IV. Discipling Believers and Working
Toward Gathering
Points of engagement for women in Church Planting Movements:
1. Explore
using creativity in worship expressions. Together with indigenous female leaders,
explore indigenous worship styles. Consider how to encourage your partners to
create a new song using their unique worship forms.
2. It
is imperative that each woman, foreign and national, embraces the significance
of being involved in multiplying discipleship. To invest
the time to see others whom you pour the Christ life into excel in their walks
for the sake of His fame and renown, you need to follow the Master’s Plan for
doing so. Christ selected followers, they followed and watched and learned from
all that He did. He did all in front of them, they watched. The principle that
discipleship is caught, not taught, is helpful to remember. Jesus then trained
His disciples to go forth and do the same and then report back to Him. Then, He
told them to pour into others’ lives with multiplication in mind, not addition.[1]
3. Be committed to modeling a
basic multipliable discipleship process which essentially includes helping a
new believer feed themselves spiritually through Bible study and prayer. Other
essentials would need to be addressed such as helping those whom you are
discipling on working through character development. Further crucial pieces of
discipleship need to include gaining skills to share the splendor and love of
Christ with others. Use a simple discovery
method for discipleship so that they learn to feed directly from God’s Word and
then can reproduce this into the lives of others. Coach your indigenous partners
in further ministry skills: help equip
them in areas of evangelism, leadership training, character growth, emotional maturing process, and
developing intimacy with the Lord. Model, Assist, Watch, Love/Letter/Leave[2]
is an effective process which David Garrison defines in writing,
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“MAWL-Model,
Assist, Watch, and Leave is defined as a rhythm of implementing church planting
that contributes to a Church Planting Movement as a missionary models a CPM,
assists the new believers in planting CPM-oriented churches, watches to see
that they and the churches are reproducing and then leaves in order to begin a
new MAWL-cycle.”
|
4.
Commit to trusting the Holy Spirit to model all aspects of evangelism and
discipleship alongside indigenous colleagues. Then, together, trust the Father for
His fruit to be multiplied further. Part of an effective discipleship process
needs to be coming alongside your national colleague and helping her to learn
how to delight in declaring the Name of Jesus.
5. Each
woman on the team trusts God for anywhere from 1 to 5 women in target group or
national partners with hearts for target group to meet with regularly for
discipleship, leadership training, and mutual accountability.
6.
Generally speaking, the discipleship process will be most effective when women
disciple women. However, it should be noted that many highly
effective female missionaries trained men, including Lelias Trotter, Lelia
Lewis, and Lottie Moon.
7.
Provide Leadership CPM Training for forming house fellowship leaders. Develop agreed upon contributions for missionary team
members in the leadership development process of indigenous leaders. Ideally,
husbands and wives ought to work together with indigenous emerging leaders to
discern the needs and potential of both men and women in newly forming
fellowships. The combination of gifts and perspective from differing sexes will
help to ensure a well rounded development of your national colleagues.
8.
Provide training for indigenous followers to walk in freedom in Christ from
involvement in forms of spiritual bondage or strongholds. Strongholds
can be defined as any area of life in which spiritual ground has been given
over to deception as a pattern.
Charles
R. Swindoll emphasizes the need for believers to become further equipped in the
area of recognizing Satan’s deceptions, writing, “We first need to understand
the desire of our adversary. He wants more than anything else, to have his way
in the lives of
humans.
He wants to control us, or at least to win a hearing and become a persuasive
force in our lives. His preferred realm of operation is our minds.” [3]
Unreached people
group cultures embrace many patterns of deception. Be careful of the strong potential to be
negatively influenced by such patterns. To help coach female indigenous leaders
into understanding the desire of our adversary is crucial. The process of
freedom can begin with the ability to acknowledge where there exists captivity.
Many times missionaries can be influenced by the strongholds of the target
culture.
9.
Encourage new followers to baptize newer followers. Coach them in this area of CPM.
10.Facilitate
synergy building gatherings of time in the Word, appropriate contextualized
worship forms, and intercession among the growing house fellowships. Train the
first generation of believers to multiply this training into the next
generation of leaders and so forth.
V. Developing The Body of Believers
Points of engagement for women in Church Planting Movements:
1.
Find a place, in your context, in which you can enjoy times of refreshing with
the Lord. Develop
the spiritual disciplines of fasting and extended times of intercession.
2. Train
the growing female indigenous partners to brainstorm ways in which they could
move back into and impact their spheres of influence. Though it is desired that
their entire oikos (households) come
to faith in a process of interacting with God’s Word together, there are times
when they come to faith as individuals. Pray with them over their spheres of
influence beyond their families.
3. Aim to plant healthy pregnant churches which multiply over and over again. What will a healthy multiplying house fellowship resemble? Here are a
few Scriptural points on what they will reflect: healthy churches will have obedience
based study of God’s Word, will exercise discovery methods of studying the
Word, practice the sacraments, baptize others, give offerings and tithes, be passionate
in prayer, explore varied expressions of worship, be active in caring for one
another, be active in evangelism and sensitive outreach, and a body of
believers using their gifts for God’s glory.
The indigenous women you partner with should explore the keys to a healthy
church, in their context, as they interact with related Scriptures. Obedience-based
discipleship will help them to consider and then implement how each one
contributes to the health of the multiplying house fellowships.
4.
Identify women’s needs in the developing house fellowships and then identify
women who can minister and be affirmed to serve the Lord in those areas. Work with these women to understand the end vision
and to develop their skills in seeing the Lord use them in their fellowships.
5. Revisit your particular gifting mix and re-evaluate what areas you could be
further released. This will help you to flourish for His glory toward the goal
of seeing worshipers established and multiplying out in the target group.
VI. Empowering and Installing Leaders,
and the Beginning of Reproduction
Points of engagement for women in Church Planting Movements:
1. Equip
your indigenous female partners in cultivating personal times of developing
intimacy with the Lord. Model having quiet times and intercession times
together.
2. Partner
with the Spirit of God and with the indigenous women you are coaching from the
beginning. The desire here is to see them flourish as servant leaders and that
they take the vision and run with it. Plant firmly into female partners’ hearts
the Scriptural patterns of God’s heart being that of a missionary heart from
the beginning. Cast the vision together with your indigenous partners to
believe God to send some of their target group followers out among other unreached
people groups.
3. Every
house fellowship will have women who serve behind the scenes. There will also
be indigenous women who take an active lead in the process of CPM. A church can’t grow without healthy leaders.
Select out the women you see who have potential for leadership. Spend extra
time with them developing their leadership potential. Affirm the indigenous
partners’ giftings as observed for His glory.
4.
Guard the relationships with women on your team. With God’s grace, encourage
each other to excel in love and care for one another. Put on the full armor of
God (Ephesians 6) against self-pity, self absorption, pride, gossip, jealousy,
and a competitive spirit to name just a few tools in the hands of the Evil One.
Stand firm in your position in Christ. Be open and honest, quick to resolve
conflict as well as to invite and seek input for your on-going growth.
5. Cultivate
relationships built upon mutual trust with the indigenous church planting
women. Listen to their hearts, value their wisdom, and partner with the Holy
Spirit in brainstorming together as to female focused ministry ideas for the
target women. What ministries are needed? Who will lead them? What further
training will your female indigenous partners need? How are these women gifted,
and how can these gifts be further fanned into flame? How can the women in the
missionary team use their own spiritual gifts to assist in these areas?
VII. Reproduction and Movement
Points of engagement for women in Church Planting Movements:
1.
Partner with your female indigenous leaders in the area of worship. Incorporate
their styles of approaching the Lord into your own personal times with the
Lord.
2. Envision, alongside your indigenous female colleagues, what a multiplying women’s ministry would look like. You might consider forming a women’s ministry team with a clear vision, clear goals, and clear responsibilities. It is important to consider the following felt needs in that process; provide Biblical training for a woman’s role as a single, a mother, and wife. Be intentional in continuing to equip other women in identifying and approaching the Woman of Peace, sharing their faith as a way of life, discipling others, and in becoming an active member of the Body of Christ.
2. Envision, alongside your indigenous female colleagues, what a multiplying women’s ministry would look like. You might consider forming a women’s ministry team with a clear vision, clear goals, and clear responsibilities. It is important to consider the following felt needs in that process; provide Biblical training for a woman’s role as a single, a mother, and wife. Be intentional in continuing to equip other women in identifying and approaching the Woman of Peace, sharing their faith as a way of life, discipling others, and in becoming an active member of the Body of Christ.
3.
Discuss with your indigenous female leaders whether an on-going CPM
fruitful practices type gathering would be an encouragement. A fruitful
practices gathering is simply a time to come together as female practitioners to
share ideas about what is effective as well as what is not effective in
ministry. There is such richness when we learn from each other.
4.
Record
stories in various forms in order to stir the hearts of intercessors
internationally for your people group. These forms may include devotionals of
experiences on the field, indigenous themes in artwork, power points, prayer
brochures, stories from the unreached people group’s women’s perspectives, as
well as teaching materials on God’s heart for the ethne. Vision casting ideas
are multifaceted.
One
of the weaknesses of a seven-phase church planting model is that it implies
that you move from one phase to another in a linear fashion and that you stop
doing the activities in the previous phase.
In Phase III, for example, you share your faith, and in Phase IV you
disciple the new believer. The
implication is that you stop sharing your faith while you disciple the new
believer. Of course, there will be an
adjustment of time because you need to spend extra time with a new believer,
but at the same time you should be seeking opportunities to declare God’s
goodness to those around you. You will want to continue to be involved in
Phases III-VI as appropriate.
5.
Consider your changing role in the process of CPM. Is
it time to start to become an itinerate advisor--to be gone for a period of
time to allow the indigenous leaders to make more and more decisions? Or, are
the local leaders ready for you to become an absent advisor, that is, to be available
from a distance but otherwise leaving them to run the ministry? Tom Steffan
discusses role changes at length in his book Passing the Baton, writing, “Church planters must be willing to die
to self-serving ambitions so that national believers can live up to their full
potential.”[4]
6. A
big part of our role as missionaries is to cultivate the development of
resources that will facilitate a CPM.
Believe that the resources for any given Church Planting Movement
are somewhere within the target people. Many women are gifted Bible translators,
gifted in Ethnomusicology, gifted writers, gifted Bible teachers, gifted
administrators, or otherwise talented. What strategic roles in training could missionary
women be leading with indigenous partners in order to assist the process of Church
Planting Movements?
One
of the key CPM reflections for our
hearts as missionaries is to answer the question, “what needs to be done in
order for this unreached people group to be reached, not what can be done?”[5]
Summary
In
conclusion, the above suggestions are meant to spur you on and not to prick.
God’s grace is full and His power to lead you is limitless. In the midst of
honest feelings and thoughts of inadequacy, His enoughness awaits you as you
lay hold of His purposes in Christ Jesus. My hope and prayer is that each of you,
as missionary women, will see how vital the varied roles you play in the
process of seeing Church Planting Movements birthed. I trust these suggestions
will inspire you to believe God for releasing you into the work of His hands in
deeper ways still. To bask in the warmth of His goodness and to hunger to live
out of the overflow of His touch in your life is my heart cry. May you continue
to desire to drink deeply of His rivers that wash over each and every situation
you face as you cling to THE ROCK, who is your great STRENGTH.
Refusing
Faded Glory,
RA
About The Author
RA (pen name) and her husband and children have been
serving the Lord since 1991 among a code named Muslim Unreached People Group in
Asia. They are on staff with Mission to Unreached Peoples (MUP). Rhonda
and her husband are committed to being practitioners/trainers/coaches in Church
Planting Movements among Muslim Unreached People Groups.
[1]
Coleman, Robert. The Master Plan of Evangelism. Old Tappan, New Jersey: Published by
Spire Books, 1963. Personal summary of basics concepts discussed.
[2]
Garrison, David. Church Planting
Movements. Pg. 60. WIGTAKE, Midlothian, VA, www.churchplantingmovements.com
[3] Swindoll, Charles R. Victory Over Darkness. Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan Publishing
House, 1981, 1995.
[4]Steffan, Tom. Passing the Baton. Pg. 23.
[5] SP CPM
training
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