Points of Engagement for Women in Church Planting Movements (CPM): DMM: Vision Cast to Naysayers of CPM

Vision Cast for the Launch of Cascading Movements to Christ

Greetings from L*b*k. I will throw my hat in the ring here as a female rep of what "anti-DMM" voices we commonly face on the field as well as back in our sending country.

One of the ways we have been able to talk about Disciple Making Movements (DMM) is to hugely emphasize God's glory as THE end vision. Steve Smith states it well in Spirit Walk as I paraphrase, in missions long ago we had spiritual giants who were methodological pygmies. Today we seem to see some orgs sending spiritual pygmies who are methodological giants. We have actually and sadly observed there is a third category: spiritual pygmies who are methodological pygmies. When meeting with certain orgs there is a strong ring of truth to the above. I wholeheartedly agree w DH, DC, and SP on their observations.

There also seems to be a rising militancy in push back against DMM. To get to the epicenter of push back of reasons orgs refuse DMM hits on three basic reasons which a dear friend once shared with me:

1. Entrenchment (institutionalized non-reproducing of disciples, focus on cherry-picking low lying fruit rather than audacious harvest mindset...settled paradigms of "this is as good as it gets")

2. Stubbornness-refusal to look at signs of the times as well as stuck in paradigms of "cannot shift our folks into basics of making reproducing disciples-too confining") Refusal to re-examine biblical concepts of reaching others as opposed to settling for "experiential", more anecdotal in nature.

3. Embedded and wedded to highly emotional value ministries. Non-reproducing humanitarian ministries.

We have recently spent time with three of the most anti-DMM orgs (we tend to encounter) field people. One way we have been able to vision cast:

1. Start with End Vision of how to reach Great Commission in order to see God's glory among said UPG? Use 1% exercise

2. Ask each person to take five minutes to write out their planned pathway to obey the One whom they love to make disciples as matthew 28 commands? (Most missionaries in other orgs do not have slighted idea in the "how" in the question above)

3. After they write out, have them exchange their written pathway with another. Have samplings read out loud. Then ask the group the question "How well could another person walk out this pathway?"

We did this recently with a group and the greatest push back they could give was, "well, unless DMM pathway is something that is true for me then 1,966+ traceable CPMs in world today cannot be valid."

Conclusion: DMM is not the end vision, God's glory is! In line with desire for God's glory we need to follow silly simple reproducible pattern which Jesus modeled. If our end vision is more about God's glory then His story begins to consume me. DMM is the most effective way we have seen in making reproducible disciple makers in our now 32 yrs on the field to see His glory proclaimed/demonstrated.

Let's continue to choose to be ALL-IN for the launch of movements. Let's continue to be gracious while tenacious for God's glory for the launch of DMMs among the uupgs/upgs.

Resources as one encounters those who are anti-Movements:

You Tube Vision Cast videos-Steve Smith discusses DMM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir5z8HDc0Jk

You tube Vision Cast for Dialogue of Differences between Disciple Making Movements vs. Traditional Church Planting Debate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5cvuFg1VVE&t=519s

Various Articles available-Mission Frontiers.org is excellent in most of their issues are addressing CPMs.

LD Waterman response to anti-CPM concerns

https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=A+Straw+Man+Argument+to+Prove+What+God+Shouldn%27t+Do-2.pdf

Dave Coles on CPM essentials found in Jonathan Edwards

https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=Jonathan+Edwards+on+Movements_V4a.pdf

Various other articles:

Steve Smith-A Biblical Exegesis of Movements

http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/the-lens-of-kingdom-movements-in-scripture

Stan Parks-Only God Can Start a Church Planting Movement

http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/t4t-or-dmm-dbs-only-god-can-start-a-church-planting-movement-part-1-of-2

Excellent Blog on DMMs by C.Anderson

http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/the-dmm-price-tag