CPM/DMM: Imitation of Life--MAWL Part I

MAWL-Model/Assist/Watch/Leave--Letter--Love

Imitate Me As I Imitate Christ

                                                                                                  

Wrinkled skin. Pressed flesh of old meeting with new, depicted in charcoal. Leathery skin squeezed of long years existence, young skin connecting with celebration of life.

Beautiful. Life on life exposed in one microcosm frame of the macro, which is a glimpse of life abundant.

The warmth of mutual investment along with the transformation of one generation imitating another is captured on canvas.  

The good, the bad, and the ugly; all wrapped into intentional exchange is the brief summation of the above work by Josh Ransom.

Making disciples reminds me of the simplistic realities contained in this drawing; it is messy but making reproducing disciples is intentional.  Making rapidly reproducing disciples: one of the most amazing privileges God commands His Bride to engage in.

Desiring Church Planting Movements (CPM)

                                                Without Willingness To Break Stride

Breaking stride with present norms in the American Bride of Christ, which in subtle ways impede the effectiveness of sent ones coming from these shores, takes great courage.  

Recently, while on home leave, I was invited to consult in the role of vision caster and coach to a women’s ministry in our home base area.

These women love Jesus. These particular women, unlike the context in which I mainly serve among Third World Muslims, have the unique challenge of being blessed with extravagant levels of material wealth.

Though I come from these privileged positions, for over 30 years I have been gratefully ruined for desiring His glory alone.

How then was I to speak in vision casting ways to this group of women?

The answer. I began that leadership training time in the same ways in which I challenge Muslim Background Believing women to follow Christ.

We begin at the end.

1. Make God’s Glory Our End Vision

God has a strategy; He has made that strategy clear in His Word. God wants His Bride to live out of aligning ourselves with His heartbeat and purposes.

There is a new yet Scripturally old paradigm to consider. 

There is the common mindset as western world Christians of our need to only receive Jesus into our hearts, while we choose to invite Him into our lives.

This decision is only the beginning part of the equation God bequeathed to those who choose to follow Christ.  Once we declare ourselves as followers of Jesus Christ we need to also move into and obediently live in alignment with His heart while embracing His life and purposes for us and for mankind. Jesus is inviting us into His heart and receiving us into His fold. Stunning.

God is the center, not unto us.

It is for the sake of His glory that He invites us to both demonstrate and declare His fame and renown in our individual spheres of influence along with being connected to the ends of the earth. We are blessed in order to be a blessing to the nations (ethne-unreached people groups) of the earth.

To embrace His heartbeat in His purposes for mankind is not an option for believers. Who among us would desire that, as my friend Julie Gray states, “I never wanted to be a 1 year old Christian who repeatedly lives as such for the remainder our time on earth.”

What's in your End Vision? Does your End Vision include God's glory being declared and expressed in and through your life in the making of multiplying households of obedience-based disciples of Jesus? In your immediate sphere of influence as well as being connected in sending and/or going to the Unreached People Groups? Are you heading in that direction or have you been distracted?

RA