NT Movements

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Experiencing God As He Prepares For A DMM Around You

By on Tuesday, June 21, 2022
experiencing God

At first, the Bible study looked overly simple. I thought I already knew the Biblical truths presented. Perhaps I did know most of it. God wanted me to experience those spiritual realities, even though I did not make it a priority at the time. The name of the life-changing study was Experiencing God.

A Bit of Background

Rewind a few years earlier.

I did not grow up in a family of Christ-followers. A classmate in high school first shared the good news of God’s kingdom with me back in 1984. My friend, Tyler, looked like the other teenagers around me. I could tell there was something different about him —a sense of peace and purpose.

I wanted to experience God’s peace and purpose, but my youthful rebellion and self-centeredness got in the way. For the first time, I heard Jesus Christ was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, yet I was still living life my own way.

During college, God’s love broke through my hard heart and began to change me. Then, while still in that season, God used a few older Christian brothers to disciple and mentor me. At that time, I remember hearing about a dynamic Bible study called, Experiencing God. It was by Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby, and Claude King. This study is based on seven spiritual realities of knowing God and doing His will. read more

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Church Planting Discipleship

How Can Local New Testament Churches Challenge Us Today?

By on Tuesday, June 21, 2022
New testament church

In previous posts, we looked at the characteristics of Jesus’ movement. We also looked at the movement the apostles continued in Jerusalem. As the movement developed, we see what local assemblies (house churches) looked like. This adds to our understanding of New Testament movements. As we study the scripture below, we can examine our existing views of the church. Let us try to see the passage from the perspective of the early disciples, instead of our own.

What did the disciples in Jerusalem regularly do?

A summary of what the disciples regularly did in their local context, Jerusalem, is found in Acts 2:41-47.

41 So those who received his (Peter’s) word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (ESV) read more

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Church Planting Generational growth

How Did the Apostles Turn the World Upside Down?

By on Tuesday, June 21, 2022
New Testament Movements

A few months ago, we looked at the characteristics of Jesus’ Movement. The most important foundation of all we do in DMMs should be what Jesus taught and did, not Peter or Paul. After reflecting on Jesus’ ways of working, we can learn much from His disciples as well,

Let’s discover some basic characteristics of the Jerusalem movement, led by Peter and the earliest apostles. This movement began after Jesus rose again.

What did the Jerusalem Movement look like?

We’ll look at seven characteristics that affected the apostle’s fruitfulness.These reflect the idea that Peter and the apostles were disciples of Jesus, and followed what He taught and did. We should remember that teaching and practice were integrated. They should not be separated.

1. When the Kingdom of God was announced, wonders and signs followed.

Jesus gave the apostles power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases (Luke 9:1-2). These signs showed that the Kingdom of God was real, and helped many people believe.

In Acts we see that “many wonders and signs were done through the apostles” (Acts 2:43).

For example, Peter and John healed the lame man at the temple gate called Beautiful (Acts 3:1). Jesus had healed lame people at the temple before (Matt 21:14). Peter and John’s healing opened the door to proclaim Jesus (Acts 3:12-18). The result was that the number of believers increased to about 5,000 men, just like Jesus (Acts 4:4). read more

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Church Planting Discipleship Generational growth Leadership Strategy

What Can We Learn from Jesus’ Movement?

By on Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Jesus movement

This week I’m privileged to introduce you to a fellow trainer and coach. In this short video, he addresses the question of how DMMs grow, strictly from a New Testament perspective. In Disciple Making Movements, everything we do and train others to do needs to be built on the foundation of what we see in the life of Jesus.

Jesus’ Movements
WATCH HERE

I hope you will watch this video and gain insights into what we can learn about movements from Jesus himself. He writes further about it in the text that follows.

It was 2011. Having done church planting work since 1997, and planted one church in an unreached area, I received training about a new approach. It was called Church Planting Movements, or Disciple Making Movements (DMM).

After a difficult transition, our team started to see significant fruit. It was far beyond what we had imagined!

This experience challenged my idea of what the church is and how to do church planting. I started my personal quest to find out for myself what Jesus modeled and what His Apostles continued. read more

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Leadership

Leverage These Key Routines to Make Better Use of Your Time as a DMM Practitioner

By on Saturday, April 24, 2021
routines

Effective movement leaders and trainers are extremely focused. They carefully guard their time and priorities so they can train and disciple well. Leveraging key routines, they recognize that their time is one of their most precious resources.

The follow post is a guest post written by a colleague from South Asia. She is mentoring hundreds of disciple-makers and leaders. This article is born out of experience and filled with wisdom for us.

Goals Alone Don’t Get You There

Simply having the goal of a DMM is not enough. Many people have those kinds of dreams, but only a few ever see their vision fulfilled. Those who see goals fulfilled don’t focus only on the goals. Rather they put into place key habits that they do on a daily, weekly, and on a monthly basis. The progress they make every day may not be very big, but over time they accomplish big things.

Here are two activities you can do to better steward your time.

1. Do a Time Audit

List all the activities you are involved in. You may have to document your daily routine for a week or two to have a clear picture of how you “actually” spend your time. Many times, we overestimate how much time we are productive, and underestimate how much time we waste. If you want this to be meaningful, be honest with yourself. read more

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