In some areas where God has allowed us to work and plant the seeds of disciple-making and biblical leadership and church planting, we have left the work in the hands of indigenous leaders and trusted the Holy Spirit to oversee what He started. One of these places is Kenya. Here is a brief report we received from one of the leaders after they had completed a training using God’s Plan for His Disciples (GPHD) with 13 pastors and other church leaders. “The participants are excited about the training and the concept of discipling. They committed to plan for another session of GPHD learning and go through the remaining content in the next few months which is scheduled in July. Their reception of the material was great and in a good atmosphere of discussion. This is a movement of God!” How thankful we are for what God is doing through His Word and the Holy Spirit. Our part in this is not over! Even when Paul noticed that God was working in a place, he did not stop praying for the “saints and faithful brothers” (1:2). This is what he prayed for Colossae: “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9–10). Will you follow Paul’s example with us?
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There is another field the Lord has allowed us to work in that continues to give us much joy and great thanksgiving to the Lord. In this S. E. Asia country, our partner has never stopped training small groups with God’s Plan for His Disciples (GPHD) and God’s Plan for His Church (GPHC), especially for pastors and leaders. This week he has completed the 142nd training. This is a monumental accomplishment that has taken five or six years. In addition to these training sessions (several each month), he has tranlated all of our books, including the updated editions in two languages. More recently, he translated God’s Plan for Young Disciples, both the Teacher’s Edition and the Young Disciples Workbook (GPYD). His goal is to see every church leader in this country fully equipped with God’s Word so they can do as Paul wrote to Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Because of his consistent method of teaching the first two books, he has graduated more students than anyone we know. We thank the Lord for the impact he is having in an area of the world that has a growing resistance to God and His truth. Please pray for the protection and blessing of this brother, his family, and ministry. It gives me great joy to bring you a report from our “Timothy” in Nicaragua, Central America. He serves the Lord is a place that is politically unstable, yet he pursues every opportunity to spread the gospel and establish existing believers in God’s Word. Here is his report:
“I am excited about what God keeps doing. He connects us with specific people who are praying for the Lord to help them grow in grace. A good example of this is the day I came to Bilwi. As soon as I parked the vehicle, a man told me: “Pastor help us.” I thought at the time that what they wanted was money, but I was wrong. They asked me for help to grow spiritually. They were praying that the Lord would connect them with someone who would provide a guide for studying the Bible. I gave them the material, God's Plan for His Disciples, and explained how it works, and they were very excited. In total, there were 30 fishermen, who I also hope will become fishers of souls.” Imagine the joy in these hearts as God answered their prayers for help. We are extremely grateful for God leading our brother to the right place at the right time. There is no doubt that God is answering many prayers (your prayers!) for times like this. Let’s ask Him for more of these divine appointments in every corner of the earth. In the last couple days, we have heard from our ministry partners in two parts of the world that require our urgent prayers. The first is Bangladesh and Myanmar where the Cyclone Mocha has passed through with devastating force. Lives have been lost, many structures that were not made for 120 mile an hour winds and rain were destroyed, and supplies are very scarce. Pray for divine intervention, both for their physical relief and grace to endure,
We also heard from our partner in Chad, Africa, and it looks very difficult. They are facing a crisis in Southern Chad where churches were attacked by radicals, and Christians killed including some pastors. The Evangelical Fellowship of Chad has set up a task force committee to evaluate the situation and see what can be done to help. They will travel in the coming days to the areas affected by this situation. Let us keep these brothers and sisters in prayer for protection from further harm from these radical groups that have inflicted such harm. It is a good time to remind ourselves of Paul’s exhortation regarding the Church that “if one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Corinthians 12:26). We may not be able to actually go and assist those who are suffering, but through taking time in prayer, the Holy Spirit can communicate our love to them. I failed to post the dates that Randy will be in Nigeria. Please take this information and use it as a prayer guide for the time left for Randy in Nigeria. Nigeria: Every day we hear of kidnappings & killings in Nigeria, and this trip focuses on how to begin again after great suffering and how to move forward in difficult days. The groups I will meet have all suffered persecution from Fulani Militants and/or Boko Haram. May 17-19 Introduction of GPHC in Mubi. Church of the Brethren is a denomination that has suffered the most from Boko Haram who has killed many of their leaders and people and destroyed up to half of all their church buildings. Please pray for them as they rebuild their work using GPHC to equip new and emerging leaders. May 20-23 Introduction of GPHC in Yola. Church of the Brethren has another work in Yola, and we will begin training leaders who will rebuild their work. May 24-25 Teaching in Jalingo. Great Impact Bible & Theological College (GIBTC) has asked that I spend two days teaching on How To Move Forward During Times of Suffering. Please pray that God will encourage the students and faculty. May 26-27 Fly back home. Please pray for rest and safety. “We celebrate in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also celebrate in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:2b-5. I often tell those I work with and counsel that we must be very careful about our expectations. They are developed out of our own experience and knowledge and are not necessarily the way God is working in each situation. If we lean too heavily on what we expect in the ministry, we set ourselves up for disappointment.
In J. D. Payne’s book, Apostolic Church Planting, he reminds us that “the Spirit does not always work on the same schedule in every situation. Sometimes the sanctification process is faster, other times it is slower. The time between the conversion of the new believers and the appointment of the first elder will differ from context to context” (page 45). Every letter Paul wrote was either to a specific church or individual. In reading them, you can sense that Paul was familiar with each, either he had visited that church, received a report through a trusted partner in ministry, or traveled with the individual long enough to understand where they were in their walk with the Lord, their conduct, and habits. It is very important for any of us who care for the work of God in others or in a church, to discern how the Spirit is working. While God’s truth is universally the same and should be applied with the same degree of love and grace, each situation will reveal how the Spirit is working. Some will require more patience than others. Let us join Him at work, not based on our own expectations and realize that we are imperfect and flawed in our discernment. As I have noted before, one of the most important measures of any movement in the Old Testament and the New, is what standard the biblical writer uses to compare the movement with. The account of Nehemiah 12:1-26 records the priests, Levites, and heads of fathers’ houses, praising God with thanksgiving and then compares what they had done with “the commandment of David, the man of God” (Nehemiah 12:24). Even Solomon and his magnificent building did not measure up to the spiritual standard David set.
There is a present danger of measuring our current work with popular figures, programs, and past success stories rather than the initial work of God through the Spirit in birthing the Church at Pentecost and the Book of Acts. When we fail to do this, we use a standard that is human and not divine, and we think our work is successful in our own eyes. True success is achieved by using God’s standard to measure our work through the power of His Spirit. More often than not, our progress falls short of what God wants to achieve by relying on Him for what is accomplished. Paul gives a much stronger warning in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 when he compares our spiritual work in the Church to building with the right materials, materials that stand the test of God’s fire. Notice these two strong statements: “Let each one take care how he builds” (10) on the foundation, Jesus Christ. Every work that we do “will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done” (13). “If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss” (15). My desire for each of us is that we turn the warning into a motivation to build according to God’s standard, not ours. Jonathan and Tim met with staff at a Christian School in Dunn, NC to introduce our newest resource God's Plan for Young Disciples (GPYD), Teacher’s Edition and Young Disciples Workbook. This was created from God's Plan for His Disciples (GPHD) with the purpose of establishing children and young people in their faith so they can stand strong in a culture that wars against biblical values. Our desire is to equip every Christian School with an effective tool that is easy for parents and teachers to use and clear for students to understand and apply. Those who helped design this resource are helping us contact schools across America so this resource is made available for the next school year. Please pray for opportunities that will get this resource into the places where GPYD will have the greatest impact throughout the USA. USA Youth Outreach: Pat reports that USAYO had eight University of Maryland wrestlers baptized two Sunday’s ago after working through GPHD. And one of their team members just started a new GPHD group with a number of high school students in El Paso, TX. This is a growing movement that is having a direct impact on young leaders at the college and university level. Pray for those who are introducing this resource to athletic directors across America, that God will give them favor. As I pan history and think about mothers whose influence had significant influence for generations, the list is long. Scripture has recorded mothers that God placed in periods of history for raising sons and daughters with exemplary character and wisdom. They were discerning and had strong instincts for honoring God that others around them failed to have.
What about Sarah (Abraham’s wife)? Though she made a bad decision regarding Hagar, Sarah would not allow her son “to be heir with her son, Isaac” the son God promised. Then there is Moses’ mother who is only called “a Levite woman” (Exodus 2:1), who risked her role as mother to save her son. Or Mary who gave birth to Jesus. She was willing to obey the angel and bear the reproach of others for the sake of her mission. In more recent times, there was Susana Westley who raised 19 children and schooled them in classical education. She made sure they had spiritual instruction from a very early age and nurtured John and Charles to become men whom God used. Then there are mothers today who see through the mess of a decaying culture and are bent on molding their children to be strong in faith and able to stand firm on God’s Word as the authority for every aspect of life. If you are one of them, thank you for standing firm in a world of evil voices. I will take the liberty of changing a word in Scripture for the sake of this post. “An excellent mother who can find? She is far more precious than jewels” (Proverbs 31:10). May their number be multiplied! It would be impossible for me to overstate the need of following Paul’s method of planting new churches and establishing new believers. Making disciples, as Luke puts it in Acts 14:21, is not just a one-time event but rather a continuum that begins with hearing the gospel, believing the word preached (Romans 10:9), and then continues to grow through the rest of our time on earth. There is a sad habit among many preachers. They preach the gospel and see souls saved, and then leave them to grow on their own. You can see from the diagram above that new or young believers need that stake (a Paul) to stand with them initially. Maturity takes time, but not a lot of time. If done properly the mentor (disciple-maker) will make sure the new believer is “established” in “the faith.” Paul emphasizes this in his letter to Colossae: “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6–7). Notice the three action verbs; “rooted, built up, and established.” All three verbs take time so that souls will be able to stand on their own. It’s the early stages of spiritual growth that are the most important. I will write more about this in the days ahead. |
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