Notes from NewThing Reproducing Movements Catalyst – talk from my buddy Josh Howard of Central India Christian Mission (see previous posts re the impact of this incredible movement)
Josh set off thinking when he set off ‘on mission’ from the USA that he’d be the guy who brought revival to India. God’s gift to the world. The answer to God’s prayers!
But the same guy who gets on the plane is the one who gets off the plane. And he’d never made a disciple in the USA, so instead he met people willing to lay down their lives and lose everything and realised while he ‘liked’ Jesus – their boldness showed that they loved him.
So he started to become a disciple worth reproducing like the were.
Q: If there were lots of you, or your churches, would that be a good thi
Josh Howard
Josh set off thinking when he set off from the USA that he’d be the guy who brought revival to India. God’s gift to the world. The answer to God’s prayers!
But the same guy who gets on the plane is the one who gets off the plane.
And he’d never made a disciple in the USA, so instead he met people willing to lay down their lives and lose everything and realised while he ‘liked’ Jesus – their boldness showed that they loved him.
So he started to become a disciple worth reproducing like the were.
Q: If there were lots of you, or your churches, would that be a good thing?
Would it make a great deal of difference?
That’s when God said to him, “Josh I don’t need you. I can raise a million who can do better than you. But I need you to know that I want you”
Reinhard Bonnke was at one point starting to feel good about ‘his’ ministry.
Lord why did you pick me for this task?
And the Lord said “You were not my first choice, I asked many others and they said no. But you said yes.”
We are not needed, but we are wanted.
Don’t act like he needs us, deal with that in our own hearts, to be worth reproducing.
For many years then he saw up front people who prayed and preached faithfully and brilliantly but nobody knows their names. He learned from them.
They are who we need to learn from.
Began to pray and fast and ask, “What does it take to raise up such disciples, to saturate a nation with the gospel.” Had never heard of Disciple Making Movements etc. But then heard of Ying Kai, who in S China over 10 years saw over 200,000 churches start and over a million baptisms, and he said ‘Lord do it here.’
Don’t believe the lie that says, ‘That can work there but not here…’
He is the same God, everywhere.
Same longing. His heart breaks equally if anyone is lost, whether in an unreached nation or in London. Every generation is a new great commission. How do we reach everyone we can in the next 25 years?
Read about him, and Steve Addison, to learn everything he could.
Started IGNITE 8 years ago. Gave a great presentation. Invited his church, hundreds of people to come and learn how to make disciples.
12 stepped forward.
Only 12.
The 12 who came forward were not the ones he would have picked.
11 of them, did nothing.
But one of them, uneducated village guy. The last one Josh wanted
In 2 weeks of training he started churches in 8 villages.
We must reclaim the priesthood of all believers if we are to fulfil the Great Commission.
So then they said ‘Let’s train as many as we possibly can!’
And in the last 8 years – 12,000 churches started.
5,100 were in 2021
2100 in Jan, Feb and March 2022.
Movement is a J curve, not up and to the right.
People quit and oppose it in the dip – and go back to what was not working.
People you love will reject it and you.
They’ll say, ‘We just want to come to church, give some money, enjoying that – but we don’t want to make disciples.’
What shifts need to happen for that to occur?
- ORDINARY PEOPLE.
APEST. Why did God gift these graces? To equip the saints. Stop counting disciples, start counting disciplers. Stop asking how many baptisms do we have, how many baptisers? How many churches are starting churches that start churches?
- APPROPRIATE VEHICLES.
You have to change the vehicle to get to the destination. If I want to get across the city there are plenty of options. To cross the Atlantic, only 2. One better than another. The mega church reaching everyone vehicle has not got us where we are meant to be. You need clarity about the destination. What’s the vision? The BIG vision? To reach every man, woman and child in the UK with the gospel?
- ASK THE RIGHT QUESTION.
Not ‘God what is your will for my life?’ but “God, what is your will?” Get yourself out of the way. Ask, ‘What are you dreaming of God? What are you longing to do here in the UK?’ When I know God’s will – then my response, my choice, is to give all I have for accomplishing it. What would it take? We know it will take collaboration, training, equipping and unity. But it’s all what’s worth it because that’s what will change the world.
You can’t say “I’ll pick that cross up” lightly. You have to throw your crowns down, over and over, at his feet. Lay down our dreams and hearts and pick up His.
ng?
Would it make a great deal of difference?
That’s when God said to him, “Josh I don’t need you. I can raise a million who can do better than you. But I need you to know that I want you”
Reinhard Bonnke was at one point starting to feel good about ‘his’ ministry.
Lord why did you pick me for this task?
And the Lord said “You were not my first choice, I asked many others and they said no. But you said yes.”
We are not needed, but we are wanted.
Don’t act like he needs us, deal with that in our own hearts, to be worth reproducing.
For many years then he saw up front people who prayed and preached faithfully and brilliantly but nobody knows their names. He learned from them.
They are who we need to learn from.
Began to pray and fast and ask, “What does it take to raise up such disciples, to saturate a nation with the gospel.” Had never heard of Disciple Making Movements etc. But then heard of Ying Kai, who in S China over 10 years saw over 200,000 churches start and over a million baptisms, and he said ‘Lord do it here.’
Don’t believe the lie that says, ‘That can work there but not here…’
He is the same God, everywhere.
Same longing. His heart breaks equally if anyone is lost, whether in an unreached nation or in London. Every generation is a new great commission. How do we reach everyone we can in the next 25 years?
Read about him, and Steve Addison, to learn everything he could.
Started IGNITE 8 years ago. Gave a great presentation. Invited his church, hundreds of people to come and learn how to make disciples.
12 stepped forward.
Only 12.
The 12 who came forward were not the ones he would have picked.
11 of them, did nothing.
But one of them, uneducated village guy. The last one Josh wanted
In 2 weeks of training he started churches in 8 villages.
We must reclaim the priesthood of all believers if we are to fulfil the Great Commission.
So then they said ‘Let’s train as many as we possibly can!’
And in the last 8 years – 12,000 churches started.
5,100 were in 2021
2100 in Jan, Feb and March 2022.
Movement is a J curve, not up and to the right.
People quit and oppose it in the dip – and go back to what was not working.
People you love will reject it and you.
They’ll say, ‘We just want to come to church, give some money, enjoying that – but we don’t want to make disciples.’
What shifts need to happen for that to occur?
- ORDINARY PEOPLE.
APEST. Why did God gift these graces? To equip the saints. Stop counting disciples, start counting disciplers. Stop asking how many baptisms do we have, how many baptisers? How many churches are starting churches that start churches?
- APPROPRIATE VEHICLES.
You have to change the vehicle to get to the destination. If I want to get across the city there are plenty of options. To cross the Atlantic, only 2. One better than another. The mega church reaching everyone vehicle has not got us where we are meant to be. You need clarity about the destination. What’s the vision? The BIG vision? To reach every man, woman and child in the UK with the gospel?
- ASK THE RIGHT QUESTION.
Not ‘God what is your will for my life?’ but “God, what is your will?” Get yourself out of the way. Ask, ‘What are you dreaming of God? What are you longing to do here in the UK?’ When I know God’s will – then my response, my choice, is to give all I have for accomplishing it. What would it take? We know it will take collaboration, training, equipping and unity. But it’s all what’s worth it because that’s what will change the world.
You can’t say “I’ll pick that cross up” lightly. You have to throw your crowns down, over and over, at his feet. Lay down our dreams and hearts and pick up His.