Day 4 AM, Church Planting Movements Training Transcripts (Unedited)

David Watson:

In 1991 I was sent out responsible for reaching 80 million people in SE Asia.

Within 6 months some of my people had been killed. I was depressed. I moved to Singapore.

I was mad at God and wanted to stop being a church planter. I began to argue with God.
Finally I said to God, “Unless you can show me from your Word how to plant churches, I’m not doing this any more.” I committed to not watch TV, a movie, or read a book, until You tell me. Then the passages Matthew 28, Luke 10, Luke 9, and Matthew 9 became the foundation.

 

The imperatives in these passages are the framework. It’s not about going and building a place for them to come. Go to communities and go all the way down to the smallest traditional social unit. There are different ones in different cultures. Keep going until you’re at the minimal social unit, which then becomes the building block upon which you start church. You make disciples, not converts. We look to Jesus and what He did to instruct us on how to make disciples and it’s about consistency, teaching what you live and living what you teach, with your life, with people next to you. When they become disciples, it’s about baptizing them and establishing them as a body of Christ, a church, then teaching them to obey all the commands of Jesus Christ. This brings us to this passage in Luke 10, which we call the “Person of Peace” passage. In this passage there are imperatives that Jesus gave to his disciples. Many argue that you can’t take what Jesus said to his Apostles in the first century and apply it to today. But the principles can be transported to the 21^st century and work in any culture. The series of passages is about the going process and starting in the discipling process. Jesus knew the hardest part is not to make disciples, it is finding people with whom we can work at making disciples. It’s meeting the first person. It’s breaking that cultural barrier, penetrating that bubble that says, “You’re a stranger, I don’t know you.” The Person of Peace model that we’re looking at is about breaking through those bubbles/barriers we all have. How does one go from being a stranger to being part of a family in such a relationship that we share the most important thing in life – our spiritual health, our spiritual wellbeing, our connection to God, and the only real connection we can have with each other, our life in Jesus Christ?

 

Let’s take a look now at this passage. I see you have lists of things you’ve learned from these passages. You read one thing from your list. If it’s already been said, go down. Then we’ll talk about it some more.

 

• Freely give what you freely received (the Gospel)
• We don’t need to wait until we have a special event to go and preach the Gospel (Where did you get that from the passage?) Don’t bring anything with you.
• Knowing that we go with the authority of Jesus.
• Pray for and equip workers to go
• Be accepting of the culture; eating their food, staying in their house
• Going two by two
• Expect rejection
• Keep your eyes open for someone who is receptive to you
• Tell them the Kingdom of God is near
• Be shrewd
• Don’t be a lone ranger; go with somebody
• Pray for that right worker, that person of peace
• You can be doing something and a disciple shows up and you notice them
• Expect incremental growth (from 12 to 72)
• God directed them not to pray for the lost but to pray for disciples to go to the lost
• Put yourself deliberately in a place of vulnerable need, which will be met when you meet the person of peace
• Pray to know where to go because Jesus has prepared that place
• Know when to leave that spot (if you don’t get any answers)
• When you bless people and they don’t listen to you, recognize they’re not listening to God
• When you find a person of peace, stay there, don’t move around, don’t go from house to house
• Expect God to display His supernatural power
• The one that does bring good news is worthy of his pay
• When we are sent out two by two; we need to watch our brother’s back
• We want to go where Jesus is about to go; we pray and ask for His direction
• Don’t talk to people along the way; our focus is to equip and facilitate, not just be preaching all over the place. (There’s an urgency about this; don’t get distracted as you are going to plant churches. Stay focused on where we’re going and what you’re doing.)
• Find a balance between wisdom and vulnerability
• Don’t expect more than 48 hours to pass between the time you’re sent and finding the person of peace
• Maintain our innocence (but don’t be naïve)
• Tell them you’re not bringing religion to them, just trying to study the Bible
• Quality of animals mentioned tells us how to be (innocent as doves and wise as serpents).

 

Transition points (Lecture segment by David Watson)

 

When we look at church planting as a system there are places where it’s hard. “Go!” is about overcoming obstacles of distance, feelings about other people, places and cultures. The going being hard is about us and our problems. As we go, we will often go only so far and then stop and say, “Come to me.” “I’m not going to go all the way down into the pigpen with you.” We have to decide how far we will go and then we have to decide if we’re being obedient or not. The going doesn’t stop until you’re in the home. At the moment you stop and say, “Come and meet me.” Why don’t we step the last two to three steps to the home. We at CityTeam have changed. We used to have big events. Now we go to the homes. That is modeling how we are going to operate. It’s not about getting people to come to us, it’s about getting us to go to them. If you’ve got to come to me, where’s the power? In me. If we go to them, where’s the power? It’s in them. We talk about empowering people. Does a dove have any power? Does a lamb have any power? The picture here is that you are to be powerless. You don’t have a staff. It was a weapon in the first century. Jesus said, I don’t want you to take a staff (a weapon) or money (power). I want you to set aside your power. I don’t want you to have any of that power stuff. Not even an extra cloak or shoes. If you do that, do you look like you have any power? I want you to be like a little lamb, like a dove. You’re going in among the wolves. The power is where? The wolves! One little lamb among a pack of wolves. He is drawing this incredible picture of saying, “It’s not about power.” We can’t force people into the Kingdom of God, no matter how much power we have, how much money or strength we have, we cannot power people into the Kingdom of God. If we try, it causes a clash. He also said, “I want you to be as wise or serpents.” That points to Satan in the Bible. He was God’s right hand man until he rebelled and took a third of the angels with him. I want you to be smarter than he is. Don’t be stupid, just recognize there is only one real Source of power. He wants us to go. To where? The places Jesus is about to visit. So often we go to the wrong places. We go helter skelter all over the place and we wonder why our job isn’t working. I want you to pray to the Lord of the harvest about the lostness you’re going to. The fields are ripe. The people are ready to receive the message. Pray for harvesters. Where are they going to come from? In the harvest. We often think it’s more people from the outside, but he’s saying pray to raise up harvesters from within the harvest. Find the person of peace, that’s your first harvester. He will open the door into that community and allow the harvest to begin. If you don’t find that person of peace, move out. How did these guys get access? They walked in, healed the sick, cast out demons, cleansed lepers, raised the dead. They met their needs. In the 21^st century we have lots of ways to meet needs, but in the first century they didn’t. They spiritualized everything. We recognize now that there are pathogens. We recognize that poverty can come out of other things. We can heal with a spiritual word. We can see God show up in special encounters. Jesus said, “I want you to go there.” And we walk there. “I want you to go vulnerable, without your power and meet their needs.” That is almost the opposite of what we think of, isn’t it? No power, meet needs. No power, cast out demons. No power, cleanse the lepers. The power comes from Jesus. Where’s the Spirit of Jesus? In us. I want you to go, to pray for those places, to pray for harvesters lifted up. I want you to say to the people, “The Kingdom of God is near.” Everyone on this planet is one step from the Kingdom of Heaven – faith in Jesus. The reality is they don’t know it. They haven’t seen it, they haven’t experienced it. Satan is going to work his best to convince them that there is no heaven, no hell, no satan. Yet, when we go in there powerless and a wisdom that comes only from Jesus, they’re going to say there’s something different here, I’m seeing something I’ve never seen before. The prostitute has become a virgin, the drunk has become a professor; that which we considered valueless is becoming something of great value. The transformation process of the Gospel is what we bring. The Gospel’s power to transform. We bear the most precious gift in our lives, in our words, in our actions and in our hands when we say, “Today I learned something that might help you.” And we tell them the Kingdom of God is near. My life was this way, I listened to someone who brought this to me and now my life is changed. Out there are people who God has prepared. They are called persons of peace. They see your life. They hear your shma statements, and your reactions that are different than their own and the person of peace will come to you and ask you why you’re different. And now you have your doorway to a minimal social unit we might call ‘family’ or ‘friends’ or something else, but it is a doorway that leads to community. Now we’re in the midst of them. The Kingdom of God is much nearer now than it has ever been and we have the opportunity to live with them and share on a regular basis. And we say, “Would you like to join me in what God has shown me? In discovering what God has to say to us?” Would this be something your family or friends would be interested in? We discover it one day at a time. When a person hears God speak, do they turn away very easily? No. but if it’s us they hear speaking, will they walk away. The John 6 passage is important, let them listen and learn from God. The promise is everyone who listens and learns from God will come to Jesus.

 

This whole process that is given to us in Luke 10, Luke 9, and Matthew 10 is that we take the initiative. We go now and we need these passages to tell us what to do and how to do it. This is the picture Jesus gave. Go out there. Don’t armor up. Don’t go powerful. I came to earth as a baby born of an unwed teenage mother, and I came to bring salvation to the earth. Lowest of the low. Bastard children have the lowest social standing. No power, no future. No reason for anyone to listen to him. He was God. He poured out His power and He came and He began to work. His work was his life. Church planting is not a job, it’s your life. When did Jesus start being the Messiah. It wasn’t something that came on him later. We see rites of passage, the baptism, the 40 days in the wilderness, but the Father didn’t confer anything on him in those. Satan said, “I’m going to destroy you.” And Jesus said, “Do your best.”

 

I’ve watched the power evangelists, but I’ve never seen a genuine miracle come out of anyone who had pride. They come out of people who are as gentle as lambs, as peaceful as doves, in the midst of doves. People say, “How did you do that?” and I say, “I didn’t do that. I was there and I watched God do it.”

 

There are five major barriers from start to church established. I want to help you see those and be prepared on how to face those.

 

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Reasons for going two by two:

Accountability

Debriefing

Handling situations

Sometimes one person will dismiss something that may be a divine encounter

More effective

Obedience to the Word of God

May allow access where otherwise not given

Credibility

Safety

David Watson: I discouraged couples who are not married going together.