Dealing with Opposition to Church Planting Movements

George Patterson spent 21 years in Central America training pastors in a way that multiplies churches. George's strategies and materials for church multiplication have become known and used worldwide. He mentors workers who seriously want to follow New Testament guidelines to sustain church planting movements, many of whom have made significant breakthroughs.  He teaches at Western Seminary and has authored "Church Multiplication Guide", "Train & Multiply", "Paul-Timothy" and other training materials.

In 2011 Dr. George Robinson, mission professor of Southeastern Baptist Seminary in NC interviewed Dr. George Patterson: In today’s context missiologically, Church Planting Movements have been talked about for the last decade.  The interesting thing is that the tendency is for other missionaries who are working in that area to frown upon and attack where these mass movements are emerging. Can you speak to that and maybe just share why you think this is happening? What should be the response to these situations?

Patterson: I think this is a greater problem than most missionaries and especially most mission agency leaders realize.  It is universal and not limited to one mission agency.

I have mentored dozens of missionaries through the years who have started and sustained Church Planting Movements and in every case they have been painfully attacked by their own colleagues or other missionaries and agencies in the area.  I guess the critics feel that they have to justify their lack of fruit by criticizing that missionary or his churches.  It’s extremely easy to find fault with another man’s ministry.

I know anyone who followed me around could find all kinds of faults with things I did.  Their criticism would have been totally valid. However, the only thing is they are doing it with the wrong motive.  Not to help me as much as to justify their lack of fruit in seeing churches multiply.

And so I think this is a human reaction.  The opponents say, ”I go to the field.  I’m working hard.”  ”I’m making huge sacrifices.”   "I’m doing everything right, as far as I can see, and yet I’m not seeing churches multiply.”  Here’s another guy that comes in and his churches are multiplying.”  So the opponents first reaction is, “He’s gotta be doing something wrong”.  “Those churches will be weak”

The big criticism that I hear, I’ve heard many times,  “You are starting churches that are a mile wide and an inch deep”.  “Oh you’re baptizing way too soon. I could start a big church too if I just baptized anyone.”

I think that it is a universal problem and it hurts.  Many missionaries have washed out because of it.  Many have resigned mission agencies because of this problem.  Not because of the agency. I don’t know a single case where it was the agency itself that caused the problem.  It was coworkers within that agency who were short sighted.

Instead of thanking God and praising God for what is happening, instead of going to the missionary who was seeing results, instead of being humble about it, and saying, “Okay, what are you doing? Help me.”  The knee jerk reflex often is to find something wrong.

Because this is so universal and so prevalent and causes so much pain and damage I think our seminaries that train missionaries.  All mission training programs, mission executives, ought to take a long hard look at it.  Face it and admit that it’s going on and then prepare the mission candidates.

Prepare both the more conservative, older traditional missionaries who do most of the criticizing and the newer ones who want to break with some of the traditions and just follow more New Testament simple patterns.  That’s where the rub comes.  They throw rocks at each other.  Prepare them both and teach that this is just plain sin.  You teach them to love both, prepare them both and help one another.

Moves of God

There are significant differences and similarities between Revivals and Church Planting Movements.  Claude King and Henry Blackaby correctly defined Revival as renewing God’s people to do God’s work.  CPMs are Spiritual Awakenings. The common denominator between Revivals and Church Planting Movements are that both are “A Move of God”.  Pioneers in Revivals and CPMs should not be surprised that having opposition to a Move of God is par for the course.  When we recognize this fact it helps us not to take the oppositions’ criticisms so personally.

I was trained and coached by Dr. George Patterson in 2000 to jump-start CPMs among the Unreached.   He warned me of the opposition to the CPM vision but I had no idea what I was in for.  Patterson once told me how he dealt with opposition to the CPM he started in Honduras.“I had to find my sanity in the pages of Church History.”

I found the advice of Second Great Awakening leader Charles Finney extremely encouraging.  Lectures of Religion: Hinderances to Revivals 1835

http://www.gospeltruth.net/1835Lect_on_Rev_of_Rel/35revlec15.htm

THIS servant of God had come down from Babylon to rebuild the temple and re-establish the worship of God at Jerusalem, the city of his fathers' sepulchres. (Tombs). When it was discovered by Sanballat and certain individuals, his allies, who had long enjoyed the desolations of Zion, that now the temple, and the holy city were about to be rebuilt, they raised a great opposition. Sanballat and the other leaders tried in several ways to divert Nehemiah and his friends, and prevent them from going forward in their work; at one time they threatened them, and then complained that they were going to rebel against the king. Again, they insisted that their design was not pious but political, to which Nehemiah replied by a simple and prompt denial, "There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart." Finally, Sanballat sent a message to Nehemiah, requesting him to meet in the plain of Ono, to discuss the whole matter amicably and have the difficulty adjusted, but designed to do him mischief. They had found that they could not frighten Nehemiah, and now they wanted to come round him by artifice and fraud, and draw him off from the vigorous prosecution of his work. But he replied, "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I come down to you?"

It has always been the case, whenever any of the servants of God do any thing in his cause, and there appears to be a probability that they will succeed, that Satan by his agents regularly attempts to divert their minds and nullify their labors. So it has been during the last ten years, in which there have been such remarkable revivals through the length and breadth of the land. These revivals have been very great and powerful, and extensive. It has been estimated that not less than TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND persons have been converted to God in that time.

But whenever those who are actively engaged in promoting a revival get excited at the unreasonableness and pertinacity of the opposition, and feel as if they could not have it so, and they lose their patience, and feel as if they must answer their cavils and refute the slanders, then they get down into the plains of Ono, and the work must cease.

And the devil has been busy in his devices to divert and distract the people of God, and turn off their energies from pushing forward the great work of salvation.

History of Opponents to Moves of God and their Heretical descendants

• Sanballat’s grandson Sanballat II built the Temple on Mt. Gerazim, the center of the Samaritan cult.

• The Waldensians and the underground house church movements of the pre-Reformation moves of God had Pope Innocent III.  Innocent later launched the Fourth and last Crusade.  This misdirected Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople and poisoned relations between the Eastern and Western Church.

• Martin Luther and the Reformation had John Tetzel and the Pope’s Counter Reformation.  Tetzel pushed indulgences to build the St. Peter’s Basilica at Rome.

• Charles Chauncy, the opponent of Jonathan Edwards and the New Lights of the First Great Awakening later founded the Unitarian-Universalist Church.

• Colonial Governor Tryon of North Carolina and vigorous promoter of the State run Anglican church violently opposed the New Light descendants of Shubel Stearns.  Stearns was the minister used to ignite the Sandy Creek  Revival in North Carolina and the 2,000  daughter, granddaughter and great grand-daughter Baptist Churches that became the majority of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Practical Suggestions to deal with Critics

• Like Nehemiah “Don’t get down in the plains of Ono” and let the opposition distract your focus from training new believers and training the leaders to reach new Unreached Peoples.

Let those who actually have seen CPMs verify and evaluate what God is doing.

• Help Mission Agencies determine what their attitude, reactions and procedures will be before CPMs start.

• It doesn’t matter how much verification you get many missionaries will never believe that CPMs are real.  This still would be the case even if someone were to rise from the dead and verify what God was doing.

•      Get several other experienced CPM trainers to encourage you and your teams.

• Embrace the cross and the ridicule and keep your eyes on Jesus.

• Take a few months to raise your own support base rather than having all of your support coming from one source.  This keeps you free to follow the Holy Spirit.

• Relocate to a different area, either temporarily or permanently only visiting on occasion as Christ commanded. “If you are persecuted in one town, flee to another.”   Matthew 10.

• Recognize that Opposition is Par for the Course in relation to Church Planting Movements.  Keep your sanity by reading what others did when faced with opposition in Scripture and Church History.

• Don’t get a Martyr’s Complex, thinking you are the only one who has been attacked.  God told Elisha, “I have 7,000 who have not bowed their knees to Baal or whose mouths have kissed him.” I Kings 19:18.

• "Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you".  Luke 6:28

• Your opponents are acting as mere puppets in the hands of Satan.  Recognize that your fight is with him and battle in prayer.

Just Obey Jesus Training 2

20 Hinderances to ignite Disciple Multiplication Movements

The book of Acts ends with the repeated a phrase, “He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ--with all boldness and without hindrance!” Acts 28:31

In May of 2013 my Israeli friend Sean Steckbeck gave me the honor of training several of his Israeli Messianic Jewish and Palestinian Arab trainers across the Holy Land.  I met Sean through our mutual friend and mentor Dr. Victor Choudhrie.  Sean calls Victor, George Patterson and myself often to learn from our success and mistakes in multiplying churches among the Unreached.  I have never seen the power of God as much as I have witnessed with Sean and his friends.  I have learned a lot about how to heal the sick without being weird.  In the past 2 years that Victor, George and I have been training him, Sean reports that the number of new house churches and believers have doubled.  His networks have now seen 60 new seeker groups and house churches with 50 baptisms.  This is a miracle in Israel.  

In one training in a home, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, I met one of the Messianic believers who had yet to implement Sean’s DMM training.  This brother’s name was Ariel and he really began to challenge Sean and my faith that Disciple Multiplication Movements can and in fact ARE happening in the Holy Land.  “Jay and Sean,  Maybe DMMs can happen in India and Burma but this will never happen here in Israel.  This is hard ground!”  I could almost see the atmosphere of faith that we were eagerly trying to build start to quickly drain out of the room.

Ariel is one of only 3,000 native-born “Sabras” out of 6 million Israeli Jews who were followers of Yeshua.  I knew what he said was the normal attitude because, statistically it takes 8 years on average and millions of evangelistic outreach dollars for “Sabra” Israeli Jews to come to faith.   94% of the 20,000 Messianic Jews in Israel are first generation immigrants.  Israelis rightly see the Body of the Messiah as foreign.  

The spontaneous reply that came out of my mouth, I believe was from the Lord.  “Ariel,  I want you to go to the Tombs of Caleb and Joshua near the settlement of Ariel and repeat what you just told me.  Repeat it standing in front of their graves.  I could see that he got my point from Numbers 13:30.   “There are giants in the Land but our God is with us. We can surely do this!” Are you going to be a Joshua and Caleb or will you remain in the cynical unbelief of the 10 spies who quivered before the giants?   

In my 15 years of living in the midst of the 10/40 Window's billions of Unreached I have seen very few foreign missionaries who have the faith of Caleb and Joshua.  Neil Cole hits the nail on the head in his recent article “Missions is Broken”.  The vast majority of missionaries are unaware that thousands of new Disciple Multiplication Movements are indeed springing up among Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists.  The majority who HAVE heard the DMM vision and know a few case studies tend to be, like the 10 spies, overly cynical.  They doubt that it is even possible to see churches multiply without enormous amounts of theological training and millions of dollars to start a few new churches. 

You are correct to assume that foreign missionaries and agencies have many practices that actually do more harm than good in regards to igniting DMMs.

1.  Honest humility Learn from practitioners who have started and sustained Disciple Multiplication Movements, rather than thinking you have mastered all the answers. 2 Tim. 2:2, Ex. 18:18.

2. Vigorous vision Think on the multiplication and addition principles presented in Acts, rather than thinking of church growth by addition only.

3. Fearless faith Believe that rapidly obeying Jesus leads to rapidly multiplying disciples, rather than fearing “There are giants in the land!” Num. 13:30 Firm obedience Base discipleship on obedience , rather than overemphasizing information. Mt. 7:24-28. Mt. 28:20.

4. Sacred rites Affirm the importance of Jesus’ command to baptize and practice the Lord's Supper, rather than pushing for decisions of the will.

5. Power Allow demonstrations of the Power of Christ to heal the sick, rather than merely preaching the Word.

6. All nations See all ripe fields that God has readied in an area, to start separate movements, rather than focusing with tunnel vision on only one people group.

7. Family units Do family evangelism in homes, rather than focusing unduly on individuals.

8. Lay leaders Let new, indigenous leaders of new churches baptize and serve Communion, rather than making them disobey Jesus’ commands for lack of ordained clergy.

9. Tentmakers Enable self-support for leaders, rather than providing paternalistic subsidy of leaders who often over-control.

10. Poor people Make disciples among the poor in pioneer areas, rather than trying to push camels through a needle’s eye, working exclusively with middle and upper class folk.

11. Balance Alleviate poverty as you evangelize, doing both, rather than having two separate efforts of development work and discipling.

12. Truth Critically analyze generational multiplication and “fruit inspection”, rather than naively believing every evangelistic event report, neglecting monitoring and evaluating evangelistic and disciple multiplication efforts. 

13. Stories Relate Bible stories and ask discussion questions, rather than relying primarily on monologue sermons.

14. Model skills Train apprentices on the job working with people, rather than merely lecturing.

15. Priorities Give making disciples top importance, rather than overly focusing on language learning. Those who focus all their time on language seldom turn over leadership to local believers.

16. Practice first Start a Disciple Multiplication Movement, before writing about it, rather than striving to gain recognition as an expert’ or trying to climb an organizational ladder. The sin of Diotrophes was loving to be first, 3 John 1:9.

17. Wolf warning Inoculate believers against those “sheep stealers who will surely come, rather than waiting until they have already begun to decimate Christ's flock.

18. Train locals Train lay leaders who have jobs and are local "Sons of the Soil", rather than importing and exporting leaders from Bible schools or seminaries.

19. Light baton Develop easily reproducible, affordable training techniques to disciple nations, rather than overemphasizing high tech devices and media.

20.  Time Management Spending large amounts of time with a few curious DMM learners rather than doing short trainings with a few committed and obedient trainers. 

You are correct to assume that indigenous missionaries are much cheaper and better at language proficiency than foreign missionaries. However, 90% of indigenous missionaries have just as many hindering ideas and practices as expensive foreign missionaries in regards to igniting sustainable Disciple Multiplication Movements. Wherever these practices are placed under obedience to the Rule and Reign of the Lord Jesus, churches are multiplying and millions are coming to Christ.

The Tomb of Joshua and Caleb in the Samarian Hills.  Palestinian Arabs constantly desecrate this holy site with graffiti 

Jay Pratt is a Disciple Multiplication Movement Coach who's trainees are seeing several DMMs among Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindus in a Military Dictatorship in Asia.

2 Methods for "Preaching"

2 Methods for "Preaching"

In 1999, I had a very dramatic "call" to preach.   I preached my first sermon at a tiny church in Paldit, Philippines and did a terrible job but Jesus saved two ladies that Sunday morning.   Later on in college I learned about the Unreached Peoples of the 10/40 and felt very "called" to preach to those who had no to little chance of hearing the gospel deeper in Asia.    One day while reading about the underground house church movements in China, I realized that my two "calls" were in conflict.  How could I "preach" in a closed (to missionaries) country?    Dr. George Patterson helped me understand the what the Bible means by preaching is not standing in front of an audience but that the goal of preaching was to simply make disciples.  In my years at Union University I had become quite a good little Preacher Boy.  I even had the perky Southern Baptist hairstyle and projected my voice to the back pew where I used to sit when I was a pagan backslider.

So many people complimented me on my success as a preacher that I was kinda sad that I would have to give up my "gift".   I now understand that there are hundreds of ways to preach but so few Christians understand that the point of preaching is to make disciples.

Yesterday, I had the honor of listening to my new Rakhine friend Kyaw Z. Lynn "preach".   He was one of the best Buddhist Background preachers that I had ever heard.  I could tell that he had some interaction with traditional believers.  So after his sermon we had a training on how to lead a training.

I told him that success as a disciple of Jesus is obedience to His commands as well as helping others to obey Jesus commands.  Many preachers believe that success is simply preaching good sermons that draw large crowds.   This is simply not scriptural.

We train new believers that we are successful when we help new believers to multiply to the second, third and forth generation of new baptizers and story tellers.    85% of the preaching that Jesus did was with Stories (parables).

Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables (stories);  In fact He did not say anything to them without using a parable.  So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet:  'I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world."

95% of preachers in the West ignore how Jesus preached.   Why did Jesus simply tell Bible stories rather than explain everything with three points and a poem?   I believe it is because stories are the most easily reproducible way for the word of God to rapidly spread among vast regions and peoples.

Telling a story and have the listeners repeat the story back to us with simple questions and holding them accountable to obey the Word of God is winning the world to Christ.  The typical American way to preach is merely ONE WAY to PREACH.    Thank God it is not the ONLY way to preach.    I do want all of our trainees to preach the monologue way but training trainers is much more successful in transforming nations.

We are seeing tens of thousands of new preachers proclaiming the Good News of Christ across Myanmar.   These story tellers are preaching by using our Picture Bible.   Email bbbcpm@gmail.com to receive the full set of 60 Contextualized Pictures.  $10 suggested donation.

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The Problem isn't the Harvest. The Problem is the Church Leadership

I work with 36,500 dunked Buds, MBBs, Hindu BBs and a few MY Jews. We have no problem finding homes to share Jesus story. I rarely have to talk about finding Persons of Peace with them because they are swimming in an enormous harvest in the homes of people who are interested in the origin of freedom. One prob is that they are so far out of the traditional box that when we share what God is doing to the traditional pastors they assume that we are fibbing. We are hoping and praying for a breakthrough among Christians this year. The prostitutes, Imans, Gurus, Monks, Majors are streaming into His kingdom but the paid clergy are the hardest hearts. They complain that the harvest is hard and that they must have more money to bring it in.

My friend and teacher George Patterson points out that most Church leaders have unidentified anxiety and fear.
4 Fears/ Barriers of Church Leaders
1. The Fear of losing control.  "How can I allow new believers to baptize and making disciples? They may rebel and I would loose control and therefore influence."  In a house church movement that now started 800 house churches and new discipleship groups across North Carolina, Tennessee, SC, TX, IN, and Mississippi.  I was shocked to see my pastor friend Andy Evans traditional church explode in growth.  The very opposite of this common fear occurred.  When First Baptist Spindale released their members to start multiplying house churches they began to attract workers from other churches and new believers.  These new members exclaimed, "We want want to be apart of a multiplying and growing church who is reaching the lost and discipling their community.  We are tired of warming the pews."  I was astounded that the first responders were members who were 40-70 years old.  The younger believers in rural Bible Belt churches gravitate towards newer churches who have cool music, flashy lights.  They tort, "Why should we go and identify Persons of Peace? Everyone is flocking to our growing churches."  The catalyst of this move of God, Jeff Sundell, pointed out that they were in fact merely attracting church hoppers and that they growth of these new Southern small town churches was primarily transfer growth. 


When you release your people to obey Jesus you will gain tremendous influence.  When his friends pointed out that he was losing influence, the second greatest man in history replied, "I must decrease but He (Jesus) must increase." John 3:30.


2. The Fear of insufficient funds. "How can we afford starting more churches when we do not have enough resources and staff for our own churches? Jay you are nuts!"   

I have witnessed that wherever churches allowed their members to start daughter churches and baptize new believers who baptize and disciple new believers outside the four walls of the church, the funny and ironic thing is that that mother church gains more resources.  I am not saying that there will never be a problem of not having enough money to disciple a vast region or enormous people but there is enough money to multiply and reproduce. 

Our Individualism is killing the American church and her mission efforts

Most Americans and other Westerners defend individualistic discipleship because we are so imbalanced in this regards. We love to purchase Personal computers, Personal Data Assistants, Personal Pan Pizzas, and "accepting Jesus as our Personal Lord and Savior." Satan has placed a diabolical twist on our individualism that is leading our disobedience to the Great Commission. The gospel is exploding in places where entire households (oikos in Greek) are coming to Christ. Holding fast to individualism is ignoring the clear pattern of Christ and His Apostles. Lydia and her household, Philippian Jailor (both in Acts 16, Zacchaus and his house, Cripus Acts 18, Noah's house, Rahab, etc.. There are one or two exceptions. Persons of Peace are gateways to networks as in the case of the Woman at the well in Jn 4. Household Evangelism is Christ' and His Apostles pattern but it is not a command. We ignore it at our own risk. Christ' word is Inspired of God and so are His Methods. Individualism is stifling the American Church and causing fruitless mission efforts which suck up millions of dollars around the world. Paul discipled chains of newer leaders in the "presence of many witnesses." 2 Tim. 2:2.

Miraculous Move of God in Thailand

Miraculous Stories from a burgeoning Disciple Multiplication Movement in Thailand. Over 5,000 baptized Thai worshiping 700 house churches across 24 provinces in Thailand.

http://spreadtheflame.com/2013/02/possessed-by-the-holy-spirit-in-thailand/