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How God is Moving Among Muslims in Southeast Asia

How God is Moving Among Muslims in Southeast Asia

By Yehezkiel –

We consider the outside church planter (even if a national) to be generation 0. The local person (generation 1 – G1) who hears the gospel and responds by believing is baptized, discipled and immediately trained to reach his/her family, friends and acquaintances.  When the G1 believer shares the gospel with his/her contacts and they believe, new believers are immediately baptized, discipled and trained by the local believer. This group becomes a G1 house church with the local believer as its leader. 

 

The believers gather routinely each week in the G1 house church to worship Jesus, celebrate the Lord’s Supper and study God’s Word together using a guide that we provide. Very quickly they take up responsibility for reaching their network of relationships. The G1 believers are discipled and trained to disciple and train others and establish house fellowships with the new people they reach. 

 

The house church functions as a sending hub in which all participants are equipped to become church planters. Every week after the worship service each member of the fellowship goes out to reach, disciple and train others. Those who come to faith are immediately baptized, discipled and trained to reach their network of contacts and gather them into a house church.

 

This process continues with oversight, evaluation and constant training. In this way, we have been able to establish thousands of house fellowships. In the last several years, tens of thousands have come to faith and been baptized, up to 20 generations. Our ministry network has also reached out to other areas to assist workers in other islands and ethnic groups in Southeast Asia. 

 

This process of multiplication is what we mean by a Church Planting Movement. This approach requires long-term commitment, with ongoing evaluation and monitoring that do not endanger the church planting process itself. 

 

Autonomy of the house churches is a high priority. Leaders are quickly equipped so they can take ownership of the ministry. We as Gen 0 leaders quickly give local leaders authority to perform all the functions of a church. They baptize, receive people into the fellowship, teach the Word of God, celebrate the Lord’s Supper and so on. We call this equipping process “Model, Assist, Watch and Empower.” This process begins as soon as people come to faith. Autonomy is planned for and applied from the beginning. 

 

The believers in this movement not only understand the end goal but also effectively live out the lifestyle that accomplishes that goal. Our job is to ensure that this understanding and practice continues to be transferred to each new believer and house church, generation after generation.

Yehezkiel serves as Mission Director for a Baptist Church in SE Asia. Our ministry network focuses on starting movements in Muslim heartlands of Southeast Asia. The essential cornerstone of our network’s church planting is the gospel itself. The gospel functions as our first filter when we interact with people. The first time we meet anyone we share the gospel at the beginning of our conversation: any place, any time, and anyone. Through presenting of the gospel, we begin the process of planting a congregation through this new local believer.

This is from an article that appeared in the January-February 2018 issue of Mission Frontiers, www.missionfrontiers.org, pages 19-20, and published on pages 130-132 of the book 24:14 – A Testimony to All Peoples, available from 24:14 or Amazon.

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