A while back a friend of mine who pastored a good sized church in his country was speaking with me when we had only one person in our church. (We had 10 North Africans this weekend) He made this statement, “I couldn’t do what you do. I kinda like preaching every Sunday to hundreds.”
Some things that people say really stick with you and you roll them over and over in your mind. This statement, made in passing of course, caused me to think, “Should I, too, seek crowds? Can I really be content here? Should I seek a field where I’ll see bigger crowds faster?”
I have another friend who left the Assistant Pastor position in a good sized church in OH three years ago to go to Turkey where his crowd is not even comparable.
Those working in Muslim and other people groups that are resistant to the Gospel will all struggle with this thought: “I am wasting my life on these people. I’ll never impact a large number at this pace.” This thought may be just a silent, nagging ache of the heart or may actually be spoken by well-intentioned preachers in places where churches of hundreds and thousands are common (at least among charismatics if not Baptists).
So here are some things that I’d like to encourage people ministering in resistant people groups to remember:
1. Do you serve God or the crowd?
What will you do when the crowds are no longer there? What will you do when you have to compromise what you know is right to get the crowds? What will you do when God calls you to obey Him by serving in an unreached and resistant people where you know you’ll loose your crowd? Would you go? If not, you aren’t a servant of God but of a crowd. That’s a scary place to be.
2. Every people group is resistant until they hear over and over and over…
Did you know that India had no Christians when William Carry arrived? He labored preaching and translating for six years before the first convert. Today there are millions of believers in India. The same story is told of Adoniram Judson of Burma.
Places where the gospel has never been planted are hard. They must be plowed, planted, and watered over many years. The first missionaries one hundred years ago that served in the Muslim country I am in during the push of the Student Volunteer Missions Movement served for sometimes 10 to 20 years with no converts. Just fifteen years ago the number of believers here was around 100 after almost a century of sowing. Today the number is in the thousands and growing faster than anyone really knows though it’s still less than .01%.
A friend who is a missionary in China asked me the other day how long it takes for someone here to accept Christ on average after hearing the Gospel for the first time. The answer was years, not days or weeks. Actually the quickest I had known someone here to believe on Christ was after two years. The average is a lot more. That being the case, if I drop into a city where few have ever heard the Gospel and there is massive pressure against conversion, I can expect to sow more than I reap in the first few years of ministry.
So what can I do? I can sow like a wild man. I can be creative and throw the seed out in as many ways as I can imagine. I can use internet, TV, mailouts, DVDs, booklets, New Testaments, friendships, …and a hundred ideas I haven’t thought of yet.
3. Can you pray and search for 4 to 5 faithful men?
I was recently with my brother-in-law, Dave, who serves as a first Sergeant in the US military. He has 100 men under his command. However, he really only leads 5. Each one of his direct reports commands 25. But really, they each only lead five who also lead five. He told me something that we need to implement in our understanding of ministry: “One man can really only direct 4 or 5 men effectively. He can influence an unlimited number directly dependent on the ability of his direct reports. He only has enough time to keep track or what 4 or 5 are doing each day. By the time an enlisted man raises to the rank of First Sergeant (commanding 100 men) he will have been in training for that position for over 10 years.”
I’ve often hurt because we only have about 7 believers in our new work here (a little over a year and a half old). The number is growing but slowly. When Dave told me this, though, I realized that I desperately need to train 4 or 5 men who will be leading others. Those 4 or 5 need to be with me every day and be ready to lead leaders of leaders. That’s the only way we’ll grow disciples and not just believers. But Dave joined the Army who trains these men for him and organizes the whole leadership system. How long would it take Dave to train 4 or 5 himself and have them training 4 or 5 and those 4 or 5 train another 4 or 5 until they arrived to 100? A lot longer than it took him just to join the organization.
Do a mental evaluation of the pastors you know running 500 to 1,000 in church. How many of them won to Christ and trained the men serving under them as their closest assistants? Probably one in 100 or less. Why? Because the only way you can get big numbers is having faithful men shouldering the work with you. The only way you can get men to shoulder the work with you is if they were already won and discipled when you arrived or if you do it yourself, which will take many years. The chances are the young men (30-40 years old) who are pastoring large churches (or really any sized church for that matter) have assistants who were saved and discipled in another ministry. It’s not wrong, it’s just impossible with the people group you work with.
God has called you to come as an outsider to come into culture with no (or extremely few) believers and start an army. Those you are training now will be the First Sergeants (leaders of hundreds). If it takes the greatest army in the history of the world (I know, a little over-patriotic) 10 years or more to train that man to lead 100 men, how long do you think it will take you?
What can you do? A Sergeant who has a Private Second Class as his direct report will be that much less effective in leading. He has a leach sucking his time who won’t be ready to lead others for years. Make sure that those men you are spending your time with are learning to lead others. If they aren’t capable or willing to lead others then you need to stop spending your time with them and look for another. If I only can effectively guide the daily activities of 4 or 5 I want them to be the best men possible who will be capable of training others.
It is better to be pouring your life into 4 or 5 young men while pastoring 20 than to be pastoring 500 and be training none. The success of our ministries is wholly resting on our successors.
Sequel coming tomorrow…Click here to read “To those ministering to resistant peoples continued…”