DMM: Extraordinary Prayer Modules

 DMM Extraordinary Prayer

 

DMM Prayer Module #1 – But God

 

Disciple Making Movements (DMMs) are preceded by prayer movements.

·       Even if we do everything according to CPM principles, if the Lord doesn’t work, we won’t accomplish anything. 

·       We must both work hard AND pray earnestly, as Jesus did. With prayer, we work with God. Without prayer, we work alone.

Wherever there is a Disciple Making Movement today, it is accompanied by extraordinary prayer. In fact, in India, where a huge DMM has occurred among the Bhojpuri, church-planters normally spend 2+ hours/day in personal prayer, more time each day in corporate prayer plus 1-2 days a week in fasting.

 

1. Read out loud 2x, Ephesians 2:1-10 

2. Rephrase in your own words…

In what ways does “but God” apply to your UPGs?

Ask the Lord what new pathways He desires to build among your people group.

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DMM Prayer Module #2 – Extraordinary Prayer/Prayer Themes-Empowered by the Holy Spirit

Listening and Reflecting

Take 5 minutes to pause, listen to God, and write overarching themes for UPGs for which you each have been praying in recent weeks, concerning the following:

·       Scripture

·       Topics

·       Themes

Take 1 minute each and share how the Lord has been leading you to intercede for your people in the above areas, in recent weeks.  Share any specific answers to intercession each person has seen. Celebrate God’s hand in brief praise responses over that area.

Sharing and Praying

If you haven’t prayed in this way in the past, take some time to ask the Lord what he might have for you to pray in this next season. If you don’t hear any direction from the Spirit, count it as freedom to come up with something. 

1.     15 minutes in groups of 2-3: Pray within the group one of these areas for your UPG.

2.     5 minutes

a.     In your group, determine if there were any themes or topics that rose to the surface or various items that formed a theme. Decide together which thing (if any) was a common factor in your prayers

b.     Pick a person in the group to state a theme to everybody. They pray it in front of everyone, with everyone being in agreement

3.     5 minutes: Everyone write down their themes and hand them in for me to check if there are any themes that have resonated among everyone.

 

DMM Prayer Module #3 – End Vision DMM Exercise

            Listen and intercede about these dynamics

            End Vision Components: (Road map which we carry with us everywhere)

1.     God’s Glory Centric

2.     Audaciously Specific

3.     Movement Mindset

4.     Time Bound

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DMM Prayer Module #7 – Displacement: Praying the Opposite (Jean C)

Keeping prayer focused on God’s purposes/promises… instead of “praying against” something, we positively “pray in the opposite.” 

 

Someone has a central sheet of paper (could be a big flip chart) and writes down “complaints” or troubles concerning your place/people. What are some examples of negative things that we see in India (or elsewhere) and what does it look like to pray the opposite? Write a list of opposites. For example:

·       Family tensions                                 Unity (Psalm 133)

·       Prejudice/caste system                     Honor (James 2:1-13)

Spend some time as a group “praying in” the things listed in the column on the right.

Coaching Team letter

 

DMM: To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain

To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain

True confessions. When one has never ever considered dying for the sake of the gospel, it is highly likely that one has never really chosen to live in total unmitigated obedience to Christ. When it comes to the launch of reproducing Disciple Making Movements among Unreached People Groups, it is the worthiness of Christ and His love-filled command to go which compels. 

Missionary Biography: Anna Tan

“When your bucket gets kicked, what spews forth will be either bitterness or blessing. I can’t answer for others, but I know what I desire. When God takes me through suffering, I want to respond with blessing,” commented Anna Tan, Singaporean missionary to the Sasak Muslims of Lombok island, Indonesia. 

One morning in 2001, Anna was found with 80 percent of her body covered in 2^nd and 3^rd degree burns. Anna had awakened to the daily routine of making coffee in anticipation of her time with the Lord. The propane gas tank, which supplied the stovetop operation, had leaked profusely overnight. In her sealed kitchen area she unknowingly walked into a cloud of undetectable gas and lit a match.

Anna obeyed the Lord’s voice to demonstrate and proclaim the glory of Christ among the Sasak people. Her life represents just one from among the 120 missionaries who have come and gone in service among them in the past 31 years of modern mission efforts. For those of us still called to be among the Sasak, we jointly believe God to launch a rapidly multiplying movement of Sasak worshipers of Christ. 

Anna is a reminder of the high cost and the privilege of obeying God’s voice to the least reached peoples. She spewed forth blessing as she clung to Christ’ sufficiency, even as she died.

DMM: Dreams and Visions

Reproduce Laborers

Amisha led five women in reading prophet stories from the Bible, a good way to introduce the Word of God to Muslims. They share the stories with their family and friends and obey lessons God impresses on them during their time together.

Three have had visions of Isa al Masih (Jesus the Messiah). In them, He had instructed one to forgive her husband and encouraged another by confirming that she was studying His Truth.. The third had a simple yet profound vision of being embraced by Jesus!

Soon all five women became followers of Isa. Amisha baptized them in the irrigation canal of a nearby rice paddy.

Amisha is a layperson who has been trained in Disciple Making Movements and longs to hear and obey Jesus. All six women are in the process of learning to become reproducing disciple-makers. 

These women were the first in their families to come to Christ. Pray as they engage their husbands with the Word of God and encourage their spiritual leadership. It can sometimes be messy, but it is so important in bringing the whole household to faith. 

Lifestyle Finding Persons of Peace

 

Home Assignment has been a huge stretch this time around for us. However, in the midst of all, to be able to choose intentionality in the desire daily to listen for the Father's voice, to be tethered to the unchanging Word of God, and to choose to obey His beckoning really knows no context bounds.

Tex Mex was on the menu this particular day. Not really. Model-Assist-Watch-Letter/love/Coach (MAWL), that seemed to be what the Father had on the lunch menu as I sat across from a missions committee member from one of our partnering fellowships.

Our waitress strolled up to take our order, when God called attention to her tatted neck.

I asked her name, she replied. Then I introduced my friend and I as "followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, which I have no way to know what this means to you and your life experience. However, I do know that you have placed a signpost on your neck, of which must have great personal meaning to your own life. Can you share with us the story behind your tattoo? We would be honored to hear."

She gushed forth the significance of her signpost. To which I felt led to mention, "You have honored your mother by placing her birthdate on your skin. What you may not realize is that you have touched on the desire of God to honor one's parents." She teared up. I furthered, "May we ask you one question further, knowing that you have other tables to tend? If you could see God do one thing that would be amazing in your life, what would that one thing be and why?" She shared that her life is hugely difficult, and that she needed encouragement for all the hard things.

We listened to her this day. We prayed with her for God to meet her in these painful places, and left a big tip. In Disciple Making Movements, the next step is to offer to gather with others to hear from God's heart on these life issues. She declined. We trust the Holy Spirit to move her and her "household" in a plus 1 direction. To offer a Discovery Bible Study in context relevant terms is always an exercise in Holy Spirit dependence. Every effective tool must have the on-ramp to offer to discover the reality of who God is in real time in real ways, no matter the context; Muslim, Buddhist, Secular, Hindu, Animist.  

When looking for Persons of Peace, there is the "on mission" intentional going and there is the lifestyle intentionality in "as you are going". 

"I have never been able to know how to have spiritual conversations with others. I have done works which I want to show the kindness of the Lord, but not the combination of acts of works and statements which enter into spiritual conversations and an offer to discover more of who God is. There was freedom in what was shared. There was caring for the waitress' life, there was a spiritual discussion which made clear about Jesus. I have not seen this...I think I need to reconsider my assumptions and be trained in what I witnessed today," reflected the missions committee representative.

Though it can said that delicious Tex-Mex cuisine was enjoyed that day, it can also be said that to choose to pay attention to how the Spirit is leading, to be available for the Holy Spirit's bidding, and to live a Shema lifestyle was served up unto the Lord. A Shema lifestyle of "as you are going", as well as a Shema lifestyle of "when you are going on-mission" is a beautiful DNA-ed norm in a movement mindset. To Model-Assist-Watch-Letter/Love/Coach (MAWL) is as norm in the Disciple Making Movement mindset as Chips and Salsa are to Tex-Mex.

DMM: Disturbance, Life Incongruent

Disturbance.

“Remember those who led you and spoke the Word of God to you, considering the outcome of their way of life, imitate their faith.”-Hebrews 13:5

Disturbance.

How is it that the Bride of Christ continues to see emotionally unhealthy men and women lead them?

The cultivation of celebrity culture of our generation has drilled down deeply into the landscape of believers in the States. Perhaps that is one driver of unhealthiness, but then again, that would be to address symptoms rather than root causes of unhealth which can develop in one's life.

“Give us a king!” cried the Israelites. God allowed them Saul. Saul was the man who fit their demand, but was not the leader who would meet their need. He fit the clothes, he fit the imagined need which the people would trust in rather the man or woman of God’s fashioning.

When I consider ministry leaders, like the husband of my friend, I think, how could this happen?

Lamentably, there is a tendency to confuse great speakers as great spiritual leaders. It is the heart which God is after. In several situations in which I have been asked to counsel, comfort, and call forth to truth, there is usually an unhealthy leader who was given the microphone in the injured person (s)’ life.

What one is like behind closed doors is a God’s glory-centric personal reflection question. The Father desires not that those whom He uses as leaders to desire any level of incongruity between the public and private walk. There is no room for separation.

Satan has a great plan for our lives: to divide us from an abundant and joy-filled, Holy Spirit empowered life. To take us off ramp from engagement in God’s promises and purposes is the same song, different follower as target. The world, the flesh, and the devil is a powerful cocktail in the life of the believer. Take care, guard one's heart in humility, is the healthy pathway, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit to empower.

Leaders who choose duplicity, choose a certain trajectory. Saul chose that same pathway, though he was given many opportunities to true repentance and transformation. He chose not the higher ways of the Father.

Leaders who choose to say one thing and do another are not new to the human scene.  For any follower of Christ to choose to reject Holy Spirit-led mooring will lead to unhealthiness. To see leaders deny the reality that their home life/internal life is in shambles, are time and again enabled by their respective ministries to lead. It is easy to think one is somehow beyond this same incongruent life. However, a wise heart knows that just as another is choosing a life not worth imitating, that same observation could be true of them, save the choice to guard one’s heart, in humility and dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

Cautionary Tales

I have observed that those in the Bride of Christ who possess lavish financial resources can actually use that for great blessing in God’s purposes. I have also observed the opposite as being true: those with resources to live a hidden life of unrepentance will do so through their wealth. By gain of a financial lifetime of independence they can choose to not be close enough to be discovered.

How can this be?

Another friend, whose husband is in the Christian ministry world limelight, treats his wife with disdain. Emotionally abusive patterns are 35+ years of norm for their life.

Yet, this very same leader is a polished and respected ministry leader.

How can this be?

Recently, as I was invited to speak at Dallas Theological Seminary, during their missions emphasis week, I incurred another type of bizarre incongruent behavior.

My topic for 50 minutes was to lay out how God is moving among Unreached People Groups, as well as reached areas like America, in the launch of cascading movements to Christ. Disciple-Making Movements are now occurring in 1,370+ distinct movements: obedience-based groups of disciples who reproduce disciples, leaders who reproduce leaders, house fellowships who reproduce house fellowships.

Check out videos on www.beyond.org as well as 2414now.net.

The day after I spoke at Dallas Theological Seminary, there was a leader who represented another mission agency who, instead of speaking on how God is moving in their midst, chose to spend his 50 minutes to attack DMM. This attack posture came from those in that org's top international leadership. Interestingly, three years ago my husband and I were asked to train their international leaders in an intro to DMM. Sadly, they have an average of 14 years to plant one non-reproducing church among their overseas efforts. When it comes to the need to have leaders who lay aside their entrenchment, stubbornness, or attachments to emotionally high value ministries, they are choosing to not make reproducing disciples as their trajectory.

Those who lead with a hunger and thirst for God’s glory, no matter the cost, are set on going before the Lord and asking “God, what needs to be done so that your glory is declared/demonstrated among the ethne for the launch of cascading movements to Christ?”

Those leader types who are bent on their small kingdom building are not open to conversation. That is sad, if it were not so pathetic.

Meanwhile, Persons of Peace, among the UPGs, are longing to be found.

DMM: A Durian Debacle, & Leadership Development

DMM: A Durian Debacle & Leadership Development

“There is a foul air among us!”, decried one of the main characters in the film which depicted J.R. Tolkien’s famous novel Lord of the Rings. 

A Tsunami-like wave of olfactory pungency rushed over my fellow airline passengers and me. 

There certainly was a foul air among us. Enroute home through Jta, on an early morning flight from Mdn to Jta, pungent was a kind descriptive word. Our flight was delayed headlined by a ruckus displayed somewhere between rows 38-40. This flight was delayed due to a scuffle among passengers prior to takeoff. There was a mutiny on the Lion, Lion Airways, to be exact. Pervasively so, there existed a huge cargo of the famous tropical fruit called durian.

Durian is a sticky fruit which folks either love or hate. There are no nominal believers when it comes to durian. Apparently, the durian’s odor filled our cabin, which launched a small riot. Our flight was delayed. 

The demo failed in the end, but did reveal an at once both comforting yet disturbing thought. The majority people group in that region are the Fierce people group, who once were a fierce cannibalistic tribal group. On display that day was their unregenerate old school intimidation tactic which most likely once lay their human prey immobilized. I sat there thanking Jesus that at least they were no longer cannibalistic. Regretfully so, however, though they heard the gospel over 100 years ago, they are largely known as a mile wide and an inch deep in their lack of being transformed in character by the gospel. Obedience based multiplying households of disciples are rare among this people group. The Fierce are one of only a handful of people groups in our country which have responded to the gospel but sadly, have yet to truly be transformed by it. The remaining people groups are 320 distinctive Unreached People Groups who are all Muslim peoples, excepting the Bese and the Trese, who are Hindu.   

In the Disciple Making Movements/DMM process, one of the essentials is the development/pouring into the local leaders/facilitators is the area of the need to address character issues which have yet to be surrendered unto the Lordship and freedom in Christ.

Character issues of patterned sins we simply “tolerate” is much like the choice to live with the stench (disobedience) and call it the norm. However, those who want to bring honor and glory to the only Living God will yearn to live with a holy dread of displeasing/bringing shame to God’s holy name. Imagine how different our fellowships, our communities, and our spheres of influence would be with hearts who long to obey Jesus as the norm as an expression of their growing love and adoration of His goodness.

“I do what I do as a slave to my worldview.”-JK

Leadership Development of Local Leaders

Character Issues Addressed

Worldview leads to crossroads moments when confronted by God’s heartbeat and His worldview. Altogether otherworldly, most radically countercultural, and highly counterintuitive to one’s own patterned way of seeing life is the Father’s Word in concert with His Holy Spirit’s empowerment. Unless one is personally transformed at the chewy center of heart level allegiances, contagious abundant life will be stilted, the old man worldview will prevail, and a stench will prevail.

Indeed, we do what we do as a slave to our own worldview.

My husband and I have seen the Father readying our hearts and our local partners in a purifying process of recent. One of the areas, which help to usher in the outpour of the Holy Spirit among a given Unreached People Group, is the area of personal repentance/desire to live in utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit for God’s glorifying holiness.

Excerpt from a DMM trainer colleague... 

A Word About Disciple Making Movements (DMM)

4^th Generation Movements among Unreached People Groups -- 3rd of 5 key areas -- Obedience (Accountability)

The conclusions of a group of 38 key DMM trainers who are working all over the world and are connected to over 80 CPMs reveal good clues as to what the Holy Spirit is doing around the world in these movements. 

As you read each post, use these as opportunities prayerfully to evaluate your own ministry.

Obedience (Accountability)

1.Leaders moved on when unproductive people did not produce


2.High intolerance for error; obedience-based discipleship corrects errors when measured by God’s Word


3.Importance of goal setting as we hold one another accountable 


4.Accountability for generational growth. Are you seeing children and grandchildren? Check on how 3^rd and 4^th gen are doing 


5.Mapping house fellowships and generations:  Draw / diagram out which elements of a house church they have and trouble-shoot areas lacking.  Drawing out helped diagnose actual progress


6.Periodic meetings of leaders (every 1,3,4,6,12 months for different spheres).


7.Character issues addressed


8.Unflinching Grace-filled evaluation -- if you are not seeing multiplication after you have persevered, you are willing to change anything and everything

Practical Tool of DBS (Discovery Bible Study) on Purity/Holiness

Mathew 5:27-28, I Corinthians 6:9-10, I Corinthians 6:13-20, I Thessalonians 4:3-7, Hebrews 13:4, 2 Samuel 11:1-17, 26-27, 2 Samuel 12:1-14  (Read each passage together out loud, rephrase in own words what is said in the text without teaching or preaching the passage, just rephrase in own words based upon the text)

Discuss as a group the following discovery questions based upon text alone.

        1.  What do these verses reveal about purity?

    2.

         

Discuss your personal plan to guard your vulnerable areas in obeying these truths.Who are you making yourself accountable to in order to honor God and grow in these areas of purity? How often do you meet?

3. Take time in listening prayer to ask the Lord what practical steps of obedience is He asking of your heart.