Don’t pass the torch — start with it in their hands.
Floyd McClung

You’ve got to listen to Floyd on church planting movements to catch his heart for Africa and the world. Visit his blog to download the audio or video of his series on CPMs.

Recently I heard of a nation in Central Asia in which vast amounts of money are flowing in from the Middle East to spread Islam.

In one remote village a pastor returned home after completing his studies to threats of death and intimidation. He was warned off any intention of planting a church in the village.

So he left.

Persecution is unfortunately a common experience for believers in this part of the world.

But there is something else wrong here.

Where did we get the idea that the best way to train a church planter was to take them out of their situation and put them in a classroom for a few years? Meanwhile Islam spreads from village to village.

Eventually the church planter returns having lost touch with his people. His training in the city has lifted him out of his village educationally, culturally, and financially. He stands alone in the place he once called home. Who can blame him for leaving?

I don’t. I blame the people who advised him to leave in the first place. I blame the westerners who provide the funding to keep a system like this going.

I asked a missions leader, Why aren’t church planters trained in the villages alongside their people? He told me there were too many logistical problems. The villages were remote and they didn’t even have electricity. How could you train leaders in such an environment?

Obviously the muslims can do it. I’m assuming Jesus was able to train leaders without electricity.

If we have to build colleges to train the pastors we pay to plant churches, we’ll never see a multiplication movement that reaches the 80 million people of Central Asia.

Something needs to be different. Something is different wherever we see church planting movements.

Jay: Let’s go on to your fourth characteristic — rapid mobilization.

Steve: This is a simple concept — everybody has a job to do. Movements don’t abolish the clergy, they abolish the laity. They ordain everyone for ministry.

You see it in Jesus’ ministry. Even before the woman at the well has come to a full understanding of who he is, she’s off telling her town and village about this man who has told her all about her life and bringing them to see Jesus. Right from the first steps of Christian discipleship people are mobilized for ministry and there are no artificial or non-Biblical barriers to entry.

The US frontier was won by the Baptists and the Methodists because they mobilized young men on horseback (this was especially the Methodists) as circuit riders; as preachers. Francis Asbury in the US, and before him John Wesley in the Britain were criticized for releasing ordinary people to spread the gospel and to lead groups of believers. Wesley would not apologize for it. He felt that these common ordinary people were ministers of the gospel.

So movements just don’t create those artificial barriers that keep people out of ministry; that professionalizes ministry. The problem isn’t the clergy, the problem is clericalism; which is the concept that somehow there’s a class of people who do ministry and everybody else is on the sidelines. It’s all hands on deck if you’re in a movement.

Jay: What’s the balance between rapid mobilization and empowering young believers and the whole process of discipleship and leadership development? How rapid should mobilization be?

Steve: The reason for the rapid mobilization is that movements create learning opportunities in what we call leadership farms.

An example I could think of this is how young players are developed in Australian Rules Football. From a young age they are learning pieces of the game and putting those pieces together and step-by-step they’re growing in how to play football.

It’s the same for movements, they put everybody to work, but then the best movements, and Wesley was great at doing this, create supportive environments where as people are doing, they are learning. And so Wesley’s circuit riders, may have started out uneducated but they didn’t stay that way. They were continually reading, they were educating others, they were even selling educational literature to the common people and raising the level of everybody’s education and learning.

The key balance is, you throw people in the deep end and then you build supportive environments and relationships around them so they continue to learn as they go.

Roland Allen wrote about rapid mobilization almost a century ago. George Patterson was a great practitioner of this in Honduras. It is essential that people learn by doing and have mentors, that their learning is field and life driven. Its not just the fact I have to pass an assignment, that I need to study this book of scripture, its because I need to teach it next week to a new band of disciples and so help me understand this piece of scripture so I can go and teach it and then let’s debrief how it went. So that’s the model, it’s not an either/or it’s a both/and.

Hi Steve,

I’m reading your book at the moment and I get the impression that you are against theological education. What do you think?

I will say that when I studied Church History at Bible College I found it boring. Thanks for making Church History interesting.

Liz

Here’s my response.

Hi Liz

Thanks. I’ve always believed that Church History is not just the history of theology but the story of the people who made history.

I’ve spent 17yrs in higher education (part time). Economics/Politics, Theology, Doctor of Min. I LOVE study. I enjoyed Greek!

I just don’t think we should exclude 99% of the world’s population from leadership in the church because they will never complete formal theological education.

What they need is life-long, on-the-job training, which engages head, heart and hands—knowledge, character and skills.

I also think theological education is a socialization process that creates a professional clergy and undermines the rapid expansion of the church. Movements “democratize” the faith.

With few exceptions theological education is a secularizing force, even for the biblically orthodox.

I like what Roland Allan said, “Most heresies result from the speculations of learned men.”

Having said that, we must have teachers in the body of Christ and in every missionary movement that are theologically trained. We need Pauls and Lukes who were both active in evangelism and church planting and at the same time sharp theologically. But most churches in the NT were not planted by our equivalent of “ordained” clergy.

I think it’s reasonable to assume that after Peter left Cornelius (Acts 10), that it was the new believer, Cornelius, who became the “pastor” of the new church that met in his home. At that stage Peter didn’t even have a copy of the New Testament to leave behind.

I’m trying to have it both ways. But in the West, the pendulum needs to swing away from formal theological training as THE road to leadership. The mandate is clear: we are to make disciples of Jesus and teach them to obey what he commanded. Movements take both knowledge and obedience seriously.

Thanks for the question. I might turn it into a blog post. . .

Steve

Apparently only 3% of Australian children are in church each week. The figure for all ages is just under 9%. But the age of the Australian church is heavily weighted towards the elderly.

Then the penny dropped.

I’ve been collecting data on church participation in Australia. Nobody’s counting the children anymore. Or if they are, they aren’t reporting it.

Getting ready to watch the big game on Saturday when an ad came on about AusKick, the program that develops young children into Aussie Rules football players. AusKick knows how many children between the ages of six and twelve it has. The number is 161,000. Not bad for a nation of 21 million.

Think about it. Those kids aren’t watching adults play the game. The adults are there to help them play the game.

AusKick knows how many children it has. They know how many go on to play footy at the local club or for their school. They know how many amateurs are playing the game. They sure know how many elite professionals there are and how many began in AusKick.

They know the future of Aussie Rules is as healthy as the number of children that enjoy playing. So?

Do we have any idea how many children are growing up to know and serve Jesus? Do we have a development pathway for them? Or is church about entertainment and when the world offers them something better they disappear and we think it’s their fault.

The motto of AusKick? “Where champions begin.”

What would church look like if we were growing champions?

I sat down with a church planter yesterday. He’s done an outstanding job. Now he’s ready to really make a difference by growing leaders who plant churches.

So Steve, you’re the “expert” how do I put a curriculum together for training church planters?

Who says you need one?

Forget about the classroom and make the real the world the teacher.

Recruit interns and tell them each one to come up with a challenging assignment that involves starting something from scratch. And I don’t mean a new manual for training ushers.

Tell your interns to write the curriculum and and have them come prepared to teach every class. Don’t tell them which one will be teaching each class until they get there.

Bring in a church planter who knows something about dealing with conflict because they’ve come through it; or knows something about evangelism because they regularly see people come to know Christ; or knows something about building teams because they can. . .

Whatever the topic is, find a planter who is good at it because they’ve done it. . . Then get them to tell their story and teach the class on conflict or evangelism or building teams etc.

Bad idea, don’t bring the planter in to teach your interns. Send the interns out to meet with the planter in the field. Even if they have to drive a hundred miles to do it.

When they come back tell, them you’re leaving for a month on holidays and it’s their job to run the church. Leave your mobile phone hidden in your office so they’ll hear it ring when they call you for help.

Instead of asking them to write an essay on the book of Romans, tell them to take some new disciples through Romans. Then assess each intern on how well their students have learnt.

Have each intern recruit a team to take on an overseas mission trip and come up with a strategy to pay for it. Don’t give them any money.

Meet with the interns each week and study whatever book you happen to be reading. Assume they’ve all read the chapter. If they haven’t, send them home. If they have, ask: What did you learn? What did God say to you? What do you need to do?

Make sure they’re doing the same thing with a group of leaders they’re growing.

Each intern’s job is to pioneer a ministry from scratch that touches lives and makes disciples. They have a year to do it. At the end of 12 months they must have a team in place that can continue without them.

You’re growing church planters.

If you’re not sure about this approach for growing leaders. Don’t do it. Instead, read the Gospels and do what Jesus did.

My wife’s grandparents were married for more than seventy-five years when they died. Grandpa was 105 and Grandma was 97. They left behind over 150 progeny. In their lifetime, they saw themselves forwarded into five generations!

Imagine holding a fifth-generation baby in your arms, knowing you and your spouse were the first cause. How effective a mother church is in forwarding itself via ensuing church starts reflects the issue of generational distance. Thus, great churches focus not so much on the churches they have spawned, as on the number of generations they have spawned. Great church planting counts the generations, not just the number of children it has fostered.

This is the stuff of multiplication.

For multiplication to occur, the first cause of new life must free itself from direct involvement. Great-grandparents do not give birth directly, but indirectly, to their great-grandchildren. Direct involvement is the vocabulary of addition; one church starting another church via direct influence.

Multiplication’s quality, however, lies in its indirection: one church setting its offspring free to procreate churches. Generational distance is an emphasis that has rarely occurred in our European setting; however, it is a key ingredient needed for multiplication to take place.

Everybody has their favourite size of church—small, medium or large. But that’s not the point. It’s healthy multiplication that counts. There is no other way to reach every corner of the planet with the gospel.

Take bold steps.

Set impossible goals. Oscar and his leaders worked out what they could reasonably achieve then added room for God to do the impossible. If they thought they could plant sixty churches in Kenya, they added the challenge of planting elsewhere in Africa. Then they threw in the challenge of planting churches off the continent of Africa. Their faith inspired plans that stretched their faith, and built their faith when those plans were achieved.

Ask. Oscar doesn’t wait until someone volunteers. He goes after people. The right people. David Githugu was thinking about a career as a corporate lawyer when he was tapped on the shoulder. Now he’s planted a church that is growing leaders and planting churches.

Begin with the end in mind. Oscar started his ministry at Nairobi Chapel with the intention of planting churches. He started with the need not what was possible. Once the goal was clear he discovered ways to achieve it.

Spin that flywheel. Oscar could have just a grown a big church bigger. He could have spun off new congregations dependent on his ministry. But that’s addition, not multiplication. Instead he chose to grow leaders who could plant churches that grow leaders and plant churches. As the founder, Oscar is not in direct control. He’s given room for the leaders he’s developed to step up. I wonder which model is closer to the ministry of Jesus?

Use them or lose them. Oscar saw the frustration building as the number of leaders increased at Nairobi. Frustration could easily turn to criticism. Left unchecked, he knew he would eventually lose key leaders who were under-challenged. Church planting provided a healthy outlet for leaders with energy and drive to pioneer something new.

One of them challenged me with, “How do we know this works in Australia?”

He’s right. There are some things that don’t translate across cultures. Or even within cultures. That’s why I always look for principles not programs to replicate.

Here’s a few principles on growing leaders that are just as true for Australians (equals westerners) as they are for Africans. . .

1. Start with a leader who gets it. You can’t start with a good program. You start with a leader who sees the need. A leader who sees the opportunities. One who sees the leaders of the future all around them. The future he sees is just as real as the present and so he has no hesitation in the growing the leaders of tomorrow today.

2. Limit your ministry. Who ever heard of a great preacher who limits himself to preaching just half the time? Not only does he let his novices preach, now he has to devote his time to training them. Because you want to grow more preachers. Why limit the number of terms that elders can serve, then send them away on church planting teams? Because you want to grow more elders.

3. Go after youth. Oscar led a friendly takeover of the predominantly expatriate Nairobi Chapel. He intentionally went after young, university educated Africans. He reached them. He gave them leadership tasks and then recruited them to serve with him as church planters.

4. Back winners. Oscar invested both time and money in leaders who proved themselves. He gladly paid their way through Theological College if they first proved themselves and if they committed to serving for at least five years beyond their studies.

5. Train swimmers in the pool. In Oscar’s leadership farm, you begin as a disciple, you become an apprentice, you are given limited responsibility, then you are trusted to lead a ministry team or plant a church. Oscar trains his swimmers in the pool, not the classroom. He takes many small risks with many people and creates environments where they can grow in knowledge, skills and character.

More to come. . .

You don’t have to be clever to copy. And the best place to copy is Scripture. They call that obedience and it works.

In the internship we just copy. We asked “What does Jesus do with his twelve?” We came up with five things.

One is he spends time in teaching them, in theological reflection. After the parable of the seed he takes the disciples aside and tells them to you is granted the privilege of knowing the meaning of this but the others never get to be told what the meaning of the parable is. And so there are times when you can see Jesus (such as Mt 24 about the kingdom) reflecting theologically with his disciples.

Two, is you put them into teams. Jesus doesn’t actually do one on one discipleship. He does team discipleship. And these guys are good for one another, they have their arguments, they disagree, they are jostling for position, etc and it’s actually healthy for them, because it helps them, he deals with these things. It brings to the surface real relationship.

Third he sends them out into ministry. Where he is not present with them and they go out in twos and they do what he did. That’s why we send them out on our short term mission where they go and do what they have learned and they come back and report and we sit down and process together.

Fourth, is he demonstrates and calls them to a devotional life. Teaches them how to pray, he himself goes and spends time apart. So they’re learning how to do devotionals and how to live devotionally.

Fifth, he builds a succession plan into the system. He tells them “I’m going to be leaving you.” And so we tell the interns that their last three months are about succession. When you exit this position as an intern, will your ministry collapse because there’s no leadership? Or will your ministry continue because you’ve prepared well.

We are copying what we are seeing in Scripture. Sometimes you copy well and sometimes you don’t copy as well. But love covers over a multitude of sins.

I have a saying, “You don’t plant churches you plant sons.”

*It seems some of Oscar’s best “sons” are daughters!