching leaders, we need to dig wells and put out salt to give them the water and the saltiness. This will not happen with a lesson, it’s as they observe your life. In six months to a year, you will have tragedy, failure, success. The people we’re leading will see if we are fence builders or well drillers. When it gets tough, do we do the things that draw people to us or do we try to box people in. The only way to teach this is with life. We really can’t teach it in a few minutes. Anyone can say the words, but that’s not how they learn to obey; it’s because of our obedience in every circumstance. Obedience will cost us and sometimes dearly. Even in those circumstances, where it may even cost our life, and there are people in our organization where being obedient could cost them their lives, but faith means choosing to be faithful in spite of circumstances. That is what defines a well driller vs. a fence builder. Well drillers live lives of obedience regardless of outcome. Fence builders say, “Just do what I say.” It’s more legalistic, it’s not about a love that brings obedience, but compliance. Compliance out of legalism never reproduces. Only love that produces obedience has the capacity to reproduce. That’s our responsibility.

 

Let’s keep thinking in terms of how we can help the people we’re coaching to become drillers of wells and setting out salt licks. Our own lives are the biggest part of that. Throughout the New Testament, Paul says over and over again, “If you want to know how to follow Christ, follow me.” I used to think it was arrogant. The only Scripture many people will read is Christians. Our lives have to be exemplary to the point where we can say, “I’m going to be the kind of person who if my children look at me and do what I do, they will become followers of Jesus. If coworkers look at me… if strangers look at me… they will become followers of Jesus.

 

I am not always perfect, but the repair of broken relationships is also an example. How we can be imperfect and forgiven and also how we can forgive, is not about perfection, but obedience. We don’t all have to have the same personalities, likes and dislikes. We need to follow Jesus, our Perfection.

 

Matthew 28 – I want to walk you through this passage. We don’t want to miss what this has to say to us as church planters. I know you’ve done it in a 3-column study, but I want to do a little exegesis of this so we’ll all be on the same page.

 

Then the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. (Even the first step was a step of obedience. If they hadn’t gone, they would have missed it. To receive Jesus’ final commands, they had to obey a previous command, to go to that mountain.) When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. (They are being commissioned by Jesus to start God’s church on the planet. They were ill-equipped, ill-prepared, and some of them were still doubters. They weren’t perfect. How often in our leadership thinking we think a person must reach a certain level to be a leader. Is that how Jesus did it? No he just handed it to them. If we hang around too long, leaders won’t emerge. If Jesus had stayed another 20 years, would any of them become leaders? He left. We wonder why people don’t become leaders after walking along with them 5, 15, 20 years. The right kind of leadership is when people rise to the occasion to lead, but it only happens if we make that happen. Part of being a leader is knowing when to lead. We’ve taught, modeled, we watch. Did the disciples have it 100% at this point? Some of them didn’t get it at all, they still doubted. But, even though they doubted, they obeyed and were there. Even when they doubt, do they obey? One of our greatest church planters came to me and said, “I don’t think what you’re teaching will work, but I am going to sell out and I will do it. I have doubts about this process, but I’m going to do it.” And now hundreds of churches have come out of that. Sometimes that’s the quality of leadership. Disciples were demonstrating leadership already because in their doubt, they obeyed. Regardless of the consequences (in this case, doubt), they obeyed. That’s part of leadership.

 

Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (He is establishing the fact that he is God. All means ‘all’ and that’s all it means. Everywhere. Heaven and earth. The whole universe. He established his credentials to give the next four commands. Mathew is written in a style called crescendo. Every segment has higher importance than the preceding segment. Now we’re at the highest point before the book ends. Even the Great Commission itself is written in this style. Each command has more importance than the one preceding it.

 

1. Go (that’s pretty easy, move from point A to point B. Israel was under Roman occupation. The Jews had been leaving under the boot of Rome and during that time, many Jews had grown up only knowing Roman occupation. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is speaking to Jews under Roman occupation. “Love your enemy” wasn’t about some ethereal concept, but about the Romans. “Do good to those who harm you” or “When someone slaps you” were not some thoughts. These were responses to real life situations – love those who hate you, bless those who curse you, give to those who take away from you. Here we have 11 Jewish men who grew up this way and throughout the book of Matthew, Jesus said over and over again, “Don’t tell anyone but the children of Israel what I am telling you.” Not the Samaritans, not the Gentiles. Now at the very end he says, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Ethne. Ta ethne is “everyone but us.” “Them.” Go make disciples of everyone else on the planet. The Jewish understanding of this was to turn my face away from a Roman soldier passing by, show him your derriere. If a Roman brushed against you, you had to go through seven days of ceremonial cleansing to enter the temple. You would not do business with a Roman unless forced. If you decided to do business with them, you were a tax collector, the lowest life form of all for a Jew. They hated, feared and despised the Romans. Now Jesus says to them, “Go and make disciples of ta ethne.” That ‘Go’ isn’t simply about going from point a, to point b, but who do you hate, fear, despise, not let your children marry? Go and make disciples of them. This was not a real simple ‘Go’ at that time. Where am I unwilling to go? That defines where I need to be going. When my wife and I said to our missions agency, “We want to go where no one else will go.” Five years later they sent us. It wasn’t about getting on the boat, going across the danger. It was about facing what you despise, hate, fear. Facing the blackness of your own heart, to be obedient to take the Gospel to someone else. When the disciples didn’t do it, God forced the issue by sending persecution and Cornelius and then Paul.
2. Make disciples. What is a disciple? Jesus made the first disciples. Jesus is our example. How did he do it? They had a relationship with him. They lived with him. Discipleship is not the same as being a student. It’s a very deep relationship. When he said, “Go and make disciples” whose disciples were they to be? Our job is not to make our own disciples, but to make disciples of Jesus. I want you to go where you’re afraid to go and I want you to make disciples for me of those people. You really have to know the Gospels and you have to read the Gospels with a different questions. We always read the Gospels as “What is Jesus saying to us?” Read the Gospels with the question, “What was Jesus doing to make disciples?” in mind. He selected them and called them into relationship with him. Then they saw him in public and in private, everywhere in all kinds of circumstances. He was consistent in every circumstance. It’s about consistency. The thing that makes disciples is a relationship to observe consistency. At some point, we have to move people from following us to following Jesus. That’s where the DBS comes in, the obedience Bible studies, the leadership Bible studies come in. At some point we need to leave. Jesus said, “It’s good that I go away. I am going to send you another Comforter who will remind you of everything I have taught you.” We need to prepare people to live without us in their presence. We’re not making people dependent upon us, our organization, our church. Our job is to empower them to be independent disciples and, by definition, they will then make more disciples. It’s funny, most people don’t make disciples as long as they consider themselves a disciple. If I’m a student, I don’t try to be a teacher. Part of the discipleship process is when we find the time we should go away. You have the word of God, you have the Holy Spirit, it’s your responsibility now, it’s time for me to move on. That’s when you’ve made a disciple. Have you been operating people in to build fences, or have you established them with their own well, their own salt licks so they can do it themselves?
3. Baptize them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What is so important about baptism? Think about our attitudes about baptism in the church today. For some it’s a symbol, for others it’s a sacramental process that brings salvation. What matters is the commandment by Jesus to baptize them. Why is this the next-to-the-last thing he says? The #2 important thing? When we think about it we think of individuals. We think about the symbol of death, burial, resurrection. Evidently, there is something more. 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 – The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. How do you enter into the body of Christ? By baptism. Jesus knew that being alone as a follower of Christ was an impossible task for anyone to survive. Some of us have been out there all alone. He said, “I want you to be baptized, to establish communities of followers.” It is more than a symbol, it is more than a source of faith and salvation. It is about establishing communities of believers. It doesn’t matter which way you want to take it (baptism by water, baptism in the Spirit) – BOTH have to happen. In our modern church language, does discipleship happen before or after conversion? In this passage when does it happen. (Before). Commandments that are in order and increasing in their complexity. Look at what Jesus did. Did he call saved people or lost period? Over a three year period they went from not knowing him to falling in love with him. That’s what we do. The command to baptize is to establish the church, the body of Christ. That’s what it is. When we baptize, we are baptizing into a community. If there is no community, we’re establishing a community. What is the church and establish that community.
4. Teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. What were you taught? What did Jesus command us to teach? Obedience. The making the disciples was the stuff. We teach by action, we teach by words. The stuff happened there. They became believers, were baptized. Now what are we to teach them. Obedience is for the saved. Discipleship is for the lost. Do you see that? Baptism happens when they believe. Believe and be baptized come right together. You can do that as you make disciples, because they’ve fallen in love with the Lord. We’re not talking about baptizing someone who has no experience in the word. We don’t have to have lack of confidence because they’ve been in a context of discipleship. We don’t have to fear this. They’ve been next to us for six months to a year. At that point, we can in confidence baptize them. Now they’re a believer, they have responsibility. “If you love me, you will obey my commands.” The picture that the Bible paints when you pull all the threads together it is an incredible picture. We want to see this as our roadmap. We want to go places nobody is willing to go. We want to call out people, meet people to make disciples of. We’re going to invest relationship, not class time into making disciples. When those disciples fall in love with Jesus. When Jesus asked who people said he was, but Peter responded, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but your Father in heaven has revealed this to you.” John 6:44-45 who draws them? God. Discipleship is about falling in love with Jesus as Master, Creator, Savior, Sustainer, and Life. Out of love you commit to him. That love results in obedience. The first step of obedience is obedience, joining the body, establishing the church where there is no body. Your life from that point forward is learning to obey. The focus of teaching is not the lost. The focus of teaching obedience is to the disciples.

 

Do you set the pattern towards obedience?

Absolutely. You model it every day. They have to hang out with you. They have to see you at work and at home. They have to see you when your mom dies, when you have a car accident, when someone breaks into your apartment. They have to see you and how you respond. That means we have to be the kind of people God has called us to be. Disciple making is not about a classroom, it’s about a lifestyle. We’re going back to that Deuteronomy passage. Church planting isn’t a job, it’s a lifestyle. It requires us to be disciple makers. It’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle. You can’t turn it on and off if you want to be a disciple maker. We make mistakes.

 

They are going to see that we make mistakes along the way.

 

But they are also going to see you repent and be restored. In a previous occupation as a counselor, many people never saw conflict resolution, either never saw conflict or never saw the parents resolve conflict. That handicaps children! We do the same thing when we’re teaching Christians. If we act all perfect and holy, that’s distortion. If they see us fail and then be restored, they will see and understand that we are not about perfection, but about being obedient. God knows we can’t be perfect. But he demands that we be obedient. Obedience is only possible because of his love in us and our love pushes our obedience further and further out in concentric circles.

 

Now, I want us to focus on what we’re to be debriefing about when we’re having team meetings. Your teams are working with lost people and we want to make sure the DNA of the future church is being established as we work with lost people.

 

• Did you have the time for Thanksgiving?
• Did you have the time for Needs?
• Did you discuss how to meet the needs?
• Did you do the three-column study?
  • Did you facilitate, or did you lead, or did you teach?
  • Did you write the Scripture?
  • Did you write/say the Scripture in your own words?
  • Did you write/make obedience statements?
• Did you ask with whom you would share what you are learning?
• Did you identify the facilitator?

 

We are God’s answers to people’s prayers. When we do ministry, we are answering the prayers of people. If we deliver food, the person is thankful to God. How many have heard, “You’re an answer to prayers.” The Church is the first line of God’s answer to the prayers of the people on this planet. Writing the Scripture is a DNA process of learning obedience. The writing process brings knowledge of the leader. Another question is did the inside leader facilitate it? The second column is “Do you understand the word?” Expectation of obedience is how you make disciples. If you don’t write those statements, you have no expectation of obedience. If you had intention to be obedient, you’d be writing out the “I will” statements. Accountability is an indicator of willingness to obey. The DNA of evangelism – asking who they will be sharing this with. This is an incredibly important step. If you don’t establish it up front, it won’t happen. Discovery Bible study groups have started 10-15 groups before they’ve even become a church because they have learned to talk to their friends,

 

Is there an easier word than facilitator? We tried to find a word that didn’t use church language. The role of this person is to facilitate the discovery of God’s word and move to obedience to God’s word.

 

Are you going to talk more about the baptism? Is it the disciple who baptizes? At what point does the conversion from lost to saved happen? Basically, the baptism is the confession of faith. Who baptizes doesn’t matter.