The largest grass-roots movement in the world
When our Lord Jesus Christ left his disciples about 2000 years ago, he started the largest grass-roots movement in the world. He gathered the twelve disciples, who were ordinary people in ordinary professions. He gave them a commission. He gave them work to do. He sent them out to bless and change the world through the message of the Kingdom of God.
And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick and heal them.” (Mark 16:15-18)
But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
The disciples acted on his words. They actually believed that they could do what he had asked them to do! They waited in Jerusalem for the go-signal Jesus had given them. They were to be filled with the Holy Spirit and receive power to be his witnesses. Through their experience on the day of Pentecost the new covenant community was born with an indwelling dynamic power that led to growth and reproduction.
Acts 2:41-47
The early believers met in their homes for fellowship, prayer and instruction. They enjoyed eating together and were always praising God for his goodness. They shared everything with each other and helped each other to grow in their spiritual life and to win new people for Jesus Christ.
Acts 4:4
Acts 4:31-35
Acts 5:12-14
Acts 5:42
Acts 9:31
It is no wonder that within a few years you could find living Christian fellowships in the entire known world. In spite of opposition and persecution the numbers of believers continued to increase so much that in the end they were the majority in many nations!
What do you think?
What do you thing is the secret of the great increase in numbers among the early Christians?
Are the commission in Mark 16:15-18 and the promise in Acts 1:8 still valid today?
What can you expect to happen if you proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom of God and lay hands on the sick people you meet?
When the Emperor of Rome became a Christian he made Christianity the state religion. Because of this many became Christians just to adapt to the new political situation in the empire. As time passed Christianity became part of the national power structure throughout Europe. Today Europe is a vast mission-field. Even though the majority of the people in Europe still are members of a Christian denomination, most of them are only so-called nominal Christians without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and therefore they are not his disciples.
In other parts of the world, like Africa, South America, and Asia, the number of disciples is increasing greatly. Again it is ordinary people in all kind of professions who are making relatives, friends, neighbours, fellow students and workmates into disciples. A new generation of bold believers in and followers of Jesus Christ is springing up. They actually believe that every unsaved person is a potential new believer in Jesus Christ, and that every new believer is a disciple to be trained and sent on a mission! Because of the great numbers of new believers, they often face a lot of opposition and persecution. The old religious power structures feel threatened and want to hinder any further increase in the numbers of new believers. But over and over again we find that these new followers of Jesus Christ don’t allow themselves to be frightened. They know that the living Lord Jesus
Christ is with them, as he promised, and that he will help them to fulfil the mission he gave the early believers of preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God and making all nations disciples of Christ.
You can start a chain-reaction
Now I will share with you a true story about a believer who through training others started a grass-roots movement where thirty overworked farmers grew to one hundred and four thousand disciples in three years! I hope that when you have read this story you will understand the importance of your influence on people and how you can take part in training others by using the course “Finding Your Place”. When you help people to come to Christ and help a new believer to grow in Christ, and to win and train others, you may trigger a grass-roots movement of dimensions you will not be able to imagine!
This happened to some farmers late one evening in November 2000. They were tired after hard work in their fields. They had gathered as a small congregation in a country in Asia and were listening to Andrew, a visiting Christian worker. He shared this vision with them: To start a new church in each of the 200 towns and cities in their nation within 3 years. These 30 farmers in the congregation were the seeds God wanted to use to achieve this, according to Andrew. Doubtingly they looked at one another and then they stared at the Christian worker asking him if he was totally mad!
“This is impossible! It can never be done!” they claimed!
“It can be done!” said Andrew, “each one of you can start by gathering people in your own home!”
“How are we going to do it?” they asked, “who is going to teach them?”
“You will teach them!” was the simple and straightforward answer from Andrew.
They were shaking their heads in despair, complaining, “We don’t know what to do or how to do it!”
“I will teach you both what to do and how to do it! We will start at once! It is very simple. Each one of you has a unique story to tell of how you came to Christ. Write your story down on a piece of paper!”
After they had written their testimony, Andrew asked them to read it aloud to themselves five times. Then they had to tell their story to each other.
The next thing they were asked to do was to write down a list of all those non-saved people they knew personally. They were asked to start with their family, relatives, and friends. Most of them could list 50, 60, and some 100 or more people.
“Divide them into groups of five,” Andrew told them. “Find them in their homes, fields, work-places, or wherever. Invite them to your home and when they come share your story with them!”
To train trainers or coaches
He returned two weeks later to see what had happened. Only 11 of the farmers had shared their story with others. He asked these eleven to talk about their experiences of what took place to encourage the others. Most of them had shared their story with two or three people; one had shared his story with eleven people!
Then Andrew challenged the “silent 19” to share their story with the people they had on their list; or not bother to return to the next training session! From then on he started to teach those who were willing to share their story with others regularly. He gave them a series of simple biblical truths that they in turn could pass on to others and train them to do the same. He used a similar course to “Finding Your Place”!
In January 2001, two months after this started, 20 small cell-churches had been birthed! Four months later, 327 cell-churches with 4000 baptised new believers were meeting in 17 towns. At the end of that year, more than 12000 new believers were meeting for worship and training in 908 cell-churches!
“We don’t train teachers. We train trainers. We seek to produce coaches,” Andrew explains. “One generation teaches and trains the next generation. The second generation teaches and trains the third generation. This process of reproduction is constantly repeated. You may train one group on Monday, another one on Tuesday, and still another group on Thursday. The more people you train, the more cell-churches you will have!”
One old farmer took on the challenge and he started more than 100 cell-churches in one year! He gets up at 5 o’clock in the morning every day and spends two hours praying and working with the Word of God in the Bible. He works in his fields until 5 o’clock in the afternoon and spends about two hours with his family before he goes to groups of people he is training. “I work in the fields of God until midnight”, he proudly exclaims!
Churches are planting churches
Andrew started the same process in an industrial suburb in the same district. Many of the workers came from the surrounding area and lived in huts in a camp on the factory site.
“The workers eat, work and sleep on the factory site,” he says. Each barrack takes eight to twelve people. They are often very lonely. If one of them becomes a believer, he may win all those in his barrack for Jesus. “
The Christian trainers “lost” a factory worker. He was a new believer they had been training to train others. One day he just disappeared!
“After six months we found him again,” Andrew told us. “He had been moved to another big factory with 10.000 workers. During the six months he was away, he was able to start 70 small groups and he saw 10 generations of reproduction take place! The secret is churches planting churches that are planting churches!”
By summer 2003, less than three years after the overworked farmers listened to a Christian worker they thought was crazy, there was a great church-planting movement on the way! In 3 years 9300 house-churches had been started and more than 104.000 new believers had been baptised!
The Christian worker, Andrew, used to be excited if one new church was started a year! He actually doubted if it was possible to start a church-planting movement - until he saw it with his own eyes!
“Jesus commanded us: GO! He asked us to make disciples, not just members of a church! We train all to become trainers. That is what it is all about! It is very simple but it works!”
“We need to train coaches that not only evangelise, make disciples and start churches, but train others to do the same and in this way start a chain-reaction,” explains Andrew, as a good mission strategist. “Our focus is to get a grass-roots movement going, so the churches will multiply by themselves!”
Other stories
A Christian worker won a student for Jesus Christ. He taught the student not only how to share the good news with others, but also how to train them to share the gospel with others in turn. The fruit of this was that several hundred people came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour within a few months.
Another Christian worker evangelised and trained his language teacher. The language teacher won a lady who worked in his/her house. This woman brought her husband to the Lord. The husband won his parents for Jesus, that incident was followed by wonders and persecution. After six months churches had been established in more than twenty villages among a tribe where there had previously been no Christians!
An evangelist worked with several groups of church-planters who established a network of churches in a specific tribal people group. After six months a new generation of churches had sprung up. They too reproduced, and after eighteen months the third generation of churches was born!
“Finding Your Place” is a training course that will help new disciples to stand firm in their faith, and it will enable them to make disciples. “Finding Your Place” is a course consisting of four books introducing people to the basics of the Christian faith and life. As you already have discovered, the teaching material has been arranged in weekly themes with five days per week. The material has been arranged in this way in order to make it easy to work through the daily subjects by reading and doing the exercises and to help the new believers to put the teaching into practice straightaway! Another reason for arranging the material in this way is to provide you with a discipleship and training tool for you as a coach to help a new disciple to become strong in the Lord and be able to make disciples by using this course.
What do you think?
What do you have to do to take part in winning and training people to win and train disciples?
In what way has the story of Andrew, the Christian worker, challenged you?
Learn this entire paragraph by heart:
And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick and heal them.” (Mark 16:15-18)