Steve Addison's Blog, page 38
February 23, 2020
Terry and Amy's Story
Terry and Amy Ruff were missions pastors in Louisville Kentucky. One of the tools they chose to motivate and mobilise people for world missions was the Perspectives course. They expected it to rock everybody’s world in the church, but it rocked their world. They caught a vision for church planting movements.
The next missionaries their church sent out were Terry and Amy. They joined Team Expansion and in 2014 headed to northern Ghana on the edge of the 10-40 Window to train nations to plant churches.
They were in Accra, the capital of Ghana preparing to move twelve hours north when a friend introduced them to Isaac, one of the national leaders they would work with for the next ten years. They began working with Isaac taking the gospel to the villages using Bible storying. In the villages 80% of people are illiterate. They planted over thirty churches, but few were reproducing.
They kept learning about best practice in multiplying movements. They read T4T: Discipleship ReRevolution by Steve Smith and Ying Kai and its application in Training Rural Trainers (TRT). They applied what they learned and introduced 3-Thirds discipleship groups. Soon the number of baptisms and new groups forming increased.
Then in 2015 they travelled to Burkina Faso with Isaac and Moses for training with Curtis Sergeant. That was the turning point.
Isaac and Moses applied what they learned immediately. During that week of training Isaac planted two churches in the local community and handed them over to local workers.
Curtis helped them simplify everything — we love God, we love others, we make disciples. They realised they were providing too much content for oral learners to pick up and pass on. The streamlined the 3-Thirds discipleship process. Everything needed to be less complex and easier to pass on.
Curtis taught them to load up their “tool pouch” and trust the Holy Spirit to show them which tools to use. Into the tool pouch went the 3-Circles for sharing the gospel and Mike Shipman’s Any-3 for sharing with Muslims.
Their workers go into an unreached village and say, “We’re in the village praying, and could we pray for you?” The offer of prayer helps identify receptive people.
Isaac and Moses, really captured the vision during the week in Burkina Faso.
They set a goal of one church for every ten households in the Gonga region of northern Ghana.
They came back, they implemented immediately, They trained others in the same process.
Curtis taught Isaac and Moses to focus on the few who are multiplying in order to reach the many. In 2017 there were 1,650 baptisms and 380 new groups. In 2018 there were 797 new groups and 3,511 baptisms. They baptised people from 46 different tribes. Now there were multiple generations of disciples and churches.
By 2019, there were over 3,000 people in discipleship groups and churches meeting weekly.
Technology has contributed to the movement. Most people are illiterate and poor, but every family has access to a mobile phone. So the team loads up Micro SD cards with audio Bibles in tribal languages and gives them away. Now whole families can listen and learn.
Money is invested in multiplication. A motorcycle is on loan when new regions are opened up. When a regional leader is raised up, he receives a bicycle and the motorcycle goes to the next unreached region. Churches are learning to give to the spread of the movement. Each church may only give two or three dollars weekly, but now there are thousands of churches, those funds can be used to buy motorcycles and to support the spread of the work to other African nations.
All this progress has cost more than just money.
Eight months after they arrived in Ghana to begin the work, Amy discovered a lump in her breast. For the next year Amy was in the US for treatment for cancer. Terry flew back from Ghana each time she faced surgery.
At the end of that year, Isaac had a moral failure. He claimed God had spoken to him in a dream. He announced he would return to Islam and take his disciples with him. Terry told him, “Your dream doesn’t trump the Word of God.”
Finally Isaac came and said, “I feel like a ram caught in the thicket deep in the bush and I want to come back.” He was repentant. With a local pastor from the same tribe, Terry began working with Isaac for the next eighteen months through lengthy restoration process.
Then Satan struck again. Another key national leader fell morally and resisted correction. Isaac, now restored, worked with Terry to confront him. When he finally broke he wept for hours before God. Then the restoration process began.
The Ruff’s have been robbed five times. On one occasion Amy was held a knifepoint. They have faced family crises back home, and the death of a teammate on the field.
Over ten years of battles Terry keeps reminding himself, “There’s so much at stake! We have to push through this, there’s so much at stake!”
Amy says they’ve learned three things. “First, we promised to always walk through the doors that he opens. Second, He wants this more than we do. Third, this is not our home this is not where we rest, this is not where everything is good. Heaven is where we will receive reward, we will receive rest and enjoy his glory around the throne.”
The movement continues to advance throughout northern Ghana. Through Isaac and Moses’ training and mentoring it has spread to other African nations — Ivory Coast, Niger, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe.
Interview: 194-Multiplying Movements in West Africa
February 18, 2020
210-Mission Agency to Movements
Steve Addison talks to Jim Shannon and Scott Cheatham of e3Partners and hears how a mission agency can fuel multiplying movements of disciples and churches.
This is the second of a two-part series. Part 1 of the e3Partners story: 207-Restructuring for Movements
February 17, 2020
Okello's baptism and discipleship
Okello’s baptism I walked past the security guards at the gate of our hotel in Jinja, Uganda. I turned to Michelle and said, “You know if I was Nathan S, I’d be sharing the gospel with them right now. That what he modelled when I was with him in South Asia.”
She asked, “Why aren’t you then!” I got the point. I got a pen and paper and went back to get acquainted and share the 3-Circles.
Two guards were already baptised believers, but Okello was ready to turn and believe. So the next day we went down to the hotel pool and I got to baptise Okello and introduce him to Duncan Ojiambo, one of the leaders we’d trained who lived locally. Duncan will meet with Okello and some of the other hotel staff for discipleship.
February 8, 2020
Training in Africa
This week Michelle and I trained fifty African leaders in Pretoria, South Africa. They came from South Africa, Congo, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Namibia, Benin, Mozambique, and Ghana. The guys from Malawi traveled 2,000kms over three days and nights.
Eddie Mogapodi is in and out of the prisons in Bloemfontein, South Africa making disciples. He visits prisoners, and their families sharing the gospel and helping as best he can. He’s there at the gate when they are released. Eddie told us, “Now I’ve got simple, Biblical tools to multiply disciples and churches.”
The 4-Fields training equips these Africans to:
Enter an unreached community and connect with people.
Share the gospel.
Make disciples who learn how to follow Jesus.
Gather those disciples into new churches that reproduce.
Multiply workers who do the same.
We’re partnering with George Funk, a South African who leads the Gospel Chariot Ministries across over twenty African Nations. We’re training his evangelists to move beyond evangelism to multiplying disciples and churches. And they are ready.
This week we trained in Pretoria. Next week a team of trainees will help us train 100 workers in Uganda.
These Africa leaders have the zeal, they have the connections, they have language and culture, they’re insiders. We add some simple, Biblical tools to release them to multiply. This is fun!
Thanks to everyone who was able to give towards the trip. We reached our total!
Please pray for safe travel to and from Uganda and for good health. Pray for the African workers, that they will catch the vision.
February 5, 2020
209-NoPlaceLeft Army
Jim McKnight tells the story of multiplying disciples and churches among the military.
Download the 2016 NoPlaceLeft Army Case Study.
Jim mentioned the book T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution by Steve Smith and Ying Kai.
He also mentioned 3-Thirds Discipleship.
January 22, 2020
208-Changed Leaders Change Churches
Ross Ramsey tells the story of how God changed his heart and the impact on a local church.
If you’re based in the US, you can contact Ross and find out how you and your church can start on the same journey.
Visit the Church to Movement page for more stories like this one.
January 19, 2020
Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.
I’m working through Isaiah at the moment or better still, Isaiah is working its way through me.
There are those familiar passages we like to read—Isaiah’s encounter with God in the temple; the promise of the Servant-Messiah; the reassurances to fear not for God has redeemed us.
I’m also reading the in-between bits and learning how God deals with his people and the nations of the world. It’s disturbing and unsettling.
When God judges Judah for its proud rebellion, Isaiah cries out,
“For how long, O Lord?” The Lord answers: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, until the LORD has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken. (Isa 6:11-12)
God will bring the Assyrian empire down on upon his people Judah their devastation will be complete. The Assyrians were brutal conquerers. Yet God declares that Assyria is the rod of his anger, the club of his wrath (Isa 10:5). God will use Assyria to judge his people who have broken the covenant and forsaken him.
When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will judge the Assyrians,
I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes. For he says: “'By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, because I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of nations, I plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their kings. (Isa 10:12-13)
Facing the Assyrian threat, Judah thinks perhaps an alliance with Egypt will protect us. That was a false hope, as God will also judge the Egyptians.
I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian—brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. The Egyptians will lose heart, and I will bring their plans to nothing; they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead, the mediums and the spiritists. I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them,” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. (Isa 19:2-4)
Judah cannot put their trust in military alliances for God will judge the nations and cities surrounding them—Cush, Philistia, Moab, Damascus, Babylon, Tyre.
It’s a sorry tale of God’s judgment in history. For what purpose? Here’s what Gary Smith says:
God brings destruction on proud people who do not trust God (2:6-21; 3:16–4:1; 9:8; 10:5-15). They will be humbled and the glorious things that these people were so proud of will be removed.
God desires to be compassionate to those who trust him, and he will eventually gather Hebrews and many other people from various nations to Jerusalem to enjoy his kingdom (2:1-5; 4:2-6; 9:1-7: 11:1-16; 14:1-2).
God has the future planned for each nation, and there is no doubt that every historical event will work out to fulfill his purposes (14:24-27).
The Lord will make himself known to rebellious people through judgment followed by mercy.
In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The LORD Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.” (Isa 19:23-25)
Isaiah sees a day of salvation coming, for Israel and the nations. Egypt and Assyria will be his people, just like Israel.
January 13, 2020
207-Restructuring for Movements
e3Partners was a successful mission agency planting churches through short-term missions. Then one day they sat down and asked themselves, “If we keep doing what we’re doing, will we get to the multiplication of disciples and churches?” The answer was, “No.”
Dan Hitzhusen tells the story of what happened next. It’s the story of a mission agency reinventing itself around fulfilling the Great Commission.
God's Saving Judgment
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
CS Lewis
I met some guys in Singapore once who were seeing movements among Muslims. I asked them, “What are you learning?” The answer: “Move towards the chaos.” This was long before the Arab Spring that became the Arab Winter. Long before Syria, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the disillusionment of the revolution in Iran. Today Arabs and Persians are turning to Christ in unprecedented numbers.
“Move towards the chaos” has got me wondering about the judgment of God and the spread of movements that multiply disciples and churches.
Did God hand Iran over to the Islamic Revolution in 1979 to prepare the way for the gospel? I can’t say for sure that he did. Neither can I say he didn’t. Scripture teaches that God judges the nations to reveal his glory so that they would receive his mercy.
Not all suffering is God’s judgment. Ask Job. But God is active in both judgment and mercy to reveal his glory. He judges in order to save.
January 7, 2020
Discipline and Hard Work Sustains Movements
This should give you an idea of what it takes to sustain movements of multiplying disciples and churches in a field of half a billion people.
