Steve Addison's Blog, page 5

Spot the Difference.

My eyes have seen it, my ears have heard it. A movement of God in the Western world, the fruit of which is disciples and churches to the glory of God.

The gospel goes out. Disciples are learning to obey Christ together.

Why should it surprise us that God should do this miracle in a maximum security prison and on death row? It’s no more surprising that after a generation of Islamic rule, Iranians are among the most responsive people in the world.

Do we have nothing to learn from these movements of God as one suburban pastor assured me? Our world is so different from theirs. Yes it is, but God doesn’t change. The principles are the same. The lessons are there if we’ll heed them. Here are a few for starters.

1. Begin with desperate people.

These men are tired of their way of life — the drugs and alcohol, the gang violence and pornography. In the suburbs we’re desperate to entertain. Discipleship is something we do for the people who attend. That’s the deal on offer.

Try raising the bar on discipleship. Watch with a heavy heart as some wealthy, young rulers walk away. Search for God-prepared people.

2. Speak the truth in love.

Heaven and hell are real to these men. They know where they’ve come from. They know where they are going.

The greatest theologian of the twentieth century was Karl Barth. He taught that the Bible only *contains* the Word of God. Who gets to say what the Word of God is? The theologians and exegetes. That enabled Barth to bring his mistress home to live with him, with his wife and his children. Little wonder that church leaders who follow him are silent or supportive when the culture seeks to bend us to its will regarding identity, sex and marriage.

3. Ordain everyone

The engine-room of the movement of God, is the Word of God proclaimed in the power of the Spirit by ordinary people.

In a movement baptism is your commissioning into the ministry of Jesus. You might be an illiterate grandma in Rajasthan, India or a triple murderer on death row. You are loved. God is your “good good Father,” (It’s who he is) but he has something for you go do. He calls you to follow and he’ll teach you to fish for others.

No elevated platforms and pulpits. The Word goes out in the power of the Spirit in a thousands places.

A successful church planting pastor asked me, “Why don’t we in the West see disciple making movements?” I answered, “Why don’t you train your people to make disciples and then set them loose?”

4. Defy success

I used to run around Australia with charts showing the devastating decline of the churches. I’d say, “If this long trend continues, by year xx they’ll all be gone. As though our mission was to save dying institutions. I wasn’t wrong about the trends. I was asking the wrong question.

Don’t ask, “Does this model ‘work’?” Was it working for Jesus as he hung on the cross?

Instead ask, “What did Jesus do? What did he train his disciples to do? What did the risen Lord continue to do through the book of Acts?”

5. Ask the right questions.

These convicted criminals, washed clean in the blood of Christ, sanctified by the Holy Spirit read the Word of God and ask:

How did Jesus enter an unreached field?

How did the Word spread, grow and multiply?

How did he make disciples and form them into churches?

How did he multiply workers and reach new fields?

The Bible is their handbook. They read the Gospels and Acts, and ask, “What does this look like today?”

They follow Christ and he teaches them to fish.

Maybe we have nothing to learn from the hundreds who are turning to Christ behind bars, or the thousands under Islamic rule, or the millions across the sub-continent of India.

Then again, God is always up to something. Often where you’d least expect. Why not follow their example, as they follow Christ? Nothing to lose and everything to gain.

They Get It

When I talk to disciples in Iran I know they can immediately understand what is going on in the movements in Texas prisons, or those under the Communists in Laos, or under Islamic rule in the Middle East.

They speak different languages, but they know the language of movements. They read the book of Acts and say, “That’s our reality.” We suffer, and the Word advances in power.

The identity of every movement of God is shaped by obedience to his Word, dependence on the Holy Spirit, faithfulness to the core missionary task — multiplying disciples and churches to the glory of God. Among every people group. In every place.

The church in the West, with all its history, power and resources speaks another language.

The Politics of Movements

I spend a lot of time on the road a lot looking for case studies and stories of movements that are multiplying disciples and churches.

One thing I’ve noticed — they’re not pursuing political agendas. They do one thing well — they make disciples and form them into multiplying churches.

Yet in the West politics is king. The kingdom has come and so we need to make the world a better place. God will renew the whole creation, so let’s get started.

There’s optimism about our prospects of transforming society in the light of the kingdom of God. That’s been the theme of Western thinking about missions for 100 years. The result has been the decline and collapse of mainstream churches. Today evangelicals in the West are going down the same path.

There’s a move of God that is transforming lives in the Texas prison system. It started in maximum security and spread to death row. Criminals are becoming disciples, and they’re planting churches in their day rooms.

Transformation is the by-product, not the goal of this movement. The gospel changes lives and it brings blessing. But the cross is not someone’s tool for social transformation. Transformation may come — or it may not. Jesus promised rejection and persecution wherever the gospel is proclaimed. That’s why all around the world where the gospel is spreading, believers are suffering.

Meanwhile, in the privileged West, we’re doing fine, but no one is coming to Christ.

Our leaders deny or remain silent about Jesus’ teaching on sexual ethics. The culture has shifted. It’s the price they pay for a seat at the table.

Tell the disciples in Northern Nigeria, as they die daily under Muslim persecution, that their real mission is “to speak truth to power.” Ask the believers of Laos or North Korea to stand up to their Communist overlords and they may be puzzled. They’re doing what Jesus commanded, taking the gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins to their world. They’re just trying to stay alive and beyond the reach of their persecutors.

Their world looks more like the Book of Acts.

Meanwhile in the West, we’ve stopped sharing the gospel with people far from God. Instead we’re making the world a better place.

343-Deal or No Deal? Praying when it doesn’t make sense (Acts 4:23-31)

In Acts 4:23-31, Luke shows us how a movement prays when God is their only hope.

What Have You Got to Learn? What Have You Got to Lose?

It’s not easy to find a multiplying movement in the West. Unless you know where to look.

Oh the irony that God should choose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise.

What have we got to learn? Everything.

Nothing if you don’t have eyes to see.

When I walked into maximum security and death row I met desperate men who were sick of the lives they were living. They wanted to leave violence and crime behind. They wanted to quit the drugs and alcohol. They wanted out of their gang.

“Would I want my daughter to marry a guy like me? No!”

“Do I want my son to follow in my footsteps? No!”

The gospel came to them as good news. They knew they were lost. A convicted criminal hung on a Roman cross for their sins. Salvation meant something.

They heard the call of discipleship and they followed.

They weren’t alone. A guy in their section shared the gospel, read the Bible with them, loved them and stood in their way when they wanted to go back to the old ways. Church was right there in the day room, three or four times a week. Run by the prisoners themselves. They baptize, share Lord’s Supper, sing through the day, read and obey the Word together. Correct and encourage each other. When they feel like punching their cellmate’s lights out, they know who to talk to.

The newest believers are making disciples. There are courses available. They start with the gospel and move to reading the Bible with others for discipleship. They can learn how to follow Jesus’ pattern of multiplying disciples and churches right here in prison.

It’s essentially the same principles and practices bearing fruit all around the world. The Word and Spirit, obedience based discipleship and desperate men who love each other going after lost people.

What’s happening behind bars may not be relevant in “your context”. Or maybe it is.

Ten years ago, none of this was happening. Someone defied precedent and went first.

What have you got to learn? What have ye got to lose?

Links

Podcast: 342–A Glimpse of Heaven on Death Row

Finding God on Texas Death Row

When Heaven Invades Hell

When Heaven Invades Hell

Don Waybright (right)

Before the sun rises every day on Texas Death Row you will hear the songs of praise and Amazing Grace echoing from the cells.

In the past year, thirty-three Death Row inmates have followed Jesus in baptism. These inmates lead five churches that meet daily for worship, Word, prayer, and learning to love God and love one another.

They are caged separately but that does not inhibit their worship. When a man receives his execution date, they conduct a special service, and as he makes the Death Walk they sing Amazing Grace. The condemned man is placed in Death Watch until his execution. The most dangerous criminal in the Texas Prison system has a special cell on Death Watch. Whenever he is removed from the cell, his hands and feet are shackled. Yet, he is a born-again disciple maker and ministers daily to the other men on Death Watch. The men on Death Row often feel God could not forgive their horrific crimes. Yet all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. The Gospel sets these men free.

One seemingly demon-possessed killer has been on Death Row for twenty years. His hair and beard a wild tangled mess – cussing venom constantly, his cell shielded to protect guards from his spit. Today he has been transformed by the love of Jesus demonstrated by Leroy and Barry. His hair and beard are clean shaven, he is baptized, transferred to Death Watch to the sound of Amazing Grace, sharing the Gospel with every guard. Two days later he was executed and like the thief on the cross, entered Paradise.

Another man who had been on Death Row for twenty-six years said, “I have been in everything you can be in—it is good to now be in God. Jesus laid His hands on me!” He quoted all of Psalm 34 from memory as his last words before execution. He received a stay of execution and continues to lead one of the Death Row churches every day.

Barry and Leroy are two multiplying inmates with special security status and freedom to make disciples on Death Row. They have been used by God to create this new humanity among a people and place that seems inhuman.

This is a work of the Spirit-Word-Mission. In the last year, Leroy and Barry have baptized over forty prisoners in solitary. Before being transferred to Death Row they led a movement in a prison south of Houston that saw 90 baptisms in solitary in nine months.

Inmates who were trained with these two in the simple, biblical reproducing disciple making has transferred to other prisons and seen amazing fruit. The largest Texas prison reached NoPlaceLeft with almost 300 churches meeting weekly, and 500 baptisms in four years. Inmate leaders have trained over 2,000 inmates to share the gospel, and over 500 to plant churches. There are over fifty church planting multiplication leaders across six Texas prisons. Texas has the largest prison population in the United States.

Several of these NoPlaceLeft inmates will be released soon, and plans are in place to help them keep spreading the Gospel and making disciples in prisons, in our cities, and in the nations.

DON WAYBRIGHT

Links

Podcast: 342–A Glimpse of Heaven on Death Row

Finding God on Texas Death Row

UPDATE

This just came in from one of the men we visited.

hey don!!!

we had a great time spent in the Lord. you and Steve are great stewards of God's love. you get it. we finished the year strong with over 1000 Gospel shares, 50+ salvations and 17 church plants.

God is raising an army, Don. I know the face of Christianity will always be Jesus. but, the face of the church is changing and it's full of scars and tattoos. and we have a story to tell about the liberating and restoring name of Jesus, and we ain't scared to step out in faith and take back enemy ground.

kyle

Finding God on Texas Death Row

They’d run out of protective vests so our visit to death row was limited to one unit.

Usually the prisoners were locked up in the individual cells 23 hours a day. They aren’t allow to socialize. Each one would take one hour of exercise alone. All that had changed in response to what God was doing.

When we arrived there were eight men waiting for us in their day room. We stood a meter away behind a yellow line. They stood behind a barred wall.

“Can we sing to you?” They sang the Lord's Prayer.

♪ Father let your kingdom come ♪ ♪ Father let your will be done ♪ ♪ On earth as it is in heaven ♪ ♪ Right here in my heart ♪ - Is this happening?

♪ Father let your kingdom come ♪ ♪ Father let your will be done ♪ ♪ On earth as it is in heaven ♪ ♪ Right here in my heart ♪ ♪ Forgive us this day ♪ ♪ We pray forgive us, forgive us ♪ ♪ As we forgive the ones who sin against us ♪ ♪ Forgive them and lead us not into temptation ♪ ♪ The power, the glory are yours ♪ ♪ It's yours, it's yours ♪ ♪ All yours, all yours ♪ ♪ Forever and ever ♪ ♪ Father the kingdom is yours ♪

♪ Father let your kingdom come ♪ ♪ Father let your will be done ♪ ♪ On earth as it is in heaven ♪ ♪ Right here in my heart ♪ ♪ On earth as it is in heaven ♪ ♪ Right here in my heart ♪

They were full of the love and life of God — white, black, Hispanic, Asian. It was a taste of heaven right there on death row. God’s glory was shining out from these men’s lives. I wanted to cross that yellow line, put my hands through the bars and embrace these brothers.

They wanted to tell us what God was doing. “We don’t call this death row, we call it life row. This is where we found Jesus.”

Every one of these men waits for the day when they’ll be executed. It could be months or it could be decades away.

When the time comes and a brother is taken to face a lethal injection, the disciples sing him out with Amazing Grace.

Recently as one brother laid strapped down on the gurney, he asked, “Before you take me out, can I sing? I’m not delaying, I just want to worship God one more time.”

And he worshipped God as he lay there.

In three years, twenty-four men have been executed on death row, twenty of them were disciples.

There are 168 men on death row. Around eighty of them are now following Jesus. These men have planted churches in six of death row’s fourteen units.

In maximum security I met prisoners with sentences of twenty-five to forty years. Some will never be released. They are in for serious, violent crimes. Yet Christ has paid the price for their forgiveness. Through his violent death as a criminal, Jesus has made them new.

Throughout maximum security churches meet in day rooms. They also come together for worship in the prison chapel. The night we attended they had a band and a choir. The African Americans took the lead. One hundred and fifty men raised their voices to God. It felt like I was in heaven. 

These men are free.

Traditionally prison ministry is done by outsiders who preach, teach, and make disciples. But this is a movement, spread by insiders. Outsiders have come in as trainers and catalysts to equip prisoners to make disciples and plant churches.

My job is to tell the story of what God is doing in the prisons. To encourage and provoke others to action. My next book will be full of stories and case studies from around the world. I’ve already visited the United States and India. Between now and Easter I’ll be in the Middle East, Ethiopia, Thailand and Indonesia. Collecting stories.

Podcast: 342–A Glimpse of Heaven on Death Row

342–A Glimpse of Heaven on Death Row

A conversation with Don Waybright after two days behind bars in Texas.

341-Zeal Church

This week I visited Zeal Church in Newport Beach, Southern California. It's one church in a network of multiplying disciples and churches in Southern California.

The Difference

Sometimes you see it so clearly you’re dazzled by reality.

I’m looking into movement case studies around the world. This morning I did a video interview with a brother in SE Asia. We’ll call him Isaiah. It’s a Muslim nation. He’s seen two decades of advance resulting in thousands of new churches and tens of thousands of disciples.

His English is good, but not a native speaker. So I’m just getting the main points. I’ll visit near year to dig deeper.

But in the space of thirty minutes, I saw it. The difference between his world and mine.

He grew up in a Christian family, ended up in jail where he understood the gospel for the first time. When he got out he headed for seminary and then struck out to plant churches.

Eight hours a day, every day, he was out sharing the gospel with Muslims. That’s all he knew to do. He had no idea how to plant a church, but he believed the gospel that had saved him in prison could save Muslims. He took the gospel to the Mosque, the marketplace, schools and neighborhoods. Two years without a breakthrough. Then one new disciple. Another year of hard work and the movement began.

I asked him if there was persecution. The answer came back, “That’s the price we pay. We teach our disciples to suffer for Christ.”

Leaders in my world get some pressure around Jesus’ teaching on sex and marriage and they bow the knee. They don’t pay the price.

Isaiah told me, “I don’t plant churches. Our workers take the gospel to unreached places and peoples and then help the new disciples plant churches. The workers spend eight hours a day entering unreached communities and sharing the gospel. They don’t go home until they’ve shared the gospel with 5–10 people. Everyday.

The leaders in my world, preach to believers, counsel believers, administer churches. I know one or two who are out every week sharing the gospel. That’s one or two.

The leaders I know have reinvented the Great Commission to serve a vision to “transform” their community, city and society. Something Jesus, the Twelve, Paul and the disciples in Acts never managed to do. Wherever they went, trouble followed them. They took the gospel to unreached places and the fruit was always disciples and churches to the glory of God. Two thousand years later, that’s what Isaiah does.

That’s the difference between the world I inhabit most of the time and Isaiah’s world.