Part 3. God-Sized Vision and Expansion
– By Trevor Larsen –
Our initial goal in 1998 was 200 groups in one Unreached People Group; that was the vision: “God give us 200 groups.” When I said that, I thought: “Should I even tell anyone? They’re going to think I’m crazy!” Because there had never been any progress for decades, in fact centuries. But now, after starting from that one UPG, 75 other UPGs have many believers in this family of linked movements among Muslims, (except one Hindu UPG). As it spreads from our country to other countries, some Buddhist-background Communists are being reached. But the greater focus is on Muslims. Even in countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand with Muslim minorities, we focus on the Muslims who live in those countries.
That’s in the DNA that we cultivated from day one. It grows out of my sense of stewardship. From the beginning we decided to count only Muslims in groups, to keep our focus there. We’re in a country in which Muslims are the dominant majority, so we get invitations to other blocks where there are large numbers of Muslims: South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Turkic bloc, and the Central Asia block. And I ask: “If the Lord is giving more fruit in our country right now, even though it’s not the same variant of Islam as other places, can our story build up faith and sharpen ministry models so that other teams might bear fruit elsewhere?” So I’ve been coaching people in the Middle East, who have gotten to movements. We have also been coaching people in other areas who have gotten to movements or emerging movements among Muslims. In some places we have made commitments to a three to five-year period of regular coaching with selected people who are ready to improve their model by aligning with the fruitful practices we discovered.
We did a lot of ethnographic studies, to fit our model into one UPG’s culture. I did a study on the social-political power of Islamic leaders, and my national partners could ask a lot of questions as my research assistants. I assumed that our model, developed to fit our context, might have relevance in only that one unreached people group we were initially trying to reach. But then our movement bridged over into other unreached people groups. We discovered that our pattern of deeply researching local culture and context implanted the DNA of context-fittedness into our model. This flexibility has enabled us to adjust to different contexts as the gospel spreads. Seeing that gave me more confidence to accept an invitation to the Middle East. I could see it was working in a lot of different cultural contexts. Then some of the participants in training we did in the Middle East who were starting to multiply small groups, joined together with me for a coaching circles series by Zoom. We coached each other while they learned the coaching circle skills. After some time, the fruit of these coaching circles helped two movements develop. This increased my confidence that I should use part of my time to train and coach outside our country, helping other teams implement the fruitful practices God was teaching us.
We’ve been pleasantly surprised by the spread of the gospel into more places and people groups in our country, and also glad we can help ministries advance their fruit in other countries. I pinch myself at the end of each quarterly evaluation and say: “Am I really in this dream? Lord, what’s to keep it from expanding to the next phase?” When I look at our last five years’ history before COVID, it has multiplied by 13 times, this makes me really excited about the next five years. We keep asking, “What obstacles are preventing growth? How can these be minimized? Let’s keep growing!”
I think about the parable in Mark 4:26-29, where Jesus talks about the farmer who goes to sleep after he plants his seed. Jesus says, “He’s sleeping, and he doesn’t know how, but the seed sprouts and grows! It grows all by itself!” That is how I have felt many times. It doesn’t mean you don’t plant your seed with diligence as best you know how. But there’s also a sense that after you finish a day’s work and lay down your head on the pillow, you can just sleep, because God is working and he’s going to take the fruit of the gospel forward through other people.