DMM: Between the Miraculous and the Menial

Between the Miraculous and the Menial

Counterintuitive. That is the supernatural nature of the miraculous. 

Expected. That is the natural inclination of the heart of man when considering the menial. 

 

The book of Exodus paints a portrait of a broadsided Moses encountering the revealed presence of the God who is. God called Moses. Moses reluctantly obeyed. Moses learned a lifestyle of trust and obedience by being thrown into the deep end of believing God to be God. The daily obvious reminder of Moses’ desperate need to depend solely upon God was cultivated; a million plus doubting hearts stared him in the face. Wholehearted desperate dependence upon God’s goodness was crafted in the heart of Moses in the process.

 

How would he lead these stubborn people? These people who instantly disobeyed God when asked to wait upon Him for the next steps? Moses wondered.  After the miraculous came the menial. God delivered them but could God provide food for so many? And what about the nasty camping conditions? The Israelites wondered. They doubted. They disobeyed in the midst of the menial after directly witnessing the miraculous. Again, they wandered. Front row seats they were afforded them as witness to a glimpse of the work of God’s mighty hand. 

 

Nothing compares to the greatness of God’s glory. Moses cultivated a heart that yearned for God’s glory while many of the others developed a craving for the wow of His mighty acts. 

 

When one desires to see a movement among an Unreached People Group, one can feign the menial while desiring the instant big fruit. To trust God for the launch of a Disciple Making Movement (DMM), is to believe God desires to accomplish His promised purposes in His timing and by His power. One also chooses to expect God to move asap while surrendering to His perfect timing. Even the intentionality and deliberateness in the yearning can be erroneously formed into just another sacred golden cow. Sometimes one can neglect the cultivation of a heart for God’s glory alone to be our beginning point in all that we endeavor; between the miraculous and the menial.

 

Surveying the landscape of the freshest group of local partners whom we are training/coaching in Disciple Making Movements (DMM), James and I felt a strong sense of awe along with gratefulness. 

 

We began this round of equipping with a commonly communicated challenge. 

Here are the ground rules in trusting God to initiate a DMM among Unreached People Groups:

1.   Forget tradition

2. Focus and rely upon authority of God’s Word alone

3. Trust the Holy Spirit to lead you

4. Be counterintuitive

Movements are fomented in the trenches of life. It is the inch-by-inch gain what wins the day. It is what we believe and embrace of the God who is Lord over the miraculous that delineates whether we walk faithfully and in fruit-bearing ways with Him in the menial.

 

The rain cascaded unrelentingly from the darkened sky in this coaching time. These college students are ones who desire to trust God with their respective profession to be sent as tentmakers among upgs. Hours later, after waiting for a open seam in the fabric of the heavy downpour, we began the next phase of coaching them to form into an indigenous sending agency focused upon DMM. 

 

We waited. And we waited. We were way past the raining “cats and dogs” type rain and were officially experiencing the torrid monsoon phase. 

 

We prayed with the few of the group who were present. After three hours passed, most of the ones desiring to be sent out as teams for long term efforts had managed to come. How we each view these seemingly menial times reveals more than the ready adoration we offer to the Lord in the midst of the miraculous. To choose to trust God for the joy in the midst of the everyday is just that; it is a choice.