Steve Addison's Blog, page 27

Making disciples is at the heart of what it means to be a disciple.

One Lesson Every Two Minutes

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This just came in from a mentor we’ll call Yoda Bill.

Brother you hit a home run with your interview of Les.

I am encouraging trainers to cut this into short teaching segments.

Why not challenge your listeners to go over it and list the key lessons? There’s one every at least every two minutes.

Keep it up!

I thought Bill was exaggerating when he said, one key lesson every two minutes. I went over the first twelve minutes and found seven lessons.

1. God’s sovereign preparation

Les’s grandfather was a missionary in Tanzania, East Africa in the 1970-80s. He began with a handful of believers and ended with a movement of half a million people. As Les grew up he watched and learned from his example.

2. Desperation driven by a God-sized vision

The language group had 9 million people.

Les and his family arrived in 2006. They had planted a church in the US that had multiple small groups, but this experience was not adequate to meet the challenge of multiplying disciples and churches that could keep up with rapid population growth.

They could have planted a church, but only a movement could fulfil the vision.

Desperation caused Les and his wife to fall to our knees every day in prayer.

3. Best practice training plus faith

After 18 months of language and culture acquisition, they attended some best practice training in church planting movements.

During that event Les and his wife were reading Luke 10 and praying for workers for the harvest. They read John 4 where it says, You say four more months before harvest, but I say the harvest is ready now.

That passage came alive, and they knew the Holy Spirit was saying we were headed into a harvest time. As a result the training was a feast, they had faith for what God was about to do.

They came up with plans they could implement immediately.

4. Immediate implementation

For the last 18 months they had been taking a group of 5-8 people from Creation to Christ, none had turned and believed. They decided to immediately share the gospel with them.

They called the group together and gave them an overview of Creation to Christ in about ten minutes.

Everyone wanted to follow Jesus. Les told them they need to pray a prayer of commitment. They replied, “Oh this is a covenant prayer. We all need to stand and lay our hands open so we can make a proper covenant with Christ and Christ alone.” Which is what they did.

5. Trust the Holy Spirit in the people of God

These new believers were teaching Les how to express the gospel in their culture. God made it clear that he wanted Les to trust these nationals right from the start on how to follow Christ in their culture.

He challenged the group to think of one person they could tell about Jesus. The least educated woman in the room said, “I can think of 5-10 people, is that ok?”

The Holy Spirit rebuked Les for underestimating God’s power in his people.

This woman began sharing with everyone. She rode the bus and taxi routes just to meet new people to share with.

6. Make disciples, not just converts

The woman who has constantly sharing was not good at making disciples. So Les paired her with another believer who wasn’t good at evangelism but he was great at teaching new disciples.

Les and his wife watched him, took notes and changed how we taught new disciples. They trained other disciples using his methods.

He taught in a way that was “sticky” in the culture, so the teaching would pass along generations of new disciples. He would pair a song with each lesson and then the songs would be incorporated into their worship.

7. Expect trouble

After six months Les and his family were outside of the country for medical treatment when severe persecution hit the new disciples. [More on this in the next post.]

Meanwhile, how many lessons can you and your team find in this case study?

252-What does NoPlaceLeft look like?

Les is a practitioner who has seen what Paul called NoPlaceLeft (Romans 15:23). Les shares the journey, the lessons along the way and how he knew when his job was done.

The Secret

Stephen, The First to Die

Martyrdom Of Saint Stephen - Gustave Doré

I’m reading Acts again, this time looking at the relationship between persecution and the spread of the gospel. Acts 6-8:3 is an account of the martyrdom of Stephen, the first disciple to die for his faith in Jesus.

Turning the world upside down 

It was becoming clear that threats, imprisonment and beatings would not stop the news about Jesus spreading throughout Jerusalem. Every day in the temple courts and from house to house his followers never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news about Jesus, the Messiah.

If the disciples remained silent and kept to themselves they may have won the acceptance of the religious authorities as another stream of Judaism. But they are intent that everyone should know the good news about Jesus, calling them to repentance and faith in him.

They took this unacceptable position because Jesus had the risen from the dead showing that there is salvation in no other name. Jesus had charged his disciples to take the message of salvation to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. They must obey him making disciples as they went, forming them into communities of the new Israel.

There was no chance the religious authorities could ignore this aggressive new movement. There was always going to be a clash. This is what Jesus prophesied, they persecuted him, they will persecute his disciples.

The opposition began with a ban on speaking about Jesus. When the apostles defied the ban, they were flogged. Now Stephen will pay the ultimate price.

There is a way out, but he wouldn’t take it

It is significant that Stephen was not one of the 12 apostles. As the movement spread, new leaders are emerging who minister in power and proclaim the gospel with equal authority. Stephen is a Greek-speaking Jew took the gospel to the community of diaspora Jews living in Jerusalem. His opponents are Jews from around the Mediterranean, some from Cilicia, the home of Saul of Tarsus.

Stephen is a formidable opponent. The power of God is upon him to heal the sick and to speak with wisdom. If only he would remain silent and live in peace, he would be left alone. There was no reason for him to die. No need for him to deny Christ, all he had to do was stop talking and he could live. Instead he chose to obey God rather than man.

They seized him and hauled him before the high priest Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, the same high priest and council that handed Jesus over to the Romans. They charged Stephen with some of the same offences—that he was against the temple and the law.

Who really is on trial?

Stephen stood before his accusers with the face of an angel, just as Moses’ face shone when left the presence of God on Mount Sinai. Stephen was on trial for his life, yet he turned the tables on his opponents and put them on trial. He gave them a lesson on the history of Israel.

The history of Israel was the history of their rebellion. They had failed in their calling to reveal his glory to the world. 

From the time of Moses, Israel had either run after other gods or tried to turn Yahweh into a national god who they could control. The Most High God cannot be limited to one land, one people, one temple. Heaven is his throne, earth is his footstool. God’s plan includes the whole world and his people are a people on the move.

These leaders of Israel are the children of those who rejected murdered the prophets. They have murdered the Messiah. They have broken the covenant, and judgment will fall on Jerusalem. With this, the Sanhedrin erupted with murderous rage, proving Stephen’s point.

Victory in death

Stephen filled with the Spirit looked up to heaven and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God in his glory. Jesus is the Son of Man who has been give all authority to rule and to judge the world (Daniel 7:13-14). All of God’s plans and promises to Israel are fulfilled in him. Jesus fufills and replaces the temple, the law and the sacrificial system.

 The Messiah Jesus is on the throne of the universe. Jesus is standing, ready to receive his servant. Jesus is standing ready to judge those who condemn him. The future was with all those who will follow the suffering and victorious Son of Man. 

They rushed at him, covering their ears and screaming, and dragged him out of the city to stone him. Before the final fatal blow struck, Stephen fell to his knees and like Jesus, prayed for the forgiveness of his attackers.

Stephen the first witness to die for his faith in Jesus as the crucified, risen Lord and Savior. His death proved that no matter how many messengers God sent, Israel as a nation was beyond redemption. Yet God had not given up on his plan that through Abraham’s descendants, God’s blessing will go to all peoples, nations and languages. The true Israel are those, both Jews and Gentiles, who put their trust in Jesus as Messiah and Lord and receive salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The struggle continues

At the moment of Stephen’s death, Luke shines the spotlight on a young man watching on with satisfaction. For Saul this was just the beginning. He was ready to launch his campaign to destroy this movement of Jesus’ disciples wherever he found them. 

Stephen’s witness is over, others will now take his place. A great persecution driven by Saul of Tarsus will propel God’s people out of Jerusalem into Judea, Samaria and Antioch. The word is on the move and nothing can stand in its way.

Full version with footnotes.

251-The Paradox of Privilege & Persecution

Nilay Saiya talks about his research into the rise and decline of Christian movements.

Articles

Paradoxes of Pluralism, Privilege

Proof That Political Privilege Is Harmful for Christianity

 

Persecution Then and Now: There's a Difference

Peter Preaching in Jerusalem by Charles Poërson (France, Vic-sur-Seille, 1609-1667).

I’m working through the Acts of the Apostles and noticing there’s a difference between how we perceive persecution and how they did. We want our rights to be protected. We want to hold our beliefs without the fear of discrimination. It’s a defensive response. In contrast, they want to call their city to repentance and faith in Jesus.

In Acts 5 the new movement is spreading throughout Jerusalem and the surrounding towns and countryside. People are turning and putting their faith in Jesus and are added to the churches.

The pushback came from the High Priest and the Sadducees who control the temple. Peter and John refused to obey their command to be silent and filled Jerusalem with their teaching. So Peter and the apostles are seized and put in jail.

That night an angel freed them and told go them to the temple at dawn and defy the temple leadership again. They are arrested again and brought before the ruling council of Israel.

The apostles say, they will obey God, not man. These rulers had Jesus crucified, but God raised him from the dead. This Prince and Savior is calling the nation to repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

The apostles are not asking to be left alone so they can go about their lives unmolested. They are making disciples. Their message caused turmoil and division in their city and in city after city of the Roman Empire.

In Acts, the context for persecution is the proclamation of the gospel. They call everyone — even the leadership — to repent and believe in Jesus. They are adding new disciples to churches springing up all over the city and surrounding countryside.

Today we want to be left in peace to believe what we believe. In Acts, Peter and the apostles want to fill Jerusalem with the knowledge of Jesus.

The Difference

How I predicted Australia's first Pentecostal Prime Minister, 13 years before it happened.

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Movements begin on the fringe and then move to the centre. Pentecostalism is moving into the cultural mainstream of Australian society. I expect Australian Pentecostalism to continue to grow and adapt much to the dismay of those on the theological and political left. If history repeats itself, eventually we'll have a Pentecostal Prime Minister. Meanwhile the secularized mainstream denominations will barely survive on external life support.

Movements blog, July 4, 2006.

In 2006 I wrote about the rise of a new form of Pentecostalism in Australia and predicted that eventually Australia would have a Pentecostal Prime Minister. I repeated the prediction in October 2009. In May 2019 that prediction became a reality with the election of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

How did I know? It’s happened all before. The Methodists were once a dynamic missionary movement multiplying disciples and churches on the US frontier. Methodism was a revivalist movement, known for its wild camp meetings, evangelistic passion, strict discipline, and popularity among women and African Americans. It was pioneered by unqualified young men on horseback and local volunteers.

By the time Rutherford B. Hayes became the first Methodist to occupy the White House in 1877, Methodism was already well into its long decline. The Methodists were building seminaries and universities, the circuit riders were trading their mobile mission to become settled pastors.

I wrote this warning in 2006.

Success may eventually change the Pentecostal movement. As movements shift into the mainstream they become more rational, conformist and risk-averse. Expect “How to speak in tongues” to lose out to “10 Rules for Business Success”. Expect “How to plant a church” to lose out to “Growing what we've got bigger”. Expect “brother Ted Smith” to become “Rev Dr Edward Smith”.

Plateaued movements have too big a stake in this world to worry about the next. Led by the clergy, they begin to reflect the views of the cultural and social elites.

That's the bad news. The good news is that (1) there are exceptions to this trend and (2) God is in the business of raising up new movements—on the fringe.

Learn more about the Rise and Fall of Movements and what to do about it.

250-Seizing This Kairos Moment

A message to the e3Parnters Kairos Summit on a kairos moment in the life of Paul (Acts 26-28) and what it means for us.