DMM/CPM: Women 2 Women Training Level 1

Women2Women DMM/CPM Training 

Training opportunities specific to UPG field women are a much needed ingredient in the global efforts of the launch of cascading movements to Christ. 

                                    

A Need for Training:

·      Have you ever wondered how you, as a woman, might contribute to starting a rapidly multiplying discipleship movement?

·      Would you like to engage more with people in your local community but don't know how to begin?

·     The first W2W DMM/CPM Level 1 training was  launched (November 2013) which brought 100 m women (from 10+ nationalities) who serve with 25+ m agencies representing over 250+ UPGs. 

“What just took place with this women to women DMM/CPM training was not just unprecedented, it was historic!”-Stan Parks, Global DMM/CPM trainer, ActBeyond

Act Beyond   www.beyond.org

Regional UUPGs/UPGs Clusters Co-Facilitator

DMM/CPM Trainer/Coach/Practitioner

CPM/DMM: Being Catalysts--A Necessary Role (Part II)

CPM/DMM: Being Catalysts—A Necessary Role (Part II)

Being counterintuitive game changers is the norm for the follower of Christ.

To live out the Biblical patterns of obedience based discipleship is to be the norm for those who follow Christ. Being counterintuitive game changers for the glory of God is the norm for one as a follower of Jesus.

When one chooses to embrace in loving obedience the commands of God, empowered and filled by the Holy Spirit, then one becomes a game changer for His Kingdom. One becomes a precision built strategic weapon for God’s transforming power to be displayed and to be declared in all Acts 1:8 applications. (“but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”)

CPM/DMM: Being Catalysts—A Necessary Role (Conclusion)

Being Catalysts; A Necessary Role in Launching Church Planting Movements-CPM

My husband and I celebrate 24 years of life among Muslim Unreached People Groups.  As we continue to trust God to launch a rapidly reproducing movement of house fellowships among the Muslim Unreached Peoples in which we serve, it is important to consider returning over and over again to the strategic steps of CPM.

CPM Critical Elements

(Based on “CPM Strategy based on CPM Critical Elements)

                     1.    Vision: God’s Glory among your people

(and reproduce this by vision-casting)

                       2.    Reproduce

(it is not about what we can do, but what must be done. Our main impact is training others to train other to train others to….

3. Extraordinary Prayer

(and reproduce prayer)

                  4.  Word of God Foundation and Holy Spirit dependence.

(reproduce this by letting seekers and new believers discover truth through Bible as HS leads) 

                 5.    Evangelism: your lifestyle and ministry and miracles focused on finding the POP and        oikos

(reproduce by training others to do this) (MAWL-Model, Assist, Watch,     Love/Letter/Leave)

                 6.    Discipleship: Teaching oikos to discover and obey Scripture and pass it on to others
            (reproduce by training new believers to immediately look for others they can disciple)

           7.     Commitment: New believers (preferably an oikos) commits to obey Jesus as Lord in repentance and baptism, while preparing for persecution.

(process followed is one they can immediately reproduce with seekers)

            8.    Churches are discipled oikos' that become obeying congregations

(they are equipped and envisioned to start reproducing both same-culture and cross-culture)

            9.    Leadership: equip indigenous leaders

(indigenous leaders reproducing indigenous leaders reproducing indigenous leaders…)

           10.   Unflinching Evaluation

(focus fully on God’s “endvision” and be completely honest about what is happening and willing to make any necessary changes)

Though we are forever grateful for the wisdom of those who had attempted great things for God’s glory prior to our arrival to our region of service, we have come to realize that there are also opportunities for on-going healthy evaluation necessary.

As believers, we are all invited to trust God for being a catalyst in the essentials of movements for His glory. The area of Extraordinary Prayer is one essential element of CPM, which I want to focus upon in this writing.

As you gaze upon the term extraordinary prayer and consider what it may mean to be catalytic, what comes to mind? Consider the ideas that follow as ways to further appropriate God’s intent in the area of the practice of extraordinary prayer.

 Counterintuitives in extraordinary prayer to consider;

 1. Forget Tradition-What has been done in former attempts to reach an Unreached People Group (or target group in home cultures) may or may not be the pattern that God has in mind to embrace presently. Most of the laborers (catalysts) who have seen significant Church Planting Movements among heretofore resistant Unreached People Groups spend up to 3 hours per day, on average, in specific intercession.

 2. Base All Prayer Upon God’s Word and the Holy Spirit’s Leading-Read through the book of Acts and do a Discovery Bible Study[1] on Prayer. Use the patterns of prayers lifted up in the Epistles, the book of Nehemiah, for starters. Pray Scripture back to God. What follows is a specific example of ways to pray through Scripture on behalf of a people group excerpt taken from my husband’s book entitled Strategic Intercession for the Sumbi;

Overcoming the Enemy

By faith bind the Evil One so that he cannot prevent people from hearing and believing the gospel or blind them from the Truth (2 Corinthians 4:4). Ask the Holy Spirit to expose the lies and deception of the Evil One. 

Cancel and render all curses and spells powerless and void in Jesus name. (Deuteronomy 18:10-11, Isaiah 47:9,12).

3. Be Intentional in Prayer-Ask God to teach your heart how to intercede. Go and be taught by those who model intercession. As one of many examples to my heart, one band of intercessors has gathered to pray for God’s heart for Acts 1:8 themes for over 15 years at one of my dearest heart friend’s home. Come hail or high water, they have gathered weekly. They have wept as well as labored in prayer for the glory of God to be declared and displayed in their homeland and to the ethne peoples of the earth. Find a discipler or group of disciplers in this area of intercession and learn to be catalytic for God’s glory.

Summary

What once was, in terms of attempts to reach the Unreached People Groups of the earth, can be evaluated with heaps of grace and mercy. As one evaluates former attempts, to reach a given people group, it is with much fear and trembling to consider what was effective in former approaches and what could have been a hindrance.

Be careful what you set in motion in terms of what you model as the norm of walking with Jesus, while depending or not upon His Holy Spirit to lead. We have seen UPG efforts, which have been seemingly hindered by the ones who continue to really upon self-life, self-effort, and self-reliance.

Be intentional in the essentials of Church Planting Movements on a personal level as well as modeling to others and expect God to move in power, in His timing.

Extraordinary prayer, as one of the main essentials of CPM, is predicated upon a heightened personal and corporate dependence upon God to be God.

The Christian music industry hit many crossroads moments, when catalytic artists intentionally chose the higher unknown road of equal risk of personal gain or personal loss.  They took the best of the former things available and pitched out the non-effective methodologies in terms of music.

As those who desire to be the Biblical norms of catalytic eternal game changers among the peoples of the earth, your course is more challenging. Expect push back, and then respond in grace and humility. Expect God to move, lean not into your own understanding, and watch God rip the heavens open and come down in a given Unengaged/Unreached People Group or target population.

Remember, sometimes “big hair” ways are simply trends and not substantive in nature. Then again, catalytic fire starters of Christ-centered movements are willing to be counterintuitive, at all costs. Choose God’s blueprint of counterintuitive ways in the area of extraordinary prayer and watch His hand move in power.

                                   

‘til the Ethne Worship,

RA        

ActBeyond

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[1] Discovery Bible Study (DBS)-methodology used in Church Planting Movements approach. Asking the following questions; what does this passage say about God? What does it say about man? What does it say about me and what am I to obey in response to this passage? When will I obey this and whom will I share this truth with? When?

CPM/DMM: Being Catalysts--A Necessary Role (Part 1)

Lead Me On

           

(Being Catalysts; A Necessary Role in Launching Church Planting Movements-CPM)

Bethany Dillon applies this generation’s well-honed musical skillset to cover the song entitled Lead Me On[1], the song that originated in an age of Christian music when big hair reigned. Big hair, high heels for the female artists (thankfully just for the females), along with oversized jackets accented with exaggerated proportioned shoulder pads of interestingly patterned designs were the norm.

I used to joke that my husband and I survived through the disco era and are so grateful for its death and annihilation as we caution this generation to never long for that scary forest domain ever again. More recently, I have come to realize that we have also lived through the various transitions of what was established as an industry in the 1980’s until present day; the contemporary Christian music scene.

It can be said that the 1980’s were the best of times in contemporary Christian music offerings, and yes, these were some of the worst of times.  

Being counterintuitive game changers is the norm for the follower of Christ.

Amy Grant walked onto the stage canopied by the crisp northern California star spangled sky. Holding court for all who attended the outdoor amphitheater music event in the summer of 1985, she sang her heart out. That night marked my personal witness of the convergence of the attempt to intersect the old style of what was known as contemporary Christian music into the growing evolution of what would be to come.

Funny to assert, but in so many ways, she was a tipping point catalytic fire starter for Christian artists; big hair, spiked heels and all. Though you might think that comment a stretch to say, it can be said that the doorway to communicating the Christ life through the vehicle of song to non-believers had not yet been penetrated to that point in time.

In the 1980’s Phil Keaggy, Randy Stonehill, Keith Green, Rich Mullins, Benny Hester, Larry Norman, Steven Curtis Chapman, Leslie (a.k.a Sam) Phillips, Petra, along with others all had their unique followings which at times could reach the flow of those outside the flock (believers) as well. However, as I recall though free to be contended with, after Amy Grant took her music to a level, which could potentially connect with non-believers, Michael W. Smith was the next in line to expand his influence in order to see non-believers stirred toward the beauty and the power of the gospel. O.k., yes admittedly, the song “Baby, Baby” which ushered this breakthrough in for Amy Grant was largely bee bop fluff. However, this song broke the unwritten plane of separation between the secular and holy, in terms of the music industry.

My husband and I, along with some colleagues, Becky and Bruce, in our early years ministering among Muslims in Southeast Asia, had the highly random opportunity to meet Michael W. Smith while he came to town on tour. To highlight the randomness of his visit to this outpost of humanity would be like comparing an astronaut’s trip to the moon with stopping by Venus enroute.

From a human standpoint, his early 1990’s hit singles into the secular music realm had launched a newer platform of influencing the lost among his newfound fans. For whatever reason, perhaps his management team was being somewhat Kingdom strategic in their flying him to a highly remote large population of Muslim Unreached People groups or perhaps the bookings in the U.S. market had all but dried up (not likely). Either way, we decided to go to all of the events related to his arrival in said location. Let me emphasize that there were many common items of our home culture not available in this cross-cultural context; like toilet paper, cheese, or butter. Amazingly though, we stood in front of one momentary import, this music artist who loves Jesus.

At one point, being the only foreigners and Americans present at the two day event lauding his arrival to our territory we talked with him privately. We mentioned his opportunity to push the bounds to share about Jesus with this predominantly Muslim audience scheduled to enjoy a concert later that same evening. He smiled graciously at our request. Later that evening at the question and answer time during his concert we threw him a “softball” to hit out of the stadium type question. “Michael, we so appreciate your music. Could you explain to all of us the inspiration and meaning behind your song entitled Secret Ambition[2]? “ (a great song highlighting the reason for Christ coming to this world. You can see this on YouTube. And yes, he had kind of the big hair thing going at that time as well). 

From this time of our brief brush of being around Michael W. Smith we began to pray that God would move him to compose songs which could break open the thin veneer of worship music available at the time in the Bride of Christ international. Soon thereafter, he began to produce worship focused songs and subsequently opened the heretofore blockades for inability to make money for the music producing companies. (Many secular parent company ownerships existed for several major Christian music company labels in the mid 1990’s.)

I am not asserting here that a few of us who chose to pray were the only piece in this tapestry of God’s design for this particular artist. I am asserting, though, that God does have His bride participate with what He wills, largely through intercession as well as being the hands and feet of His heartbeat.

What if we saw our participation with the Holy Spirit in intercession as a sort of catalytic “tipping point” to accomplish His will in this world for His own glory?

Being catalytic fire starters reads well in retrospect but during the process blazing new paths can cause push back to existing patterns of “doing” the accepted norms.

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[1]Lead Me On by Amy Grant (version 2004-without the big hair do) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5hLGmTH-

Lead Me On covered by Bethany Dillon  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX7z3OLR6eU

[2] Secret Ambition by Michael W. Smith http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5P7kUMuQns

DMM/CPM: A Word Aptly Spoken

A Word Aptly Spoken

As we consider the launch of Holy Spirit led movements of households of loving-obedient worshipers of Christ, leadership development in the tough personal issues is a crucial component.

Proverbs 25:11

Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances.

The Message (MSG)

11-12 

The right word at the right time is like a custom-made piece of jewelry,
And a wise friend’s timely reprimand is like a gold ring slipped on your finger.

Suri tilted her head as she considered the pre-owned personally scripted answer which she guardedly embraced. Instead, she gave a potentially risky response to my question, “Suri, you look gorgeous on the outside at this wedding reception, but I wonder about the condition of the beauty growth process which God has planned for you from the inside out?”

Sure, she could have handed me the page from her script of self-protect and I would have spoken blessing over her, hugged her and moved on.

However, the Holy Spirit, unbeknownst to me brought Suri to the point of misery in her recent unrevealed bondage patterns of pornography, Face Book self solicitation of sex partners, cellphone sex talk, adultery, and other sexual sins. Thankfully, Suri chose to go toward freedom at that “right circumstance” of the Holy Spirit’s stirring.

Suri teared up. I offered to meet privately with her after this rather public meeting. She came over the next day. In that subsequent time together she relayed how she could not stop thinking of the brief words I had spoken to her. She kept thinking how much those words disturbed her yet, beckoned her at the same time.

Suri has now chosen to take steps toward healing in these areas. With the depth of darkness she has lived in for a period of time now, her pathway will be highly difficult. Thankfully, with the power of Christ and the hope of His healing hand there is a pathway to freedom, which awaits her. Importantly, the words of exhortation and the words of comfort went forth and the promise is that she can be transformed.

Indeed, God’s love is like that. He always calls each of us who are in Christ out to His higher ways. He calls each one of His children to these processes. Freedom is waiting. His perfect love is awaiting each of His followers who choose His face above all.

Shane and Shane sing words aptly spoken in the song entitled Your Love.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0Agv--7tPk  

The chorus cuts deeply through the realities of the battle for the human heart as we yearn for His ways or not in our lives.

The Power of the Word Aptly Spoken

The power of a word aptly spoken with grace and mercy, in the authority and in the leading of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is incalculable in a life which longs for God’s transformation.

As I reflect upon this past year alone, I marvel at the words in which I can recall readily. The battle of words spoken to each of us in haste or regrettably launched from others or ourselves is at stake here. Do we readily assess our growth in Christ from the aspects of words spoken in both exhortation (skillfully done or not) as well as those words launched for comfort? Or do we assume and presume that only the words spoken to us which spur us on in comfort are of the greatest value? I submit to you that both of these aspects are two sides of the same coin. Let’s say, for the sake of this illustration, that intimacy/worship/obedience in response thereof to Christ is the coin. The two sides which can spawn great growth, then, could be said to be words of exhortation as well as words of comfort and encouragement.

One way to evaluate this past year, as you seek to get alone to listen to ABBA is to ask Him the following questions;

1.     Father, what words did You speak to my heart this past year which were words of exhortation/correction/training in righteousness of which I did choose to obey? Rejoice with Him in those areas. Give thanks.

2.     Father, what words did You speak which I chose not to obey? Talk with Him about these areas and repent where need be (I John 1:9), rejoice where need be, reclaim ground given over to deception (Satan’s lies) and choose to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit in those areas.

3.     Father, what words of prophecy or word imagery were spoken over me this year? Is there a word which inspired my heart in which I need to walk in yieldedness in order to appropriate these promises?

4.     Father, direct me by Your Holy Spirit to embrace the reminders of Your Word which You gave as banners to my heart this past year. Rejoice with Him in gratefulness, review those promises of His Word and presence which He gave to you faithfully this past year.

5.     Father, give me Your words for the themes or such which You desire to impart to my heart to embrace for these next few months. Write these down, record these and share them with those godly ones who will mutually hold accountable in grace and mercy.

6.     Father, increase in my heart the tenderness and wisdom (skillfulness) of when to speak, when to pray, and when to share words which could be aptly spoken “like apples of gold in settings of silver”.

Father, Your perfect love is PERFECT. Cause my heart to hear Your melody of love which can both tear me apart as well as put me together. I renounce the self-reliant thought that You are somehow are not looking for my best. Your goodness is my ground zero. You are good and Your mercies ARE everlasting. I give to You that which You desire, my total implicit unmitigated dependence upon You alone. Ramp up my heart yearnings for surrenderedness to You alone to have its way in my life. I offer you the totality of the vacuity of my heart in deeper ways still for You to reside, abide, confide in my heart because of my desire to fear only You, ABBA. Cause this coming year to produce the yield of fruit You promise for Your Name and Fame and Glory alone in my spheres of influence and to the ethne of the earth. Cause my heart to be faithful in making reproducing disciples who obey You because of their fond affection for the greatness of Your Name. In Jesus Matchless Name, I pray. Amen.