DMM: From the Inside Out

CPM/DMM: From the Inside Out

"Growing old, is for sure. Growing up is up to you!", read the local cigarette advertisement in our city. I am not altogether sure how that slogan has any connection with smoking cigarettes, but alas, I shall borrow the saying for the eternal perspective. 

In disheveled disarray bordered by a free-flow of tears before me sat one of our broader networks of national partners. Kati and I were meeting for CPM/DMM coaching of her 6 DBS groups along with encouraging her in member health growth areas. To launch movements spawned by spiritually and emotionally healthy catalysts provides the more holistic package of this effort among the SOLI/Sumbi Muslim UPGs. 

I shared that above advertisement slogan with Kati as related to her recent personal character challenges. She continued to pour out the tension she felt between the areas of desired freedom in the Lord and the pain of the longings unmet throughout her life. Years of suffering in a particular area have lead to a lifetime of start and stop patterns of doubting God's goodness in her life, made manifest in the pursuit of false intimacies. 

Character issues do not necessarily define a person, they simply provide the necessary road map which can lead to much needed healing from the Father's hand.

Francis Frangipane writes:

"I thought having a promise from God was the same thing as receiving a commandment from God. I did not understand what I personally lacked in character or what I needed to attain concerning faithfulness, becoming a bond-servant, and possessing a grateful heart. These things needed to be worked in me before God would truly begin to fulfill His larger promises and opportunities. What I became for God was more important than what I did for Him."

Being a disciple was never intended to be an “either/or” proposition. I have heard laborers be found to lament on seeing this or that season as just their time to “be” in Christ, to the sad exclusion of “doing” the work of His bidding. In the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we are invited to see God’s beautiful tapestry weave of what it is to listen to His Word, hear His voice, and to love and obey His lead. We are to both “be and do” in Christ, as a daily embrace. That is the beauty of the Shema lifestyle found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. To hear, love and obey Jesus, is the chewy center of every disciple. There are those who have been “in Christ” for many years who have never grown up into being reproducing disciple-makers. Being in Christ, practicing His presence, while walking out His promised freedom in the power of the Holy Spirit, is the process of living the reality of Christ from the inside out. 

Coaching our partners, be they international or local indigenous, must include this piece of careful loving affection for the sake of His glory being embraced and experienced as part of seeing His glory declared. 

To “be and do”, now, that is the question. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, now, that is the provision of the Father. 

CPM/DMM...From the inside out, for His glory. 

DMM: An Image of Redemption

 DMM: An Image of Redemption  

“And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming?’ For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean."- Acts 17

Pak Halim

Pak Halim

My husband noted the intensity of the Muslim man who now sat across from him. The man had chased down our colleague who had been fishing for hearts a few days prior. Our colleague had invited Sp into the relationship to help model the Discovery Bible Storying processes. We are involved in the training and coaching of nationals as well as western missionaries. And yet, more recently we asked the Lord, in those still times before Him, to provide newer streams of seekers (Persons of Peace) to pursue for us personally. 

Pak Halim shared how he had been feeling empty of soul and longing to know the source of the ache which caused this desire. Sp and our colleague began a stream of interaction with these stories from the Word of God which we have crafted to speak into the worldview of Muslims. It is the image of the Beautiful One displayed in snapshots before a man who is seeking. They meet twice weekly, beholding the image of the splendor of the One, Jesus Christ.  Pray for Pak Halim to share these stories with his   household as well as his network of relationships. Why wouldn’t the Father be bringing this man to saving faith along with his household? By His sovereign hand, we trust. 

As you desire to practice next steps in DMM implementation, what would you do to offer the DBS story set to this man and his household?   Make clear the simple invite to take a look at the Taurat, Zabur, and Injil.

Reflections to Ponder

·      Ask the Holy Spirit to move in the hearts of the many Pak Halims to share these stories with their households as well as their networks of relationships.

·      Pray for the SaSumBi Muslims to experience a profound level of discontent with where they are in relation to a Holy God. 

·      Ask God to give 4 solid Muslim fanatic households to our Disciple Making Movement teams. 

·      Ask God to multiply these new followers into 4 generations of reproducing house fellowships among the SaSumBi by the end of 2020. 

O Lord God, May the hearts and minds of the SaSumBi long for your presence alone. At even the mention of the name of Isa Al Masih, I ask that they would be given pause to come near and listen. To then trust Christ alone for their salvation is my heart cry, O God. Cause the SaSumBi to be deeply disturbed at the vacuity in their hearts which they will realize, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in relation to a Holy God. For there is no other name in heaven or earth, given among men, by which they must be saved. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.