REPRODUCIBLE
A multiplying church can reproduce itself within the constraints of the means at its disposal. Many contemporary Western churches assume that a church can continue and grow as long as it has a building and a leader with the equivalent of a doctor’s degree (Three years of seminary on top of a four-year college education). The Bible, on the other hand, emphasizes the filling of the Spirit, the Word of God and submission to Jesus’ command to love one another and go out to make disciples. In an article in Christianity Today (April, 2019), Kate Shellnutt reports on how Thai church revival was tabulated by Dwight Martin in a comprehensive national church database. “In village after village, Thai people who had never before heard the name Jesus responded by the dozens to follow him. In a single day last December, 309 people began following Christ as FJCCA [Free in Jesus Christ Church Association] teams visited four villages for the first time. . . . Martin finally asked the pastors outright, ‘Who taught you how to do this?’ They didn’t understand the question. After a pause the wife of one of the pastors said, ‘We just read what Jesus and Paul did in the Gospels and Acts and do the same thing’” (p. 30-31) Shellnutt added, “FJCCA now plants more churches in two weeks than more than 300 evangelical missionaries with the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand do in an entire year” (p. 31).
We don’t experience church planting here in America today because we live in a different culture, a culture that has been infused by a Christian tradition for centuries. However, our secular, scientifically saturated thinking hinders us from experiencing the supernatural infused with magic, spirit powers, both good and evil, and miracles. Further, families in tribal areas probably are intact and interrelated, so that whole villages can come to a decision in one corporate decision whereas we live in a hyper-individualistic society where a person is allowed to do his own thing. However, it would be well for us to accept that the power of God is capable of penetrating every culture in every age. After all, Jesus said that he received all authority in heaven and earth, and that he would be with his followers even to the end of the age as they went out to make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20).
When Wayne Ondersma, the pastor of the PIER church, was promoting back yard Bible clubs, small miniature vacation Bible schools, he said, “Back Yard Bible Clubs are small, simple, sound and reproducible.” The size will be limited by the size of the porch or back yard. The home owner and volunteers will invite a large number of children realizing that obstacles will hinder a great number of those invited from actually coming. Those who teach and conduct these clubs are often hindered by complicated teaching materials. Actually, the instruction for the teacher can be very simple, “Read the story from the Bible several times, then read the same story from a Child’s story Bible several times, in order to learn it by heart. Then tell the story in your own words and apply it to the life of the children.” In Brazil in the early 1980s, teachers with a fourth-grade education, but able to read and write well, had no difficulty accepting this assignment. Most of them were mothers but they executed it very well. So did teenagers. It doesn’t take a lot to conduct a Bible school that is simple and scripturally sound.
This is not small thinking. This is thinking that has been stretched—it thinks multiplication. It envisions volunteers of the struggling class leading and teaching, yet it doesn’t throw a burden on a new convert that is too heavy to carry. Let them watch and help and then let them assume leadership according to the level of their spiritual maturity.
All this is much easier and highly possible when parents conduct home worship. Family devotions with the reading of the Bible or a Bible story book for children, prayer and discussion at mealtime around the kitchen table are the nursery of worship that can be conducted in a believer’s back yard for neighborhood children. To hold family devotions is a tall order for a family that is not accustomed even to eat together. To prepare a meal and call the family to the table requires discipline. Someone will want to finish the internet game, or talk with a friend, each one with his own agenda. “Kids, come to the table now!”, Mom says, and now she has to enforce it. If Dad is not cooperating, she has to talk with him privately and they have to come to some agreement on how to make this happen. Once the family is finished eating, each person will want to get up and go. Once again, Mom or Dad has to call everyone back. You see, the parents are learning how to exercise steady, loving and even forceful authority. What is true for family devotions is also true for getting the family together and heading for worship in church. Really, it’s no different than going to a movie or going shopping, when the family comes in tow. Teaching and worshipping together and exercising loving authority are exactly what is required for a back yard Bible class. This may be a tall order, but it is possible when more mature believers disciple and mentor new ones.
The question is, “Does the Bible envision such a thing?” Yes, it does. For example, In John 4:4-42, Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well just outside of the town of Sychar (4:5). When she wanted the living water that Jesus spoke about, Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” (John 4:10-16). When she said that she had no husband, to her embarrassment, Jesus pointed out that she was living with a man after having been married and divorced five times. She perceived Jesus’ supernatural knowledge and concluded that Jesus was a prophet (4:19) and asked Jesus about the proper place of worship (4:20). In response to her question, Jesus informed her that the time was coming and had come when “the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth . . . “ (4:23). She then acknowledged that she knew that the Messiah is coming (4:25) and Jesus told her that he indeed was the Messiah (4:26). When the arrival of the disciples interrupted the conversation, she left her water jar and ran to the village and told the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (4:28-29).
Can we envision a woman, the daughter of drug addict, who was obligated to protect her younger siblings as they bounced from one foster home to another, and who, in her adult life, has given birth to five children with five different men, all abusers, and is now living with a sixth, go tell others about the love of Jesus? What would make her eligible to tell others about the Savior? Would she have to push out the man in her life? Or, would she have to get married to him in order to tell others? After receiving Jesus as Lord, when and how can she start serving in the church, the Body of Christ?
It’s out of a convert’s deepest tragedy that his or her testimony comes. The Samaritan woman said, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did” (John 4:29). Because of the woman’s testimony, many Samaritans believed in Jesus (4:39).
Andrew and Philip are other examples of who shared the gospel with others as soon as they began to follow Jesus. Andrew was one of the disciples of John the Baptist (John 1:40). Andrew was with John on the east side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing (1:28). When John saw Jesus passing by, he testified, “Look the Lamb of God!” (1:36). When Andrew and the other unnamed disciple of John heard John’s testimony, they followed Jesus (1:37). After spending a day with Jesus, “[t]he first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah.’” (John 1:41).
Like Andrew, Philip is another example of a disciple who made a disciple. As soon as Philip answered Jesus’ call to follow him (1:43), he found Nathaniel and told him that they had found the one Moses wrote about in Deuteronomy 18:15.
In Acts, Luke records twice (Acts 22:3-16; 26:12-18) how Paul gave testimony to how the Lord Jesus appeared to him on the way to Damascus and commissioned him to be his “servant and witness” (Acts 26:16). Although he was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, God showed him mercy (1 Timothy 1:13). Out of this experience, he would write, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:15-16). From Paul’s example we see that the new Christian confesses his sin, and does not boast about it; but in sharing his witness, he celebrates the love, mercy and power of God. When the new believer learns how to share his testimony, he/she will tell others, “God did this great thing for me. He can do the same for you.” Strugglers who have found peace have a story to tell and in so doing they become instruments of multiplication in God’s hands.
Unfortunately, in many established churches, members believe it is the paid staff that should be the ones bringing people to Christ. They say, “We hire the pastor to preach moving sermons, the youth group leader to inspire young people to commit their lives to Christ, and the outreach director to deliver help to the needy. I’ll help if I have time, but don’t ask me to say anything. Speaking? That’s their job. Let them to do it.” However, this view of the church is wrong because it violates the biblical teaching of the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9) that emphasizes that each one should reach one (2 Cor 5:18).
Moreover, the church of the struggling class doesn’t have the luxury to hire such a staff. They are the staff. They need a leader and he may receive a full wage or he may not, but the people are the ministers, missionaries, counselors, educators, therapists and more. As each part of the body does its part, it is knit together in love and grows in every respect (Ephesians 4:15-16), both in maturity and in numbers to the praise of God.
This principle of reproduction should operate in every church because it is the teaching of the Gospels and Epistles and the Reformation’s emphasis on the priesthood of all believers. It’s God’s will for every church, but it is especially crucial in the church of the struggling class. Those who have lived in dependence, and have often done the wrong thing, need to know that by faith in Christ they are rich and heirs of eternal life. Through the power of the Spirit they can overcome sin, and through that same Spirit are given the gifts, talents and experiences to be productive in his kingdom. A false humility and piety, and small, poverty thinking should not be catered to in the church. The church of the struggling class has been given from Christ all the resources that it needs to reproduce and grow. Leaders and believers on their knees will be praying for those in desperate situations and they will be asking the Lord to help them see the resources to alleviate them. God will answer their prayers with his Spirit (Luke 11:13).