This post is a response to this article: http://www.lausanneworldpulse.com/1169?rss

Please click there and read that article by Younnoussa Djao before reading this post.

This article betrays itself as pragmatic and unbiblical ignoring God’s spiritual work of discipleship with just one sentence:

“one leader who got trained and went to implement this approach said, “We have planted about forty-two churches in three years; but with this approach, the Lord has helped us plant 150 churches in three months.”

Consider the following Biblical errors in this man’s methods. They are prominent Independent Baptist methods being run by missions organizations and individuals. Unwittingly I believe we have fallen for the scams that we’d never buy in other areas of life. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t believe that men of God who love God and are committed to the Great Commission are running scams knowingly (though it has definitely been done before) but what I am saying is that we as missionaries and pastors have adopted the methods of popular scams that in the end will be empty air and pretty prayer letters with no long-term results:

1. The Millionaire DVD Series Scam

A plethora of companies teach how you can learn to be rich during your spare time (usually through real estate or pyramid schemes) if you’ll only buy their $200 DVD series. Who’s actually getting rich? Them or the buyer? This scam is no illegal because it does work a small percentage of the time. But to hear their impressive numbers given by people in flowery shirts sitting in a resort in the Caribbean you’d think it is fail proof.

Notice Djao’s statement “one leader who got trained”. When did this leader get trained? It was a 3 or 4 day seminar about how to “implement this approach”. Djao uses the language of the scams: “revolutionary approach! Ground breaking method!”  But here’s the problem, that’s not how Jesus did it. Jesus didn’t train people to implement an approach or formula, he discipled them “TO BE LIKE HIM” (Matt 10).

We as missionaries and pastors must be aware that the real work is not done when we gather a group of pastor for a one or two week conference. Conferences have their place and they can be a real blessing to the national believers but the real work was done years before when

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Uzbekistan’s Baptist Union is facing criminal charges for allegedly unlawfully teaching children religion, and for supposedly misusing their property as a summer camp, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. As a result, Baptist Union Chair Pavel Peichev faces huge fines, the confiscation of the property, imprisonment, or some combination of these penalties. Baptists have vehemently denied the allegations. The authorities have also instituted checks on the tax and other obligatory payments by the Baptist Union. The first sign of trouble for the Baptists were two articles published by a government-sponsored news agency. Independent human rights defender sources think that the agency is sponsored by the NSS secret police, and that the author may be an NSS officer. The authorities have refused to discuss the details of the case, although the main prosecutor claimed to Forum 18 that “we have…”

read the rest of the article here: www.forum18.org

Jesus told Peter, James, and John, “From now on you will fishers of men.” in Luke 5. I read that the other day and a few thoughts came to my mind:

1. What a huge shock that must have been to the religious elite. They called disciples of the most educated to be MORE seperated from men not surrounded by them like a fishermen is his fish. Remember Peter had just been in a boat full of fish. Now Jesus was saying he’d be soon surrounded by men, sinful men, sometimes much closer than he would want them.

2. Peter left everything. What a counter cultural move. Today if a man had just made a million (like Peter did when he pulled in that huge load of fish) we would tell him that he should do business as missions! God was blessing him in business! But Peter left the profit sitting in the boats and followed Jesus. How badly we need men to leave any desire for earthly gain and follow Jesus! Even missionaries (myself no exception) can be lovers of money. Let’s leave it and follow Jesus!

3. Jesus was about to embark on a huge job: Transforming ignorant fishermen into preachers, disciplers, administrators, and world class leaders. What a frustrating job that must have been day by day trying to break the solid molds engrained into their minds.

Right now I am training a few to be fishers of men and it is tedious. God give me patience and realize how much I need to still learn.

“Eternity in their Hearts”, a book about the tribal people of Papua New Guinea, made the point that there is a bridge to understanding the gospel built into the traditions, proverbs, and beliefs of each people group. Something that can be used to help the people understand the Gospel. It’s a very interesting concept, no doubt.

So today after our house church meeting we were talking about how one of the girls had broken two glasses. One of the new believers quickly reacted by informing me of the deeper implications of these broken glasses when he said, “Then we’ll avert two consequences.” So they taught be today that if someone breaks a glass cup then supposedly that means that a consequence (literally an evil event or problem that could or could not be the result of an action of my own) that was going to happen being sent from God will be averted. Basically that broken cup by being without fault and being broken will take upon itself the one of the consequences of my own (though not all of them).

That is a pretty loose but interesting example of how Christ was broken though he was innocent and took on his body the consequences of our sin. I shared the story from Papua New Guinea with the believers. We were all happy to have found an imbedded illustration in the culture to help people understand what Jesus did for us.

I recently had a great man of God visiting with us here in North Africa. He willingly came on his own funds and spent his whole time here investing in me and the young men we are training. He served in the jungles of Guyana, South America for many 10 years planting churches in some of the most isolated and physically demanding of circumstances. Praise God for the indians from the Arawak, Warawi, and the other tribe (I forgot it’s name) that have been brought from darkness into light as a result of this man’s sacrifice. He challenged all of us to reach out to those farthest from the gospel. The young men were amazed to hear stories of whole villages who had come to Christ and pastors who had been trained. We can see that hear! In North Africa, whole villages will come to Christ! We are trusting God for that.

I don’t have his permission to connect his name to his advise but I thought his advise was so universal and so helpful that all of us would benefit from it:

Last year I read in his famous book, Tortured for Christ, of how Wurmbrand’s church in Communist Romania would enter into crowds of communists during parades. The crowd was in a tizzy with passion for communism. A Christian (or any believer in God) was in danger and preaching was forbidden above all things. During these parades Wurmbrand and those from his church would pass out thousands of New Testaments. How did they do it? They printed the New Testaments in red, the color of the commies. They printed the first 3 or 4 pages of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx but the rest… was the Gospel of Christ. By the time the recipients would have read to the 5th page and realized that it was the gospel the distributors would have been long gone. They passed out tens of thousands of Gospels this way. 

How can we learn from this method in Muslim countries? Do you think it would do any good to get out DVD’s or Bibles using this method? Is it a waste of time? Is it unethical? Anyone willing to come over and try it? 

I’d like your response.

Thoughts from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German martyr at the hands of the Nazi’s:

“Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”
“We must never make cheap what was costly to God.”

I am challenged by this man who could have stayed out of his native Germany during the time of the Third Riecht but chose to go back in to be the light. He left New York where he did his theological training and entered Germany knowing he would possible die for his stand for Christ against the Nazi Party. Why did Paul go to Jerusalem when he knew he’d die as a result? Why did Jesus go to the cross willingly? Where are the men and woman of today willing to enter the lair of the Devil, oppose darkness, and risk it all?