“Not What I Expected”

Hope is making disciples in Canada, but it isn’t going exactly like she expected. Outmatched, overwhelmed, and underprepared, she is being hit with the reality of her own inadequacy and desperate need for God. Here’s her story, in her own words.

I’d like to share my discipleship story and ask you to pray for me.  Last fall, I began to ask the Lord to bring people into my life that actually wanted to be discipled. I live in a “religious” part of our Canadian province, and many people just don’t want to be discipled.  Life is just too busy for that!

So, around Christmas time, I felt a gentle nudge to befriend a lady who had tragically watched her husband drown while saving their only child and, as a result, suffered from post traumatic stress.  We connected, and God has greatly blessed both of us in our friendship.  But, it hasn’t been what I thought it would be.  It’s slow going and certainly requires lots of grace and patience.  She seems to be seeking God and searching, truly hungry for love, but is presently looking in earthly relationships to fill this void.  She is also being pursued by a married “Christian” man. 

Then, shortly after Christmas, a friend that I hadn’t been connected with for a long time was brought back into my life.  She apologized to me for the way she had treated me and then proceeded to tell me her story, which she had been attempting to suppress for years.  She had been sexually abused for many years, starting when she was four years old.  Currently, her “Christian” husband is being unfaithful to her and telling her that she is the reason he is doing this.  She believes this and is broken-hearted that she is the cause for “ruining” a godly man.  SO much pain and damaged emotions wrapped up in this precious lady’s life.  Amazingly, God has opened the way for her to accept a few truths from me.  However, she does not believe that God is good right now, so trusting Him is an issue.

I truly believe that God has answered my prayer by giving me these two ladies as disciples, and I believe He is going to do great healing and bring them into His Light and Life.  Will you please pray that I will abide in Him and have wisdom, love, patience, and grace in the process. 

This is not what I expected discipleship to be like at all, but it is amazing to know that Christ is living through me.

A Piece of the Puzzle

Making disciples. That’s it… the goal of our Christian walk. Leading others to follow Christ is our ultimate purpose.

Right?

Some of you are probably familiar with the John Piper quote, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”  Our God is worthy of all people’s worship. So, out of love for God and love for people, we endeavor to lead those who aren’t currently worshiping God to do so. In other words, the purpose of making disciples is that people will worship God.

And this rings true in Scripture, doesn’t it?  From the Ten Commandments (Ex 20, Dt 5) to the Great Commandment (Mt 22:36-40, Mk 12:28-31), God is concerned with people worshiping and loving himself above anything he created. This means that we are to subject ourselves to his lordship, obeying his commands. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3). In obeying God, we worship him.

Therefore, we can worship God by obeying Jesus’ Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:18-20). And we must worship God by making disciples of all nations… it is, after all, a command. Worshiping God by being a witness of Jesus is why God has left us on this earth until Christ returns. For worshiping God in heaven would surely be “far better,” but worshiping him in the meantime by discipling others is “necessary on [their] account” (Ph 1:21-24).

Yet in all this, we must be mindful that making disciples is only a piece of the puzzle which, when put together, is a complete life of worshipping God.

It only makes sense, really. How are we to expect people to listen to us when we tell them to be baptized if we have not been baptized ourselves? How are we to teach them all that Jesus has commanded us if we don’t know and practice his commands ourselves? Making disciples is certainly an act of worship, but aren’t prayer, studying, giving, singing, and thanking also acts of worship?

It stands to reason, then, that you can’t make disciples well if you aren’t also doing these other things. So our encouragement to you is to worship God. By making disciples, yes, but also by not neglecting the other worshipful acts of the Christian life. While disciple-making will pass away, worshiping God will endure forever, and that should be our ultimate goal. Our desire at Multiply is to help equip and encourage you in the disciple-making portion of your worship, so this is what we focus on. However,  other areas of your worship need focus as well.

Are we deemphasizing disciple-making? Not at all! In fact, by emphasizing worship as the ultimate purpose of all disciple-making disciples, obeying the Great Commission is elevated to its proper place. Likewise, as we become better worshipers, we become better disciple-makers too. Praise God for his glorious design!

Do You Love?

Francis Chan and David Platt encourage us to love those whom we are trying to disciple. Discipleship is not simply a task to be accomplished. Let’s make sure we are loving people as we invite them into our lives and pour into them.

This video is a 90 second excerpt from the leader video (over five minutes long) in part 1, section 3 of the Multiply material – “The Heart of a Disciple Maker.”

Questions – The Soil of Christian Growth?

When most of us think of ways to help others grow in their faith in Christ, we think primarily in terms of what we have to offer to them. Discipleship for many of us has been primarily a one way street of information imparted from us to them.  And this is good, as well as necessary. Jesus often stands up and preaches in the synagogue or to the crowd. Paul taught all night in Acts 20. But what if the people we desire to grow more into the image of Christ need more than for us to impart information? Certainly not less than imparting information! But what if they also need for us to enter into conversation with them through asking good questions?

I’m convinced that asking good questions is the soil for Christian growth. Notice that questions neither give the growth, nor are they the growth themselves. Rather, questions are the soil in which growth can happen through God’s inspired Word (i.e. impartation of information) and the power of his Holy Spirit. I think we see this in many places throughout Scripture in many different forms and functioning for many different purposes.

How can asking questions be a helpful companion to sound teaching, or some form of imparting information? Questions naturally lend themselves to internalization. In order to answer a question, there must be thought. Thought brings about ideas that interact with beliefs. Beliefs (depending on the subject) are connected with emotions. Emotions are connected with the heart. When you begin to ask others intentional questions that flow from the Word, then you are tilling the soil of Christian growth. Truth enters into the thought processes introducing (potentially) new ideas that interact with beliefs, which draw out emotion concerning the ideas, and ultimately begin to expose the condition of the heart.

For example, suppose you are talking with a couple of people about sinfulness. You are discussing Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden and how since then, sin has corrupted the world. This leads to further discussion about the nature of humans, and with Romans 3 in mind, you ask, “Would you say that all people are totally sinful and unable to do good apart from Christ?” This forces them to think about it.  They weigh the idea that mankind is totally sinful against their belief – perhaps that humans are essentially good. As this new idea interacts with their belief, their emotions may come to the surface. Remember that while emotions are never the means by which truth penetrates the heart with change, they often expose the beliefs of people’s hearts. In this particular example, suppose that they become defensive and a little bit angry. “Wait a second… are you trying to tell me that out of the billions of people on this planet, not one does good?” Their tones and facial expressions give them away – they do not like this new idea. But through your question, they have been forced to deeply consider the idea. You (hopefully) have gently and lovingly challenged their preconceived notion in such a way that they are driven to wrestle with this scriptural truth that is so hard for them to swallow. And now, you also have a good idea of what they believe, which will inform your approach to future discussions with them.

Earlier, I emphasized that growth in Christ does not come only through imparting information. However, information is an obvious component of Christian growth. How? This is where it comes together. It is not to say that information is not important and essential in the discipleship process. It is to say that the main concern should not be on transference of knowledge, but on transformation of heart. The one serves the other. Part of the goal, then, is to be able to see what areas people need to grow in, and then begin to plot out how to help guide them there through asking really good questions and conversing with them about those questions. This then leads to opportunities to impart biblical truth in a (hopefully) relevant and penetrating way. Your questions become a way of teaching truth and imparting information that is needed, but in a way that hopefully takes truth to the heart, where true Christian growth takes place.

We want to encourage you to begin listening more intently to what the people you are discipling are going through, ask the Lord to show you the needs of their heart, and then begin to ask intentional questions that are filled with the truth of God’s Word. As you begin to do this with others, seek to do this in your own life. Whether studying the Bible, sitting at work, or even after a disagreement with your spouse, begin to listen in each situation and ask good questions. I am convinced that asking good questions is the soil for Christian growth.

How Do You Approach Bible Study In Discipleship?

Where do you start with Bible study when discipling someone? How do you approach studying the Bible, and how do you maintain sensitivity to someone who may not yet buy into the Bible being the authoritative, infallible, and inerrant Word of God?

Leader video excerpt from the Multiply material – Part III, Section 1: Why Study The Bible?

Leading By Listening

Each lesson in the Multiply material is accompanied by a leader’s video.  In these videos, Francis Chan and David Platt discuss things that might be helpful for you to remember as you lead someone through the lesson.  Leader videos can be found at multiplymovement.com/#material, embedded beside each of the corresponding lessons.  These are great tools to help you in your preparation to disciple someone.

Above is a 60-second excerpt from the leader’s video for the very first lesson, “Living as a Disciple Maker.”  In this short clip, they encourage leaders to listen well.  They explain that we’ll never know how to rightly apply the truth of God’s Word in someone’s life if we don’t know where they are coming from.

Multiplication At Work

Below is an interview with Randy Cole, President of Asian Partners International (API).  Here’s a great, real life example of God multiplying His disciples in North India.

1. I’m sure there are countless examples, but could you share a specific story of how God has used ordinary believers in Northern India to make disciples in this difficult region?

In 2011, a young man about 18 years old accepted the Lord as his Savior, and was being discipled and mentored by one of our Community Learning Center leaders in the state of Uttar Pradesh.   He was uneducated but very trainable.  He was hungry and thirsty for the Word of God, and was open to learn the basics of disciple-making.  About three months into his training, before he could actually complete it, this man told his mentor that he had to move to another town to take a job working in a brick-making factory.  Two months later, he contacted his mentor.  He reported that there were 70 new believers from this factory who wanted to be baptized.  He asked, “What should I do?” His mentor said, “Train them to go and make disciples just like you were trained, and I’ll be there in a couple of days to assist you.”

2. On a practical level, how is API intentional about instructing new believers to think of themselves as disciple-makers?

Rather than just telling people what to do, we teach them to understand and obey verses like Matthew 28:19.  We do this by using what we call the Discovery Bible Study process.  One of the first “discoveries” of new believers using this process is Matthew 28:19-20.

We ask people to look at a biblical passage and take the following steps:

1)  Write your own paraphrase of the verse.  Do you know what it says?
2)  Write down the application that the Spirit is teaching you from this passage.  Do you understand what it says?
3)  Write down how you will obey this application by answering the following questions: “What will I change?”, “What will be the cost?”,  and “Are you willing to take action and follow-through on the teaching?”
4)  Finally, write down the person(s) in your circle of influence that needs to learn this.  Are you willing to multiply the teaching?

3. What specific challenges has API faced in making disciples in Northern India?

The people groups that we serve are the 100 million Bhojpuri, 30 million Awadhi, 30 million Magahi, 20 million Maithili, and 30 million Muslims residing in North India.  These people groups are located in over 172,000 villages and urban communities.  This is the heartland of India, and the region is characterized by political unrest, illiteracy, poverty, and disease.  North India has been called the “graveyard of missions and missionaries” as many have tried and failed over the past 200-300 years to spread the gospel in this area.  To summarize, we have language/cultural barriers, logistics issues, literacy barriers, poverty, disease, and persecution to overcome.

4. How can we pray for the efforts of API as it seeks to make the gospel known in Northern India and throughout Asia?

Our Vision is that by 2018, 30 million new believers are added to His Kingdom from North India, and that each of the 172,000 villages and urban communities has at least one house church planted. The Lord is moving in this part of the world!  Over the past 18 years, we believe the Lord has added more than 6 million North Indians to His Church.

• Pray that God would continue to pour out His Spirit in this area of the world.
• Pray for the vision of seeing 30 million new disciples in India by the year 2018.
• Pray for CLC leaders and their families.
• Pray for the female population in this area. Each year, more than 1 million female children go “missing” between the ages of 0-6.
• Pray for God to provide his divine protection and wisdom to new believers from Hindu, Islam, and Maoist backgrounds.
• Pray that we continue to multiply disciples, leaders, churches, and teaching.

The Multiply Material, One PDF

Up to this point, the Multiply material has been available on our website to download for free.  However, as many of you have discovered, each section must be downloaded individually.  As a result, we have gotten several requests for a downloadable version of Multiply in one big PDF.  So, for your convenience, we now present to you….

(drum roll, please)

… the Multiply material.  In just one big PDF (roughly 1MB).  Click the book to the left to access the file for free.

Download The Multiply Webcast

We are happy to announce that the Multiply Webcast from this past November is now available for download.  What’s the advantage of doing this?  As many of you have already told us, you may want to show it to a small group in segments, be able to pause and rewind easily without pauses in streaming, or view it with people in places without internet access.  The downloadable version will now give you the flexibility to do all of these things and more.

You can download the Friday night webcast from Birmingham or the Saturday night webcast from San Francisco.  Each webcast is now just a little over two hours because the segments of musical worship have been omitted.  This allows you the option of including your own live worship.

To download it, go to Multiply’s homepage, and click “Watch the webcast now.”  A window will pop up for you to fill in some information.  This is also where you can choose whether you want to view the Birmingham gathering or the San Francisco gathering.  After you do this, click “SUBMIT.”  At this point, nothing is different from before – when you could only view it online.  However, now there is an option to go to the video in Vimeo, where you can then download it.  So click “Vimeo” in the bottom right corner of the window that would play the webcast.  This will take you to the video in Vimeo’s website.  From here, you can click “Download” below the video and then choose which quality level you want.  The webcast will then download to your computer.

Our hope is that you now have even more opportunity to benefit from Multiply webcast and are, in turn, equipped and encouraged to take the good news of Jesus to those both near and far.

Spinning Your Wheels in Discipleship?

See if this describes you:

You made a commitment during the Multiply Gathering to disciple someone in the coming year. You had good intentions. You felt convicted. And you really wanted to reach out to that person with the truth of Christ. But now you’re spinning your wheels.

Things have come up, and it’s been harder to initiate that conversation than you thought. So you’re thinking about rethinking your initial commitment. Discipling someone may not be in the cards for you. After all, who are you to disciple someone else when you don’t have it all together?

If that’s you, let me offer a word of encouragement—you’re most certainly not alone. Satan can discourage us, our schedules can overwhelm us, and the fear of man can intimidate us, but none of these things should stop us from sharing the gospel and pouring our lives into others for the sake of Christ. Remember, as a follower of Christ, you have the Spirit of God inside you to apply the Word of God in the lives of others. Therefore…

Pick up the phone. Send that email. Walk across the room. Go get coffee. Initiate that conversation, all the while trusting that the Lord is working behind the scenes in your relationships. You may get rejected, and that’s ok. You’re not called to manufacture results; you’re called to share the truth and the love of God. You may even be surprised to learn that the Lord has been working in the other person’s heart to prepare them for this very purpose.

By the way, if you haven’t already, you can still commit to making disciples in the coming year and let us know about it by going here. We’d love to pray for you and encourage you with emails and videos from David, Francis, and the Multiply team.

Also, we’d love to hear what questions you might have as you have started, or tried to start, a discipling relationship. Just leave your question in the “Comments” section. We may not get to everyone’s question, but we’d like to address some of the difficulties that people are having.

Don’t be discouraged. Seek the Lord in prayer, then step out in faith.