Lost in Faith

For 50 plus years CityTeam has practiced “missional” Christianity.  From their early beginnings in San Jose to the urban environs of San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Seattle, and Philadelphia, CityTeam has incarnated the love of Christ among women and children living in poverty, addicts struggling with drug abuse, inner city youth and even to disaster relief.

In 2003 the leadership of CityTeam came to a bold realization.  Not unlike the the claim in Mike Breen’s provocative post Why the Missional Movement Will Fail, the CityTeam leadership team realized that if they didn’t leave the “bride of Christ” where they practice incarnating the love of Jesus, they were not doing the work of Christ.

It was not long after that, City Team had a divine collision with David Watson an innovator in the practice of CPM (church planting movements) in India.  The potent mixture of City Team’s missional activities stirred together with Watson’s counter intuitive take on Jesus’ discipleship practices started a quiet revolution.

Internally they “confronted the brutal facts” which meant admiting that they were doing lots of good but they were not making disciple makers as Jesus commanded.  This internal confrontation lead to a complete overhaul of everything they do.

First with alliances in east and west Africa then Indonesia, India and South America.  And ultimately the adoption of CPM principles in their North American work in San Jose and Oakland.  Verifiable Church planting revolutions have taken place outside the North American context and now City Team leads the charge in asking, “Can CPMs (disciple making movements) happen in North America?”

In North America they re-engineered their recovery, youth, homeless, single mom and every other initiative they were involved in to focus on finding persons of peace, building small communities of obedience around the Bible and practiced leading from behind rather than in front.  They made the last command of Jesus their first obligation so that all of their missional efforts to bring justice, economic equity, relieve pain and suffering were now infused with disciple making.

And now disciple making movements (CPM/church planting movements in North America) are beginning to emerge in San Jose, Oakland,  and Philadelphia.  Through these efforts and in close partnership with their International cohorts, they have learned which principles are supra-cultural and which must be contextualize, what persons of peace look and feel like in western culture and how the discovery process can be established in a social network.

Dave Hunt who led the charge in the Horn of Africa (click revolutions above to read his research on the results in the Horn) and now is City Team’s leader for North America will be in Kansas City January 23-25, 2012 to share what City Team is learning about disciple making movements and how we might stimulate movements in the North American context.

Join the conversation with Dave Hunt and 3 of his colleagues, Hermie Smith and Ricardo Pinera from San Jose and Delroy Oakley from Philadelphia.  These men have some of the most current experience in the application of CPM principles in North America.  In 3 days of hands on, upclose, conversation, they will share what they know and what they don’t know about disciple making movement in our culture.

You are needed in this conversation!

Registration is open here.

At Shoal Creek (shoalcreek.org) we’ve taken a page from the CPM (church planting movements) folks around the world.  We developed a training session, Following Jesus where you Live, Work and Play.  We teach people how to start Discovery Groups.  A discovery based spiritual environment with a fixed methodology that focuses on obedience.

The ask for the group is simple, would you like to be a part of discussion to see what God says in the Bible about life?  We have them operational in neighborhoods and workplaces.

The intent is never to invite to a geographical place (church building or service) but to make disciples where people live work and play.  It is not about growing a church but obeying the final command of Jesus.

Because we are tapping into the movement thinking that has developed around the world, the principles are very different.  For groups to multiply leaders need to get out of facilitating the groups and get into behind the scenes coaching as quickly as possible.  Groups stay small and don’t add members once started, but do start new groups quickly as interest in joining arises.

We’ve fit a traditional attractional model together with a movement model using a Hybrid Car as a metaphor.  On one side we say Come (Matt 11:28) on another side we say Go (Matt 28:19-20).  Principles on each side differ because one is a gas engine the other is electric.  You need to know which side you are on to know which tools to use. (http://vimeo.com/14629623 starting at about 22 mins for deeper explanation)

I think the CPM principles as being practiced around the world have a play in North America to achieve exactly what you are advocating in this post.  We’ve always thought groups and targeted our thinking within the confines of a church rather than think groups and realize that there is a God at work in our world and people starving for genuine, non pressured discussion about real life and death issues.

Continuing to design Groups to facilitate growth of consumerist Christians without infusing a radical element of pre-conversion discipleship is akin to rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

I use the term pre-conversion discipleship to illustrate that our division of evangelism and discipleship has created a fixed mindset that puts us at odds with Jesus.  Jesus called unconverted men and women to a discipleship group.  He created an environment of obedience which led to conversion.  So the patterns of discipleship were set on the way to the Cross not a conversion to the Cross then another conversion to a Discipled life.

MakeDisciples.Us, CityTeam.org,TheSendingProject.org and ShoalCreek.org are sponsoring an event to further this discussion.  More info at MakeDisciples.US.

What begin as a simple message of obedience may have been complicated by well intentioned but misguided devotees.

Without institutions to educate, denominations to ordain and publish, the followers of Jesus managed to rapidly multiply from a handful to millions 300 years later.

It reminds me of golf.  I do a fair amount of golfing and have reputation of being a teacher having spent more time than I care to admit studying the dynamics of a golf swing.   It is in questions whether this my reputation as a teacher is to be helpful or just to confuse my opponents in the middle of a round!

The best teachers of golf actually have a few simple thoughts about the process.  This might explain why Jack Nicklaus was a great player and not a great teacher.  Jack’s Golf My Way has at least 18 “Key” points to the swing.  All of which I can keep firmly in mind while I contort my body so that I can hit a little white ball.

This video is metaphor of what the Church has done to the simple message of Jesus.

It is easy to take something simple and add, add, add until the simple become so complex that it looses its effectiveness and its ability to reproduce rapidly and effectively.

CPM/DMMis an attempt to rediscover the simplicity of Jesus’ message and allow it to move effectively thru existing networks.

• The Bible as the source of truth and life
• The Spirit as a teacher
• Attack relational networks
• Lead from behind
• Develop obedience based enclaves

Augustine of Hippo crosses many theological boundaries.  Calvinist consider him the father of the Reformation and Catholics and Anglican revere him as Doctor of the Church.  But his true gift to Christianity was inscribed by Jerome when he attributed to Augustine renewing the “ancient faith.”

This ancient faith that Jerome referred to was a belief that God’s grace was indispensable to humans in their desire to repair their relationship with their Creator.  Never has there been an age that doesn’t need to be reminded of this enduring truth.

In this post-modern age of shrinking absolutes and enlarging voices there is a void of strategies that create space for individuals to comfortably consider their Creator and his grace in their lives.

CPM/DMM does just that.  Instead of attempting to transfer the adherence to the truth of Jesus’ words by proclamation, CPM/DMM creates engagement with spiritually (Person of Peace) interested people in their contexts guided by discussion and exploration.

The engagement (Discovery Group/Discovery Bible Study) brings the Bible to the center of the discussion starting at Creation.  Through a series engagements that involve reading the Bible, discussing its meaning and designing an executable plan to obey what God has said, people have a chance to move from a relationship with their Creator to a relationship with their King Jesus.

The movement instead of being confessional and traumatic is incremental and behavioral.  In an atmosphere that encourages small steps of obedience, God reveals himself and disciples are formed.  The slowness of this process stimulates a deep and abiding commitment to living out the words and work of Jesus in everyday life.

Augustine would have looked at the lives of the disciples being made and the spontaneous generation of biblically functioning communities that happen when a CPM erupts and confirmed that it was the “ancient faith” renewed!

Join us in Kansas City, Jan. 23-25, 2012 to learn, explore and hone skills for making disciples.

(CPM refers to David Garrison’s use of the term in  his book Church Planting Movements and provides this definition “a rapid multiplication of indigenous churches planting churches that sweeps through a people group or population segment.” David Watson, a practitioner of CPM adds to definiton by suggesting four generations deep and 100 churches/Biblically functioning communities as a measure.  DMM refers to Disciple Making Movements which is my preferred westernization of CPM.  For more see http://cityteam.org/disciple-making.)

In 1947 if you were given a decision that would shape the world, would you choose

• RDS-1  a bomb equal to 20 kilotons of TNT designed by Igor V. Kurchatov, lead physicist, of the Soviet nuclear weapons program

OR

• a new light weight automatic weapon (AK-47 Automat Kalashnikov) designed by Mikhail Tomofeyevich Kalashnikov a Senior Sgt  in Soviet Army with battle experience but little education.

Although the nuclear threat forced us into the Cold War and shaped the dance of major powers for 50 years, history chooses the AK-47.  The nuclear threat has moved from silos to power plants but the AK-47 still has a daily presence in every armed uprising on the earth.

50 national armies carry the automatic Kalashnikov and  it can be found in the hands of every guerrilla, terrorist, child soldier, dictator and thug all of whom C.J. Chivers in his book The Gun asserts “found it to be a ready equalizer against morally or materially superior foes.”

When the historically superior US Marines encountered urban warfare in Vietnam, they discovered that the AK-47 in the hands of a single soldier could slow the movement of a company.  This battlefield epiphany continues to plague the US weapons industry and the operational strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why does the AK-47 have such a pervasive influence in our world?  I believe that the answer to this question sheds light on how followers of Christ might have a similar influence.

• The AK-47 was designed by those with little formal education but great real world experience.
• It was a simple design with the minimal parts so that even children could take it a part and put it back together in quickly.
• It was small and light weight so that it could be concealed under clothing and carried all day.
• Because of its simplicity it was able to be replicated easily by others.

Could the simplicity, portability, and replicatability of the AK-47 be a model for church?  Or better yet could we find in the methods of Jesus a genius of making disciples that is simple, portable and therefore reproducible?

I believe the strategy referred to as CPM (church planting movements) as defined by David Garrison and David Watson is the spiritual AK-47 of our generation.  It’s reliance on the Bible alone with external books or pamphlets, simple and repeatable group strategy along with a culture of obedience and reproduction are a mixture for spiritual revolution.

From Bhjupouri, India thru Indonesia  to the Horn of Africa and west across the continent, CPM continues to used by God to spread the gospel and build Biblically functioning communities rapidly.  And the beauty is the reproductive nature of these communities and they move people in a learner oriented atmosphere thru the story of God’s work in our world.

My hope is that more churches, organizations and individuals will apply these strategies to develop models in North America.  If you are interested join us January 23-25, 2012 in Kansas City for discussion with some practitioners or follow us  at http://www.facebook.com/disciplemakingmovements.

(CPM refers to David Garrison’s use of the term in  his book Church Planting Movements and provides this definition “a rapid multiplication of indigenous churches planting churches that sweeps through a people group or population segment.” David Watson, a practitioner of CPM adds to definiton by suggesting four generations deep and 100 churches/Biblically functioning communities as a measure.  DMM refers to Disciple Making Movements which is my preferred westernization of CPM.  For more see http://cityteam.org/disciple-making.)