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

 Evening homework is to fill in some of the gaps. Read Ezekiel 34 and identify the responsibilities of leadership. God speaking to Israel and telling them what He expects from leaders and from followers. Identifying what God is saying to leaders should take you 30 minutes. If you feel like God wants you to do a 3-column study, there is not a better passage for leaders, but that will take 3 hours.

 

What we’ve been doing in the front is modeling team meetings. Some time today your facilitator should have chosen a facilitator. In real life, be one time a model, two times a model, third time identify the natural leader of the group and coach them. It will be like Peewee football. Expect all kinds of strange things to happen.

 

From this point, we will go back to the groups we were in yesterday afternoon. The lists will be posted.

 

Q: In the team meeting, you taught, not just asked questions.

A: Yes, that’s difference, it’s not discovery. I’m bringing in outside information.

 

Worked in groups on passages of 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 and 1 Corinthians 7: 17-24

 

Break

 

Came back to affinity groups

 

Area of focus: Reaching unbelievers

 

Start by selecting today’s facilitator; whoever facilitated yesterday does not do it again

 

3–column study on Matthew 28 20-30 minutes

 

Move discussion to focus on strategic question

 

At 5:00 p.m. we will reconvene for report-out as larger group.

 

 

REPORT BACK SESSION

What does the Scripture have to say about reaching unbelievers?

 

MATTHEW 28:18-20

 

I will teach obedience and not teach disobedience.

I will share my knowledge

I will study God’s word

I will be obedient to God with all my heart, not just when it is convenient

 

“Go!” Go out beyond immediate area to reach people where they are.

Active, not passive.

 

Go and be intentional.
Make disciples when we go. Baptize them and teach them to obey everything Christ has taught us.

 

Personally and as a church, carrying out the Great Commission every opportunity I have. I will resist the argument that we will not go elsewhere until we have completely evangelized the local community.

 

Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost; not in our name. Churches tend to attract them to denominations, and we like to attract them to ourselves.

 

Knowing that Jesus has all the authority, we can go with that authority in reaching out to the community. We don’t have to be timid. We can do everything if we want to.

 

I think we were impressed that it is a global thing, all different cultures. That means here, too. Not just the ones we are comfortable with. Be intentional about that.

 

To go to all the neighborhoods and teach them to obey ALL things. We highlighted the word ALL. If Jesus is with us ALWAYS. Don’t be afraid because of that.

 

He is always with us wherever we go.

 

ALL authority is given to us from Christ. The things that stop us are fear of rejection or of confrontation. All authority and Jesus is with us. Teaching is key. Making disciples. They have to teach these guys to go (clients). Teaching begins the replication process.

 

He spoke to the disciples. He spoke to all of us. We all have to do this.

 

The Gospel is movement. Go. Get up off our behinds and go.

 

We are commanded to replicate ourselves and we have to go in His power, teaching his principles, with his presence.

 

Jesus’ presence with us is our credibility. We can throw our degrees out the windows, if Jesus is our credibility. Acts 12 – it was clear that they had been with Jesus.

 

2 Timothy 1:7 – God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and self-discipline.

 

Jesus has given us the power because of His Father who has given him the power to go, out of the comfort zone. Specific instructions: Teaching the commandments.

 

When a man recognizes authority, it causes him to have respect. We have the authority of Christ and that commands respect in others. The authority of Christ within us BRINGS respect. An ambassador in another country; he has respect because of who he represents.

 

When I get to heaven, I don’t want the Father to ask me, “What part of ‘Make disciples’ did you not understand?”

 

STRATEGIC QUESTION

What about this Scripture informs your response to the strategic question?

 

How do I/we identify, train and equip the person of peace to discover and infiltrate unreached people groups outside of my/our immediate or surrounding area without the use of traditional CityTeam resources (food boxes, bags of love, etc.)?

 

John Scott’s table:

How do we get beyond our buildings, camp? We are thinking in untraditional ways. God is using our reputation as an organization in San Jose.

 

Latinos have a lot of problems. One family, Elias, somebody introduced me to him because they know about CityTeam. This guy had a big problem with the City. He made a mistake and he was about to be deported. A lady asked me how we can help him. I said we could make a letter. I wrote a simple letter on CityTeam letterhead saying I was mentoring this man. The judge saw “CityTeam” and he gave the man another opportunity because of his involvement with CityTeam. I started a DBS with him. He is discovering God and for the past 9 months he has not had any alcohol. I submit to Jesus’ authority.

 

So, it was a personal relationship that was formed through your living in the community that touches people’s lives. God has his persons of peace out there.

 

Being facility-based as we were, now we are going, finding facilities and opportunities out there that we don’t have to pay for because people are inviting us.

 

We will see the growth happen when we get outside of our institutional systems; not that those are bad, but it speaks to a different way of doing ministry than we are used to.

 

Chris Anderson’s table:

Intentionality and a strategic way of living your life. There has to be looking, praying, seeking for the person of peace and being aware of once that person of peace is there. Also, strategic. Outside of CityTeam there are lots of ways we all interact with people, i.e., school, shopping, etc. Jesus told them to go and gave them specific commands of what to do and how to live their lives.

 

Mentoring and discipling the person of peace. Ricardo lived his life with that man. He met this man’s family, he helped him out in court. He actually discipled this man through practical life application. That’s a key thing. Jesus taught us a way to live our lives and that’s what we have to teach others, which is the lifestyle.

 

Another thing we have to do is to let go of control and trust the people and it has to be right away. Jesus did that. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore, go. Because he has all authority and he’s going to be with them forever, why do we feel we need to control it? We disciple, we mentor, we trust and we let go.

 

 

Armando Cruz’s table:

Identify real needs in the community and organize the community to be able to meet that need, work towards that goal. Example neighborhood by House of Grace has to be cleaned, so everyone can bring a broom and we’ll all work together. So we’re going to do street cleaning this coming Sunday. The guy said we could organize refreshments. The man from the neighborhood is owning that. We can accomplish a lot of things in the community. When we give people a lot of things, their reason for them to come to the meeting is not pure, because when the resources aren’t there any more, they go away. Giving people stuff is not bad, but something I would like to apply in my life is not giving them lots of things so they are coming because of the things. When the prophet came to the widow’s house, he asked her what she had in her house. What assets do we have in our communities that will meet their need. I know there are people who have things and those who are in need. So we can work with the community to organize itself to provide for those in need within the community. This will cause the leaders to emerge. This will help to identify the person of peace.

 

 

Rhunda Boudreaux’s table:

We talked about practical things in reaching unbelievers. Talking about the miracle isn’t going. We just do it. If we go out and knock on doors, don’t be afraid to wear CityTeam cap that identifies who you are. Find out if the people have any needs. Juliette shared about a woman she approached at a store and asked if she could pray for her. If we try to pick and choose who we are going to share the Gospel with, we’ll miss people. We have to realize God’s got our back the whole time. We don’t have to be too afraid because we know He’s there. During prayer walks, it is a time to meet and greet and smile. Don’t be afraid to ask if a person would like to engage in a discovery Bible study. Let them know we’ll teach them so that they can teach others.

 

 

 

Question: Donnell – in the beginning of the seminar someone mentioned about the person of peace. What is that? How does that look?

 

Answer: The challenge in a training like this is putting all the pieces together, but the answer to that question is coming tomorrow. I know some of you are feeling – especially in our western linear way of thinking – that you’d like to have all the pieces. But by the time we get near the end, it will begin to come together. Don’t stress. Relax. Engage. I went through this thing many times before I began to feel I was getting 80% of it. Just continue to take it in. Some of them will get answered by the end or the next time or because you try to implement. We’re on a journey. There’s not an exam. It will come together mostly by the end of the week and afterwards. Don’t wait to do something just because you don’t understand it all.

 

STRATEGIC QUESTION: How will I implement what I’ve learned today in my context, in my ministry, community, family, etc.?

 

We have a house church. We need to simplify our lives so we have more time and energy to develop small groups and develop leadership so we can shepherd more than one house church.

 

Dave: You’re thinking about replication. Reason for replication may not be because it’s getting too big. Reason for replication is because it expands to other communities. We’re not about keeping them small, but about beginning many, many, many groups.

 

Based on the Great Commission, we have 2 guys at San Francisco State, Tom is working in a house church, Arash is working in the Iranian Christian Fellowship with primarily second generation Iranians and Mahsoud is also part of that church, but working primarily with internet, TV broadcasting in Iran. According to Mahsoud, in a decade, 30% will be followers of Jesus.

 

Discipleship begins with us. What is the one critical thing we can take away and apply? The idea of giving up our security for the sake of Jesus. Arash, for wisdom. For Tom, willingness to take the initiative with people, no fear. For Elton (House church network) wants to stay the course. He is now encouraged that Jesus is doing something new. For Mahsoud, he feels the need for prayer. For me, find new fields of faith within my community (simple church movement).

 

Being the guest table, we had all different backgrounds. Aila shared applying these lessons directly, “I will go with all authority, knowing Jesus goes with us and He has all authority.” “I will allow others to hold me accountable for obeying Jesus.”

David shared, “I will go to my community and make disciples at my workplace and my neighbors. So he’s committed to talk to his neighbor, Billy.”

 

Meseret shared that she’s going to a store owned by Indians and also goes to a Japanese restaurant. She is talking to the owners there and she will go with intentional outreach.

 

“I will teach my youth kids to obey.” I also committed to talking to my neighbors with whom I’ve started to have some kind of relationship. I’ve been distracted. I’m waiting for a job to end and have been distracted. I will talk to my neighbor.

 

“Being able to model in my life that I’m a disciple before students I am trying to disciple.”

 

This was good, you focused in on actionable items. Intentional focus. Obeying.

 

Strategic question: How do I own the vision for CPM in my area? How do I train my paid staff, clients, volunteers and donors to own, implement and replicate what we’ve learned today?

 

In order to own it, we have to model it. I have to be willing to go first before I can expect anyone else to go.

 

Mike Pounds: The training department – training can be an access ministry. We have stuff to give, meeting needs of the community regarding anger management, sexual addiction, recovery, etc.

 

Denise Hadley: We talked about what it would look like to train trainers to reach the lost. Many people have issues, domestic violence, anger management, parenting, things they are required to do to continue to live outside of a jail cell. What would it look like to train people who are not Christians and shape the training in such a way that they’re actually DBS’s? That way they’d be immediate leaders. Look at access ministry as delivering knowledge, which is not a material resource, but a needed point of access.

 

Our traditional ministries are not the only point of access. It’s our history, it’s where we’ve come from. We’re looking beyond this. Sometimes we can partner with other groups that become our access into the community and as we access the community we have the opportunity to discover the person of peace, etc.

 

Strategic Question: How do I train my clients to seek out prospects, (addicts still in their disease), to share and give away everything they have learned about the way out?

 

As the word talks about making disciples, we are teaching our men and women to give back to the person right behind them. Share with men still in detox. DBS is another thing. Immediately training our men and women to use DBS process to quit hurting others.

 

Reading page 89, we pulled some statements out of the Big Book that relate to church planting and to Matthew 28:18-20. Building relationship. BB: Do not reform or evangelize. Teach how to not be critical but just help others. Show them how starting groups can cure loneliness. Show them importance of helping new people who are coming into recovery.

 

Modeling, using baptism as a new beginning. Each of these guys have client groups; their goal is to teach their groups to go out. Go hang out at Burger King, the park, do bags of love. The key things is as they work in their DBS, to ask, “Who did you share it with?” Then ask them “Who did you talk to at Burger King, in the park, etc., so they see that they do have contacts. These clients all do have lots of people in their lives. Goal is to teach them to go to these people and share.

 

Closed in prayer by Pat Robertson.

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.

Day 1 PM, Level One CPM Training Notes (Unedited)

David Watson:

Learning from God is an important process, we want them to learn from God, not us. You will add things and learn from one another, but the main thing is to learn from God. You need to make it clear at the outset. Do your talking and sharing AFTER the meeting and use the meeting time for listening to God. Part of managing the time is how you START the group. Set the ground rules with a new group. You wanted to learn about God from the Bible. We want to really stay focused. We’re not going to talk about religion, your bad experiences at church, or whatever, we want to talk about and listen to what God is saying to us. It’s not school, but you do want to say, “We are here to discover what God wants us to know about him.” In that process, we want to learn directly from God what He says about Himself. And, if this is from God, what is our response to that? Set the expectations at the beginning and as you go, clearly, in a way that is nice in the culture you’re working with, they’ll get it and will start moving in that direction. But remember not to expect lost people to act like saved people.

 

Take the next 45 minutes to do the 3-column discovery and discussion on Deuteronomy 6:1-9 – read those verses, but do 3-column study on verses 4-9. In 30 minutes, we’ll see where we are.

 

Break into table groups and do passage.

 

Now, write down on pad on your table what you learned from the passage.

 

Shared things we learned:

Verse 4

Listen up, pay attention. Hear and obey.

God wants our attention.

There’s only one God.

God is one, He’s unified, He’s complete. There’s no deviation in him.

God has authority to give us a command.

 

Verse 5

Love God with all your attitudes, motives and actions.

Love God with everything He gave you, with all your abilities.

Love God with all your strength and your soul and your heart, with obedience.

One’s love for God must surpass all things.

 

Verse 6

I will keep these things in my heart, my soul and my mind and live by them at all times.

Commandments are not suggestions, not just if you feel like it.

Keep and memorize Scripture in your heart for easy access.

That we are to choose to love God with all of our heart. It’s a commandment, but we have a choice.

To love God is to obey Him and to obey Him is to love Him.

 

Verse 7

I will share my love for God with the next generation.

Pass the Scripture to your children and keep them accountable at all times.

God went from individual to family and in doing that, he said not only to have it on your heart, but you have to live it out.

For parents, it’s the toughest times of the day to be consistent with your kids, in the morning when you’re trying to get them out the door, at night when you’re trying to keep them in bed, and in public.

It starts with my house.

God giving orders. He is an orderly God.

Passing on to the next generation – TEACH them to love God.

 

Verse 8

He is telling us how to obey, but the first thing He is telling us to do is to listen. He is telling us how to do it, but He wants us to listen.

Share God’s love with your community and with your family and meditate on His commands day and night.

Write them where people can see them.

Your home should reflect your love for God.

 

Verse 9

We are to demonstrate our love and obedience to God in our actions and thoughts in all our comings and goings.

We are to have no secret compartments in our lives.

 

David Watson:

Discovery versus teaching: Our world is sensitized to people pushing religion on to them. If we teach and push religion that is perceived as a negative thing. The active party in teaching is the teacher. The student is the active party in discovery. From the very beginning, you want to establish the DNA that Christians are active, not passive. What message is sent by the way we do church right now? You sit and you’re passive. We send that message when we’re teaching and preaching. There is a place for that and it’s with the saved, who want to have things pointed out. Now I’m going to do a little bit of teaching with you now, but don’t do this with your groups.

 

This passage is called the Sh’ma – it’s the Hebrew for “hear, obey, observe.” When God said, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” That is not what they’re to hear and obey, it’s WHY they need to obey. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. In the time of Moses, to love with your heart was about your emotions, about passion, it was about loving God passionately. You cannot have worship without passion. You cannot have people who will die for the Gospel without passion. You cannot have people who will walk into adversity and still share the Lord without this kind of passion. You don’t reserve any little part of it, your passion is wrapped up in it. All means ‘all’ and that’s all it means. If you’re reserving part of your heart, soul or strength for something else, you’re doing less than God is requiring of us. The soul is eternal. The soul is recognizable to God. Love God with all of you that is eternal and do it eternally. It takes an extraordinary passion to hold deep levels of passion for a long time. When the passion goes away, I want that part of you that is eternal to keep holding on eternally. I want you to love Me with all your passion, but also with all you are that is eternal and keep building on that love. Strength is action. Think about it. When you’re doing something you don’t like to do but you’re doing it, how are you supposed to do it? With all your heart. Who are you doing it for? God. It demonstrates your love for God. In all that you do, demonstrate your love for God. Even when we find ourselves in situations where we’re angry or frustrated, we can still demonstrate our love for God. These commandments I give you today are to be upon your hearts. At the time of Moses, they knew that if you took the heart out of an animal, it would die. They do not drink the blood of animals because the life is in the blood. I want these commandments to be on your heart. It’s the hardest working muscle in your body, 24/7. It never stops until you die. I want these commandments to be like the heart of your life with God, always there, always giving life to you. Do you have to think to make your heart beat faster? It just does it. You don’t have to think about it. I want the commands of God to be so much a part of your life you don’t have to think about them. Even when you’re laying down to rest they’re still there. This needs to be so much of a part of you that you don’t have to think about it. It’s doing right without having to think about it. It’s about obeying God without having to think. Automatic obedience that is like the automatic working of our heart. Here’s how you make that kind of obedience work. Impress these commands on your children. Same word that’s used as ‘to strike a coin.’ At a mint I learned that it took 50 lbs of pressure to mint a coin. Unless you melt the coin down, that impression will always be there. Talk about them (the commands) when you sit at home, when you walk, when you lie down, when you get up. This word is more than just talking, it’s modeling. I want you to talk about these commands when you sit at home and when you walk along the road. At home you’re with your family; on the road you can be with anybody. I want you to be the same at home as you are in public. No mixed messages. If you’re not consistent at public and at home, then your children will not be impressed with the commands of the Lord. The only way that you can impress them on your children is to be consistent, in public and in private. Even in the most intimate inner room of your house, there is to be obedience to the Word of God. It doesn’t change with the rest of the family, or the neighbors are there, or travelers. Nothing has changed. You’re still going to be obedient. This is how you impress the law of the Lord upon those around you; not just talking with your mouth, but by talking with your life.

 

I want you to write them on your forearm and write them on your head. Who sees your forehead? Others. Who sees your forearm? You do. I want your obedience to speak so loudly that even perfect strangers will know there is something different about you. Have you ever met someone who instantly disliked you. Understand what that is: that’s a person with a demon who sees a person filled with Christ and they’re attacking immediately. Your life is to be so full of obedience to Christ Jesus, that when a demon comes into the room, they have to choose to run or fight. How you respond to that person tells the demon how strong you are. If you respond with anger and frustration, that sends one message; responding with love and compassion sends another message. We live in a busy age and we need reminders. It’s easy for Bible study or the time with the Lord to get squeezed out of our lives. What do you do to remind yourself to be in the Word of God and to act upon it?

 

I want you to write it on your door and on your gate. I want you to write it on your gate and on your doorframe. Many people took the writing on the arm and forehead literally. A tattoo or a phylactery is literal, but living it out is also literal. The stranger who sees you having written it on your gate knows who you claim to be. If you walk through the gate and get into the courtyard, you need to be able to find out that the reputation is true; the same thing that was on the gate is true in the house. This is the kind of person we must be if we’re going to see churches planted in North America because what America has seen is Christians who don’t know anything about God, who are no different than everybody else. If we’re going to make a difference, we’ve got to make a change; it starts with obedience to the Word of God.

 

ASSIGNMENT: Read John 14 and 15 and note all the ‘love’ and ‘obedience’ words in those two chapters.

 

Q&A:

Lots of things like this are bouncing around in my head and if I want them to catch the deeper things, am I supposed to just zip my lip?

 

Zip your lip. They’re not ready for the deeper things yet. Let them hear the things they’re ready to hear.

 

Break

 

Tables shuffled – seat yourself according to chart that is projected on wall

 

Denise Hadley:

Every morning you will sit at the same group you sat in this morning. The afternoon groups, 3:30 to 6:00 will be by affinity groups. Development Department is meeting in a different room.

 

Today we will start our hour with prayer. If we’re not modeling what we want to have happen, then it just won’t work. From now until 4:30, we are going to be praying.

 

Every day you will be with the same group of people in the afternoons. The table lists will be on the wall every day. We won’t have a structured prayer time like this the rest of the week. The rest of the week, from 3:30 to 6:00 will be our break-out group. Tuesday through Thursday, the last hour of the day we will come back and feed back. Dave Hunt will facilitate that portion. He is our new Vice President of North American Church Planting.

 

 

 

Feedback session:

The Scripture is a good one for men in Rescue Mission

 

Family Outreach: How do we identify people without using CityTeam resources? It’s personal what Paul has been through and who he is now. “I was this and now I am someone new.” Without using CityTeam resources, it becomes personal. It’s about what we’ve experienced and what we know. It is more about who we are and what we can give them.

 

Family & Youth Outreach: Paul was one of the persons to do this. Anyone can do this. He can use a drug addict, a person who used to break into houses, to do this. We look for all the opportunities we have, outside of CityTeam and inside of CityTeam, i.e., volunteers, donors.

 

How will I implement what I learned today in my contacts, community and family? We can live a Christian lifestyle and people will be drawn to us. It’s only by grace we are saved. We will have more grace for other people. Be mindful, patient, tolerant of other religions, personalities. If we’re Christ-like, we can really show love.

 

Wade: How do I own the vision for CPM in my area and how do I train clients, volunteers and donors to implement CPM? Because he considered being faithful, there was something God saw in this person. Maybe some time we wait too long. We wait for them to show signs of someone getting down the road, but by the time we start planting the seeds, they may already be waiting to transition out (clients). If you start with people earlier, they may look messier, but you have the opportunity to disciple instead of making a convert to just an idea. You can walk them through it instead of just shoving an idea on them.

 

How will I implement what I’ve learned today in my contacts, community, family, etc.? Just be thankful that Christ gives us the ability and he chooses us to be in the ministry. Be thankful for where He has placed us as He has found us to be faithful. Also, be merciful to those who are ignorant and in unbelief. To follow Christ’s pattern of longsuffering to those who are going to believe.

 

Kathy W.: How do we own the vision for CPM and how do I train clients, volunteers and donors to implement CPM? We may be getting Bible studies started, but it’s just Bible studies. There are some little shifts we need to make in order to take the stops out and see it just go. Once it’s turned on, it will go by itself. To tie it to the Timothy passage, how the people – we are extreme examples also, and as such, in that none of us deserved to be here. As an extreme example, we can model and we need to. We need to be taking it to our staff and helping them to implement a lifestyle.

 

Charles K.: How do I train our clients to seek out prospects, addicts still in their disease, to share everything? Paul put himself out there as just like everybody else. What we came up with was to model the unselfishness and to find a felt need and to try to help with that need. Don’t preach, but practice principles.

Day 1 AM, Level One CPM Training Notes (Unedited)

Pat Robertson, President of CityTeam:

Greetings to those listening on the internet, both in Spanish and English. Translated live. Those who would like to listen in to live transmission on the internet, www.ustream.tv/cityteam .  For Spanish, www.ustream.tv/cityteam2.  It can be watched real time (1 second delay).

 

A number of years ago we had been working in Cuba and Cesar Buitrago went to a training conference in TN, at which David Watson was the speaker. Cesar went to David’s room and spent several hours there and called Pat Robertson. CityTeam had just written its “hedgehog statement” from the book Good to Great. A statement of the one thing you can absolutely excel at. We wrote that we could be great at catalyzing Christ-centered discipleship movements around the globe. It was a great statement, but we did not know how to do it. Cesar called me after midnight, very excited. He said, “Pat, I’ve met the guy who can help us get to where we want to go. We have to bring him to San Jose!” Upon his return he told me about someone who had planted many, many churches in India using a Biblical methodology. We invited him up here to do a training for us. I told him to give us “everything you’ve got.” Well, it was lots of PowerPoints somewhat different than we do today and we went through them and it was like drinking from a firehouse. New concepts, huge volume of information. That training caused us to realize that there were new things that could create a movement of disciples making disciples in a very rapid manner and that’s what we really want. This training is the things Jesus taught about making disciples so that disciples can make disciples who can make disciples who make disciples. When it kicks into gear it becomes viral, explosive. It’s really a lot about our methodology and the way that we get out of the way and let the Holy Spirit do the teaching and not us. That’s very difficult; it’s hard for us to not have to be the “hero” or the teacher. We will learn this week how God has designed and equipped a process so the Holy Spirit, through His Word will be the Hero and the Teacher and disciples will make disciples and gather together in spiritual communities and those communities can reproduce at a rapid rate. We want to happen here in the US what has happened in East Africa under Dave and Ayla. I’m delighted, Dave, that you’re back here to help us do it.

I used to argue a lot with David. Some of the concepts went against my whole Bible School training. He talked about family-based evangelism and personal evangelism was not productive. David would just send me back to the Scriptures, saying, “Go study the Bible.” And I did, just so I could prove him wrong. Instead of me being able to change David’s thinking, the Word and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and I learned that the principles were true and that if we could incorporate them, we would see rapid multiplication of believers.

 

Our entire Development Department is here with us. A few years ago, Cesar did a study on the Men of Peace in the New Testament and he came back and said, “Pat, guess what? Many of the men of peace in the NT were philanthropists, givers, donors.” When Cesar said that to me, I said, “Wow! I wonder how many of our donors are really men of peace?” We would run ads in the newspaper with a picture of a homeless person and people would respond and send in money. What would possess them to do it? Because they have a spiritual heart. So we believe many of our donors might be persons of peace. We’re really excited to see what God’s going to do.

 

Over the months and years that I’ve had the privilege of traveling all over the world with David Watson, I’m excited because there’s never a workshop where I don’t learn more about the work of the Kingdom. I remember being in Freetown, Sierra Leone in early March of 2005. Since that very first training, we’re just under 8,000, probably 7,800 churches, with over 300,000 new believers since the first training, just a little over four years ago. One of the things we hear every place we go – now in India there are 80,000 churches and over 3 million new believers – is that “Yeah, that would work in India, but not here.” But, it’s working in East Africa, West Africa, and in Indonesia. My belief is that after today, after this week, we will start seeing these principles applied here in the US and we’ll see an explosion of new disciples. It takes some time. The process takes time, but I believe in it. Will you believe that with me? (yes.)

I have become best friends with David Watson, with his son, Paul, who is here doing the internet. But Paul’s main job is making disciples on the internet. There are a very few people here who are young enough to understand the internet generation. Email is out – texting is in. He has 10 missionaries working with him this summer in training doing church planting on-line.

 

I want to introduce a great friend, a great leader, a real apostle for Christ. Please join me in welcoming David Watson.

 

David Watson: The greatest misconception is that this training is about church planting, but it’s really about you. If you don’t have a desire to share the Lord who saved you, then this is not the place for you. We need to be the men and women God has called us to be, regardless of circumstances. Faith – obeying God in every situation and every circumstance, regardless of consequences. So, I will not lie, even if it makes me lose money. I will not do things, even though it might cause me to go to jail. I will share the Gospel, even though it makes me uncomfortable. I will be obedient. This is the starting point for everything we want to do in church planting.

 

The best way for you to train this is for you to teach other and see training and experience training. If you have questions that the group can’t answer or the larger group can’t answer, then I’ll step in. If you’re in this room, your responsibility is not to start a church personally, but to coach someone else to start churches. It’s the same as in Peewee soccer league. The coach gently encourages them. By the end of the first season, they are running in the same direction, and they know where the goal is. The coach never steps on the field. His job is to stay on the sidelines and train those children, those youth, those teenagers, those college students, on how to become better at playing soccer. Your job is to coach people in starting churches. We’re not asking you to stop doing what you’re doing, to leave your churches; what we’re asking you to do is to add to what you do at least one day a week when you’re coaching someone else in starting a church. If you follow the process you’re learning, you will be able to see at least 5-6 churches started every month. I will coach 6 people up here who will then coach others and out of that you will see hundreds of others. I think the greatest misunderstanding is that you have to leave your church, your friends, your family. What you do have to do is spend 3-4 hours a week coaching people about starting churches; taking them from being a Peewee league to eventually being a professional league. We want to give you the experience here, so when you get back to where you live, you’ll have an idea of how to do this. We will not look at church planting passages you would use in the field. This week we’ll show you the biblical theology behind church planting. We want you to understand the rules of the game, the how-to and the why-for. We will do it in the same format as in church planting. The other thing is to have an understanding of all the DNA elements required so that the churches will be the right kind of church. Usually we start a Bible study and try to inject into them the DNA. HOW YOU START THE GROUP WILL DETERMINE WHAT THE GROUP WILL BECOME. If you start it as a Bible study, it will be hard for it to become anything else. How to start with lost people and from the very first meeting, begin to establish the DNA so it will become a church. We can teach lost people to move into prayer, to intercession, to ministry, to worship. All of these things can be put in the process. The methodology we use for all our Bible study is the 3-column Bible study.

 

A very simple inductive process of studying the Word of God that lost people can use and even those who have multiple seminary degrees can use to go deeper in the Word. Take your notebook, fold right-hand page in half. On lefthand page, right your Scripture, then in second column (first half of righthand page, right your “in my own words” and in the second half of the right

 

Why do I need to write the Scripture? If you write it, you’ll learn it quicker. If you write it, say it, and tell it to someone else, you’ll learn it even more quickly. If you happen to be working with Muslims, it is very rude and considered bad to write in a Bible. When you work with Muslims, you need to have a Bible that has no markings in it. Then you can write on your copy. The first column, you copy the Scripture. The second column is writing the Scripture in your own words. You’re out in the public with friends and someone asks you a question, you want to give them Scripture. It’s not about memory, but did you get the essence. We don’t want it to sound like it comes straight from the Bible, but like the Word that is in your heart. The reason we write the words is to practice the ability to share with people. Your third column is your obedience column. Every obedience statement starts with “I will” – it’s not about anybody else in the room. It’s about what “I” will do about the word of God. I find people with problems with all 3 of these columns. This process we use all the way through from the beginning until people are old. It develops your understanding of the word. With lost people, we use the 3^rd column, we say, “What does this Scripture teach us about God or about man?” Our goal in the Discovering God series is for people to know who God is, why man is separate from God, and what God has done to repair the breach between God and man. We will do one or two of the Discovering God passages if we don’t run out of time. Any questions about the Discovering God Bible study?

 

Now, I want you to sit in your groups, talk among yourselves and select a group leader who will be the leader for the next week. It doesn’t need to be the “obvious” leader.

 

We are not about making converts, but about making disciples. The command of Jesus is to make disciples.

 

Do you think Peter and the rest of the disciples were Christians when Jesus picked them? Even at the ascension, some of them still doubted. We always think of them as these strong men of God, but the reality was even after seeing the life of Christ, seeing him die, rise again, and ascend, some of them still doubted. Salvation in our western context, we say at this point in time you became a believer. Salvation is a process of commitment that grows all the time. It’s a process of obedience that continues to develop your whole life. Once you enter in with your heart, you continue with your heart. It is who you are. How do we help people become disciples, because we’re not interested in convert. Nobody wants your religion. When we look at the 5%-25% who are attending church. Anywhere from 95%-75% don’t want our religion. They see the ugly side of what we’re about as well as the good side and the reality is that the worst enemy of Christianity is those who misbehave, who treat others poorly, Christians in name only and not disciples of Jesus Christ. I have no interest in religion. I do have extreme interest in my Creator, Jesus Christ and relating to him at a heart/personal level. The discipleship process is the one He taught. When we read the gospels, we need to read with new eyes. Most of us read them saying, “What is Jesus trying to teach us?” but we need to read it asking, “What is Jesus doing to make disciples so I can learn to do the same thing?” We read for knowledge content, but we need to read for action. We need to be asking the questions, “What did they do?” not just “What did they say?” It changes your understanding. We want you looking at both: what you can learn from the passage, but also how you can learn to act, what you will do as a result of this passage. I want you to see all the DNA elements of why you do it this way.

 

The firs column is writing it in your own words, the second column is about saying it in your own words, the third column is about obedience.

 

The discovery Bible study begins with a person of peace of a known relationship. If you know somebody who is willing/wanting to have a Bible study. The POP model is about places where you know no one. It’s still a good model even when working with friends. Some people are open, some are not, to spiritual things. The purpose of the DBS is to lead a person, a family or a group to discover God and his salvation. It’s about discovering salvation, not having it crammed down your through. It’s about discovering your creator and falling in love with him, understanding you are separated, and moving to a relationship with him. What have you learned about God? Remember: Do not teach. FACILITATE DISCOVERY. Many of you, all of you are going to experience someone facilitating. If they start teaching, shut them down. Your job is not to teach, it is to facilitate. Facilitators ask questions, teachers answer questions. Your job is to facilitate, not to do it on your own.

 

Here are the elements:

 

Group interaction

that leads to prayer, ministry and worship.

Ask What are you thankful for today? In your DNA element, this leads to prayer. When they become believers, we say to them, now you can express your thanks to God. That’s moving from a lost person saying, “I’m thankful” to a saved person praying and thanking God.

What needs do you have?

What needs does someone else you know have?

This becomes intercession; praying for others.

 

How can we help meet the needs expressed here today?

Now we move from just saying things to doing ministry, even before they’re saved, even before they accept Jesus as their savior, they can begin doing ministry. Church is about ministry. Discipleship is about ministry.

 

Accountability

With whom did you share last week’s lesson? (Evangelism)

How did you apply what you learned last week? (Obedience)

 

Just read or listen to the focal verses. Don’t explain or teach. Your job is not to explain Scripture, but to present it and let them do it on their own. Regarding complicated passages – we don’t use them with lost people. Those are for later on. For pre-believers, start with creation and work your way through the Bible, focusing on who God is, His attributes. For new believers, work through the Commands of Christ. You may never have done this. We need to understand that our relationship with God and with one another are covered by over 250 commands Jesus taught.

Focus on Scripture, not human opinion. Stay focused on the passage you are focusing on. The group needs to be self-correcting. If this is established early, you won’t have problems down the road.

 

How would you restate this in your own words? This is about understanding. If people can’t do this, then they may not understand it. Close your Bibles and say what the passage says. Get them to do it in their own words. It’s about getting them to understand. If they significantly misstate anything, ask them, “Where did you get that in this passage?” and you keep focusing back to the one verse of Scripture. There are always people who want to take the group a different direction. The facilitator’s job is to keep asking questions, “Where did you get that?” And then you get them to focus back. It may take a while, but if you continue focusing them back, they will stop chasing the rabbits. Hopefully, the group will start asking the question.

 

In the Bible study itself, we say, “What does this teach us about God?” This the whole point, that people would know God.

 

“If this is true, what must we do to obey this?” If they say they don’t believe, you say, “Fine, but hypothetically, what would you do about it?” We want them to start thinking about the consequences.

 

“With whom do you plan to share what you’ve just learned?” (Replication and evangelism). From the very first Bible study we ask them to share. Take names. Next week, ask them, “How did it go with so and so?” You don’t scold them, you just encourage them. They are lost people. Don’t expect lost people to act like saved people. We have a different measuring stick about behavior, about language, and everything else. They are lost, they’re going to hell. Don’t expect them to adopt Christian language, Christian demeanor, Christian dress, etc. Don’t expect Christian behavior. Don’t get shocked at their language, don’t get perturbed. Our job is not to make them ACT like Christians. I am going to model using good languages, being the kind of person I need to be. I don’t adopt their behavior, but neither do I condemn their behavior. That’s the role of the Holy Spirit. He convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment. This is the overview of the meetings

 

 

Order of the Discovery Bible Study Meetings:

 

Opening (this becomes prayer time)

What are you thankful for? (prayer)

What needs to you or others have? (Intercession)

How can we help meet needs expressed? (ministry)

Review of last lesson

What did we learn last week?

Did last week’s lesson cause any changes in behavior or thought?

Reports about sharing during the week

New lesson

Plans for sharing in the coming week

Plans for meeting the needs expressed in the coming week

 

 

Q&A

If we are dealing with lost, what’s difference between pre-believer and new believer?

 

Everyone you’re starting with is lost. Don’t try to pull groups of Christians and lost people together. It’s not about making a new group, it’s about redeeming existing groups. It’s a different relationship when you think this way.

 

You mentioned that the coach never gets on the field. You said this group’s role is to coach. What of some of the people here have never experienced CPM style, what is the minimum experience necessary for you to start coaching people?

 

You can do it after this training. You will not do it well. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, of having problems. But still, I don’t want you LEADING new groups; lead once or twice, find the facilitator and then coach the facilitator. It’s about you taking the Gospel into an existing group.

 

I’m writing as fast as I can. You talked about accountability, and now I don’t see it. How does accountability fit into this order?

 

You tell them to share with someone. Then the following week you ask them how it went. And the I will statements; you ask them the following week how it went with the “I will statements” – we set up the expectation that they will be asked about how they applied what they said they were going to do. It builds the expectation that they will be asked. Encourage them. Most of the people will do something. Some will become very active at obedience and reporting on obedience. These often become your next generation of leaders.

 

Reports about sharing during the week, can you share about that?

 

Take names of who they say they’re going to share with. Ask them about it the following week. Every week you ask them, “Who are you going to share with?” Every week yo

 

What motivation should catalyst provide to make sure the group continues?

 

Because you’re not forming the group, but going into an existing group, it’s not will the group continue, but will they ask me back? It’s about a relationship with a community that is already formed. The POP is one who will have hospitality. But it may be a relationship you’ve had for years. Whatever the relationship is that gets you into the existing community. You need to work that relationship and keep talking about it. You want to maintain a relationship that gets it open. Once you do it about six weeks, it becomes a pattern and it will happen automatically, but it does take that six weeks. You have to be very disciplined, not to call meetings off. Even if you’re dying, drag yourself to that meeting.

 

What do you recommend, the meeting is going, and they want to invite more friends 4 weeks into it?

 

We never bring new people into the group after two weeks. We say, “Let’s just start a new group with the friend.” Even when it becomes church, we say, “Church is for saved people.” If you bring lost people in, they don’t know what’s going on. We prefer all lost people go through a discovery process; once they become believers, bring them into a church. If someone reveals themselves as being a nonbeliever, tell them you have meetings just for them. Try to encourage them to get involved in a different kind of meeting than the one we use for worship time.

 

Now that we know how to do this discovery Bible study, and if we had a group in mind that we see would good to do this with, how can we get them to want to do this?

 

Good question. We will cover that this week.

 

So, if you have someone who wants to start a new group and you’ve met 3 times, what do you do with that new person? What if they don’t have another free night? What do you do?

 

If you have people on your team, you ask someone else. Or I may do it. As a full-time Christian worker, I have the time to do 20 groups a week. Your coaches give up one night a week in order to be trained. If I am training coaches, I can train 5 leaders a week.

 

I’m still thinking about a friend of my friend, and if she can’t be in that group, she won’t want to be in that group.

 

We’re bent to be a success at everything we do and if not, there’s something wrong with us. I’ve made more mistakes. I’ve failed thousands of time. Every group we start will not work. Some things will work, some things will not work. In obedience, we keep introducing this into new groups. We may fail 10 times, but that 11^th one may lead to thousands of believers. Things you thought were failures really weren’t.

 

Youth and adults – would you combine them together or separate them?

 

It depends on the community. If the community combines them, then combine them. If not, then no. It depends on the culture. Even in America, there’s not just one culture. We have to flow with what the community. That’s the reason you go two-by-two, by the way. One is a new coach, one is an experienced coach. Then, if there has to be a division of the group, you’ve got someone to start a new group.

 

I was wondering what the ideal size was. Can a group be too big or too small?

 

Absolutely too big. Studies show optimum group is 4-6. Up to 10, but once you’re over that, the meeting will take two hours instead of 90 minutes. The more people you add into the discovery process, the longer the meeting is. It’s better to keep it small and start multiple groups than have one big group.

 

The lessons, how many lessons, before you let them know to branch out?

 

The core discovery lessons are 15. Don’t ask people starting out if they want to do a 15-week Bible study. Just keep it week to week and ask them if they would like you to come back the following week. If a group decides they don’t want to continue, it’s okay. Don’t get hung up into trying to always make things a success. Our definition of success is not God’s definition of success. Think about it. Jesus spent 3 years teaching. At the end of 3 years, there were 11 guys. Does that sound successful to you? Some of them doubted? Is this who you’re going to turn the church over – 11 doubters? Go back and read the Gospels. Perfection is nowhere to be found, except in the face of God. And it seems to be okay, even though it’s messed up. We need to relax a little bit. The more relaxed we become, the more willing people will be willing to listen with us and work with us.

 

[Change of tapes]

 

Mostly everybody I know is super busy. If a person is super busy and they have a heart for CPM, one of the ways is to have smaller group, but are you going to give us other ways to do CPM with a really busy schedule?

 

Yes, we’ll talk about that.

 

I asked a question about how many lessons and you said, “Take a week at a time.” Somewhere in there, we need to take a look at breaking away and someone else taking the group. I need to break away, right?

 

We’ll talk about that.

 

My experience in starting groups is that 6 say they’re interested, but 2 show up, do you go ahead and start?

 

When other people show up, you ask those who have been with you to catch those people up. It’s not a bad thing to go over it and then go forward, but not beyond 3 weeks, because then you’re constantly circling.

 

 

Here’s the process we’re going to work with. I want you to see the trainer-of-trainers, leader-of-leaders process. We can’t bring 17 facilitators up here. We can do about 6 at a time, 10 at the most. Today, I want these 6 tables to send their facilitators up to the front. Now, you are watching a training meeting. Pay very close attention to what we’re doing, because this is going to be the process.

 

“Guys, I’m glad you came over. You are here because you’ve said you want to see lots of churches started. What we are going to do is help you as you go out and facilitate. I want us to walk through the passage that we’re going to start with and walk through the elements of a meeting, so they’re fresh in your mind. What’s the first element of a meeting?”

 

1. What are you thankful for?

I’m thankful my car got me here.

I’m thankful to be a happily married man.

I’m thankful that I’m single.

I’m thankful for my health and the health of my family members.

I’m thankful I’m vertical and not horizontal.

I’m thankful for this wonderful holiday today.

 

1. What needs do you have?

I need help with my family.

I need help with my strength in doing what my doctor tells me to do.

My health.

I need help to be the right person.

I need help losing a few pounds.

I need more sleep.

 

1. How can we help each other?

I can encourage people. I can use Facebook, Twitter, texting, emailing, phone calls. I could help encourage someone to do what their doctor asked them to do.

I could probably do the same thing.

As a registered nurse, I would love to help develop a reasonable game plan to help people with their health.

We can stay connected and continue to support each other in whatever way we can.

I could ask Charles to walk with me several days a week.

 

4. Since this is our first meeting, we won’t talk about what happened last week, we’ll go to the study. Reminder this is a meeting of people wanting to do church planting. Passage of Scripture about listening to God and doing what He tells us to do. Even the three-column process is all about this. We’re going to do it orally here today. A lot of the groups we work with, writing is hard for them. So we need to practice doing this orally too. I want us to practice so we know how to work with oral groups. Turn in your Bible to John chapter 6, verse 43, 44, 45. David Lee, would you read it for us, please? (Reads passage in The Message then someone else reads it from another version). (Then they go around the group saying it in their own words, verse by verse. Facilitator asks questions.) Whose role is it to save them? It’s Jesus’s isn’t it? Then they do the second verse. “Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him will come to me.” How will God today teach them? They will hear from God. How? They’re lost people. God has written what He wants us to know. How do we get people to listen to God? Give them in the Word of God. It’s about establishing a pattern of listening to God from His Word, rather than listening to man. If we establish this in a new church, what have we just taught them? That God’s the authority. It’s a two-phase. First column who is speaking? God. Second one is the person. Third one is bringing it into their life and changing them. We don’t want you teaching. We want then to listen to the Word, work through the Word and to change their behavior as a result of it. The promise is that everyone who listens and learns will come to Jesus. One of the things I know is that many of you come out of a teaching and preaching background. What is teaching and preaching about? Why do we teach or preach? It is about knowledge, but the ultimate goal is that people will change. The DBS is teaching and is preaching; it’s just a different style of doing the same thing. Instead of someone standing up in front and it being a one-way thing… We have an idea that teaching is something we do on our own and no one asks questions, and particularly in preaching. But in the New Testament, there were questions. You can’t learn without questions. He who hears and listens and learns will come to Jesus. If we establish environments where people can’t ask questions, they can’t learn. We want to establish environments that allow for maximum learning, so we need to let them ask maximum questions. There’s only one source for answers: The Word. Your job is to facilitate the meeting. Part of coaching is to demonstrate. I want all the facilitators to lead the group through this process that’s up on the screen. This is the first time, so you have to model for the first two meetings. By the third meeting, you’ve found a person to lead the meeting, to facilitate. In first meeting, there is no review section, since there’s nothing to review.

Level One CPM Training

May 25-29, we will be doing a church planting training event in San Jose, CA, at CityTeam Ministries headquarters. 

This event will webcast it similtaniously in English and in Spanish.  You will be able to ask questions during the webcasts.  We encourage you to have a group, so that when we go into group activities in San Jose, you can do the same.

Each afternoon from 3:00-6:00 there will be breakout groups to discuss the principles presented that day in relationship to the various ministries of CityTeam Ministries.  This would be a great time for your team to discuss how to implement what you have learned that day.

• English version can be viewed at http://www.ustream.tv/cityteam
• Spanish version can be viewed at http://www.ustream.tv/cityteam2

Agenda

 Monday, May 25, 2009
10:00 a.m. -  12:30 p.m. 1st Session
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 a.m. Lunch served
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. – 2nd Session
3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Break
3:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. – Break-out groups
 
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
9:00 a.m. – 10:30 1st Session
10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Break                                              
11:00 p.m. – 12:30 2nd Session
12:30 p.m.- 1:30 p.m. – Lunch
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. 3rd Session
3:00 p.m.- 3:30 p.m. Break
3:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Break-out groups
 
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 
9:00 a.m. – 10:30 1st Session
10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Break
11:00 p.m. – 12:30 2nd Session
12:30 p.m.- 1:30 p.m. – Lunch
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. 3rd Session
3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Break
3:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Break-out groups 
 
Thursday, May 28, 2009
9:00 a.m. – 10:30 1st Session
10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Break
11:00 p.m. – 12:30 2nd Session
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. – Lunch
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. 3rd Session
3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Break
3:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Break-out groups
 
Friday, May 29, 2009
9:00 a.m. – 10:30 p.m. 1st Session
10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Break
11:00 p.m. – 12:30 2nd Session

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