It’s Huge: Five Lessons the American Church Is Learning from CPMs
– Originally posted in “Mission Frontiers July/Aug 2012”
by Carol Davis
News of Church-Planting Movements (CPMs) hap-
pening around the world has been a wake up call
for many American church leaders to reexamine,
reframe and retool. Others have simply dismissed rapid mul-
tiplication of churches as impossible to happen in the U.S.
Tim Martin, Mission Pastor at WoodsEdge Community
Church in Houston expresses what many church leaders
describe when they hear of and are amazed by all that
God is doing through these movements around the world.
“I think it’s starting to bounce back to America, causing
us to radically rethink our whole paradigm of church and
mission. I now believe there can be much more, and there
must be more.”.
The speed of movements, the depth of discipleship and com-
mitments of the emerging leaders, frequently cause pastors
in the West to pause. This is because CPMs tend to create
a questioning dissonance with our contemporary models,
experience and traditions about what it means to be “church.”.
“It has forced me back to the Scripture for my understand-
ing of ‘church,” said John Lo, pastor at Epicentre Church
in Pasadena, CA.. “The re-framed concepts learned from
CPMs have been ‘buge’ for me,” he emphasized.
Those who have chosen this journey express that, for the
church in America, it has been an explosion of HOPE for
a different future. Five lessons were most often mentioned
as the important shifts taking place for them.
Five lessons were most often mentioned
as the important shifts taking place for them.
COME & GO
The shift from inviting
unbelievers to come to our programs and
building to sending believers into their world.
Jesus said that the fields are ready for harvest. To live
in this reality, the way of thinking has to intentionally
change from “Come” to “Go.”. God always asks Chris-
tians to go to those without him; never the lost to come to
church or into Christian space. When this shift in think-
ing happens, church members start to identify and pray
specifically for those in their world who don’t yet know
Him. This is because the idea of “going” becomes embed-
ded into church life. Similarly, church leaders are much
more intentional about training believers to tell their own
story and God’s story in simple, short and compelling
ways. Frequently, they will use the Creation to Christ story, a 10-15 minute overview of the Bible starting in creation and culminating in Christ. In many cases programming schedules have been radically altered to release their people to “go” more often, and with greater intentionality.
John Lo thinks of “Come” structures as the Old Testa-
ment temple where people gathered and the professionals
served. “But Jesus said, my body is the temple; and then the temple started walking around. Jesus gave his body instructions to ‘Go’ in Matt. 9. 37-38; Matt. 28.19-20 and Acts 1.8.”. Linda Bergquist, church planter catalyst and mentor in the San Francisco area observed, “Jesus did not assign the 70 as a core group for a new come structure, but instead sent them decentralized by twos.”[cite: 22, 23].
GROUP CONVERSIONS:
The shift to
multiplying groups of disciples not just
individual disciples.
Kevin Johnson, mission pastor at Antioch Community
Church in Waco, Texas says, “We had to get back to oikos:
households; life on life.”. In CPMs around the world, the
Kingdom is established in a relationally-connected group
and then spreads group to group. The Scripture refers to
each of these groups as a household. The Greek word for
household is oikos, and includes a circle of influence, not
just immediate family.
The promise of Acts 11:14 and 16:31 is that networked
groups will come to faith. The key is to not extract an
individual from his or her oikos when there is spiritual
hunger, but to disciple the group together into faith. This
is in contrast to what has been the general U.S. pattern.
Typically, we see individuals come to faith and then we
disciple them individually, and sometimes not very well if
at all[cite: 25]. In many CPMs the early phases of discipleship often
happen before faith, as the unbelieving group meets and
explores what it actually means to follow Christ. Or, the
early discipleship happens post-conversion but as a group
of connected individuals walking down the same path
together. These individuals do not have to be family. In
many CPMs these groups are the relationships that fit the
context-workmates, classmates, members of the same extra-curricular avocation.
The promise of Acts 11:14 and 16:31 is that networked groups will come to faith.
COUNTING GENERATIONS
The shift to
count and do whatever it takes to regularly
and quickly get to the 4th generation and
beyond of disciples, groups and churches
(II Tim. 2.2).
The process of getting quickly to the next generation of
disciples, leaders and groups is well established where
Church-Planting Movements are taking place. One
helpful tool has been the three-thirds format for group
meetings, where caring, infusion of vision, mutual loving
accountability, learning the Word, goal setting, practice
and prayer are integrated into a seamless and regular pro-
cess. Each week members of the group live in life-on-life
accountability to love the Lord unconditionally and pur-
sue His Commission in reaching and loving others. This
process is described in T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution.
A key focus for the group is to win and train the next
generation of disciples who will repeat the process.
Amazingly, this process is not just fruitful overseas.
Where the principles and process of generational growth
are applied in small group meetings and leadership
development, it has similar outcomes in the U.S.³. The
values-imprint on the new believer is another make-or-
break element in getting to the next generation. Rather
than take a new believer to a “come” meeting where they
sit and listen, their new life in Christ must start in a very
different way. The individual should be is encouraged
to start a group in his/her oikos. They should be where
they are taught to study and obey God’s Word and they
should be equipped to immediately pray for and witness
to those they know. When this approach is successful,
group members are given the vision, tools and the time
to practice, along with loving encouragement, to win the
next generation.
This leads to a second critical factor which is the continual
vision for reproduction of the next generation. Each mem-
ber and each group strives to be a parent, grandparent and
great grandparent. One effective CPM catalyst in the
U.S. describes it this way: “I evaluate my disciple-making
not by my disciples, but by my disciples’ disciples.”. All
along the way the groups celebrate each new generation.
What we envision, measure and celebrate determines
the outcome.
REPRODUCIBILITY
The shift from lengthy
training, policy-driven structures and more
academic materials, to simplicity and the
reproducibility of means, methods, tools and
structures.
Equipping and training is best accomplished by model-
ing with simple tools. Easy-to-learn and obey lessons in
the hands of new believers, allows them to do what they
have just seen done by a mentor. When they are equipped
simply, they disciple those they lead to faith in the same
manner, often with only a few moments of encourage-
ment and clarification.
Kevin Johnson says, “We’ve had to learn to just keep it
simple, simple, simple in the Antioch community. Our lessons are now simple; our evangelism tools are simple. We’ve had to create an environment where there can be many different expressions of small group and where people are released quickly to be more evangelistic and apostolic.”.
Simple does not mean simplistic – reduc-
ing truth beyond its core essence. Rather it
means taking deep truths and applications
and learning and expressing them in a way
that an average new believer can obey and
pass on to others. A trait of every CPM in
the world is the use of one simple method
for evangelism, discipleship and church
planting. While many methods could
suffice, using a multiplicity of methods con-
fuses new believers. Instead, using just one
appropriate and reproducible method
enables an explosion of growth as new believers, led by
the Spirit, are able to serve as ministers to others.
“It (CPMs) has forced me back to the Scripture for my understanding of ‘church.”
John Lo, pastor at Epicentre Church in Pasadena, CA.
CPMs are teaching us that discipleship can
and should result in a rapid maturing process,
but this can only come through keeping
discipleship obedience-based. Believers must
be mutually expected to obey, encouraged
to obey and held accountable to obey in the
spirit of Hebrews 10:24-25.
CPMs are teaching us that discipleship can
and should result in a rapid maturing process
OBEDIENCE-BASED LEARNING
The shift
from teaching for knowledge of what the
Word says- to teaching and accountability
for obedience to what the Word says.
This has been one of the lessons learned from CPMs that
states the obvious. “Of course we are to teach for obedi-
ence,” and many wonder how we missed this for so long?.
It’s in the Great Commission: Not “teaching them all
that I have commanded,” but “teaching them to obey all
that I have commanded.” (Matt. 28:20). It’s only in the
putting off the old and putting on Christ, as believers
apply His Word, that we find quickly transformed and
strengthened lives.
George Patterson reminds us that when we keep teach-
ing after believers quit obeying, we are actually teaching
them that it’s okay to study and not obey; or to pick and choose what we want to obey. In this process of disciple-
ship, we are heaping on judgment, as we will all give an
account one day for what we know and have not obeyed.
Transformed lives are the fuel to ignite movements. Trans-
formed lives legitimize that Jesus can change things, and
nobody needs a God who cannot act in power on their be-
half. Transformed lives become change agents themselves.
As the shifts in understanding and values take
place, changes have begun. Christians are now
getting out of the building as well as out of
their comfort zones. There is deep rejoicing
that we are seeing more and speedier conver-
sions, new groups and intentional church
planting than previously experienced. As church leaders embrace these ideas, they
tend to start conversations about how to learn from one another and work out the cultural nu-
ances involved. Several common themes tend to consis-
tently emerge in such discussion. The first is that even
when new groups begin with positive momentum, they often find that cultural gravity pulls them back into the old way of thinking[cite: 54, 66]. People revert to inviting the lost or new believers to “come” to existing Christian meetings. Jeff Sun-dell, a CPM catalyst in North Carolina says, “This is a killer for generational growth.”. In our U.S. culture, it takes a while to re-condition even new believers to move away from the “come” mentality to the “go” mentality.
Another issue is that sometimes we don’t stay with the
emerging leadership long enough to regularly see them
through to the point of generational multiplication. In
our U.S. mentality to finish the next program, we “finish”
our set of discipleship lessons with this first generation
group but then abandon them once it is over. We must
learn from CPMs overseas to stay with groups for a year
or two to help them birth new groups that birth new
groups. We must keep our eyes on the end-vision not
simply the short-term discipleship.
The lessons from CPMs for the U.S. church are huge.
The reexamination has taken us back to the Scripture for
both principles and practice. However, the reframing and
retooling continues to be a little bit messy. Let us persist
with the reframing and the retooling until this way of life
becomes the new normal.f
1. See http://t4tonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/2-Creation-to-Christ-Story.pdf for an example. An animated C2C story will soon be available in short video-segmented downloads for multiple platforms in multiple languages.
2. T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution by Steve Smith with Ying Kai, WIGTake Resources, 2011. Available from www.ChurchPlantingMovements.com or on Kindle download from Amazon.
3. For example, see the article in this issue on three examples from North Carolina, p. 21.
4. For more, see Jeff’s article in this issue of Mission Frontiers.