00 cmg chapter 13

Supervising the Lord's Work in a Large Area

"Titus, my true son in our common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. The reason I left you in Crete was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you." Titus 1:4-5

Click the explanation you want now, of why and how God wants a field supervisor to oversee God's work in a large field:

A. Oversee God's Work in a Large Area the Way Christ Says
B. Help Those with Apostolic Gifting to Choose Their Field Wisely
C. Evangelize Victims of Brutal Class Discrimination in Resistant Fields
D. Help Task Group Members from Another Culture to Bond with the People and their Culture
E. Help Task Groups to Make New Disciples the Way Jesus Commanded
F. Train New Leaders the Way Jesus and His Apostles Modeled it
G. Make Realistic Plans to Help Believers Do Effective Ministry
H. Use Time Wisely as You Serve in Ministry
I. Organize to Reproduce Congregations

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13A. Oversee God's Work in a Large Area the Way Christ Says (Church Multiplication from the Viewpoint of a Field Supervisor)

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 13.

The purpose of this chapter is to explain why--and how--God wants a field supervisor to oversee God's work in a large field.

Mr. 'Traditionalist' complains, "I need no supervisor! Do not treat me like a dumb sheep! I go where the Holy Spirit leads me!"

Mr. 'Foresight' corrects him, "You forget that the Holy Spirit gives the gift of shepherding to our elders, so they can keep us out of trouble."

Find in Matthew 20:20-28 what a leader does in God’s Kingdom:

The mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. "What is it you want?" he asked. She said, "Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom."

"You don’t know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" "We can," they answered.

Jesus said to them, "You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father."

When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (NIV)

Find in 1 Peter 5 what church leaders are to do:

To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers-not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. 1 Peter 5:1-4 (NIV)

Does God want you, or one of your coworkers, to be a 'Titus' to establish new leaders in new churches in a large area? If so, confirm this calling with prayer and proper commissioning, as in Acts 13:1-3.

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13B. Help Those with Apostolic Gifting to Choose Their Field Wisely

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 13.

A cross-cultural church planting task group working on a new field, needs workers who have the apostolic gift and calling to work where the gospel has not yet entered, as Paul taught in Romans 15:20-22.

Help them to find the receptive people group within a field and to trust God to lead them to those whom He has prepared, whom He has chosen from before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4).

The most receptive folks in a field with no churches are usually among the poorer working classes. Many fields and all large cities have a variety of people groups or subcultures that are hard for an outsider to identify. Common workers and people who feel oppressed are often the most receptive but are also hardest for an outsider to feel at home with. Jesus said that He came to proclaim the gospel to the poor. He began His public ministry among the poorer working class in Galilee. Had He begun with the rich and powerful in Jerusalem or another influential city, then they would have crucified Him prematurely. The satisfied middle classes that wield power, resist change and seldom respond during the first generation of disciples. They will occasionally come to Christ as individuals, especially students, but in a new field they rarely join together for a grass-roots people movement for Christ.

When missionaries first penetrate a new field, they may form friendships with people who have money and education. Often that is a mistake. It is difficult to begin a movement among neglected people by first working with the most wealthy and powerful unless they are a small, closely-knit tribe. Middle class people sometimes become receptive, if they are second or third-generation Christians. When you first enter a new field, look for a responsive subculture within a people group. Economic and racial differences often define such subcultures.

Missionaries sometimes say that the people as hard to reach, when in fact the people would receive Christ if He were presented in a way that made sense in their culture. Church planters sometimes needlessly provoke a negative response by prematurely attacking or over-reacting to idolatrous practices and other sins of the society. You must exercise as much patience with them as we expect others to have with the shortcomings of our own culture.

Make plans now to select a people group to work with, that is:

receptive (they respond to the Gospel),
currently neglected (churches are not yet reproducing there),

reachable (you have the ability and means to work with them).

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13C. Evangelize Victims of Brutal Class Discrimination in Resistant Fields

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 13.

To penetrate restricted areas like North Africa and much of southern Asia, wise workers serve where they have access to people who want change, and where authorities do not watch them closely. In such fields you will always find some people who are painfully oppressed by political, racial or social discrimination. These are generally more receptive. But take care not to engage in messy foreign politics.

If you work were authorities are hostile, pray now for God to lead you to those people who are ready to bear the cross of persecution.

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13D. Help Task Group Members from Another Culture to Bond with the People and their Culture

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 13.

Church planters must feel God’s call to a people and dedicate themselves to make disciples of them as Jesus commanded, not simply to do a project among them. You must to live among them and appreciate their distinct ways. No matter how corrupt a culture may be, God has planted some good things in it. Ruth bonded with the Israelites and their culture because of her loving relationship with her mother-in-law Naomi and later with Boaz. Our social needs should be met by our immediate family and by the people we bond with, not only by other foreigners.

Are you working with a very different culture? If so, pray for God to send you workers who are of the same or a similar culture, who can initiate evangelism in a way that the people won't think you bring a 'foreign' religion.

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13E. Help Task Groups to Make New Disciples the Way Jesus Commanded

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 13.

Jesus told His apostles to:

Fish for men (Matthew 4:19).
Be witnesses of what He has done for us by His death and resurrection, to people who are lost. Remember Jesus with Nicodemus, with the Samaritan woman.
Teach everyone in all nations to obey all of His commands (Matthew 28:19-20). We must go to neglected people and form them into obedient congregations. New believers need to obey Jesus in order to become the loving, active disciples that Jesus seeks.

Let us review Jesus’ commands:

Repent, believe, and be filled with the Spirit; turn from sin and serve God,
Be baptized and continue to lead the new, holy life that baptism initiates,
Celebrate Communion in union with Christ and His Body, the church,
Love God and others in practical ways, by forgiving them and showing mercy,
Pray using Jesus’ name,
Give,
Make disciples by witnessing, shepherding, training, and bearing your cross.

Jesus told His disciples to bear their cross (Luke 9:23). This requires total commitment, living sacrificially, accepting death if necessary, and aiming to carry out His Great Commission. Concerning such dedication Patterson confessed:

While studying in seminary, I felt that such sacrificial discipleship was fanatical. I sought security and position with an established church or mission agency. Later, when the first person that I won to Christ in Honduras was hacked to death by machete the day after his baptism, God forced me to think about my commitment. I came to see that my security-minded attitude would stifle church reproduction. A limited commitment is contagious, for other workers will soon begin to vie for comfortable positions. With my change of attitude the leaders whom I was training also became more sober. A new group of dedicated church planters emerged that left behind the semi-committed ones.

Are all your coworkers dedicated to making disciples the way Jesus says to? If not, plan now how you will help them to see how important it is.

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13F. Train New Leaders the Way Jesus and His Apostles Modeled it

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 13.

Jesus and His apostles showed us how to give discipleship training on a pastoral level. You must train new pastors and missionaries the same way that Jesus trained His twelve apostles. That was also the way Paul trained Timothy and Titus, and that Aquila and Priscilla trained Apollos. Those leaders personally mentored new leaders, modeling skills for them and sharing the new leaders’ burdens.

In foreign fields you must aim to mobilize local nationals for ministry. Healthy churches need local elders without undue delay. In the beginning of a new church plant, you can use the home of a new elder as a classroom. His congregation may be only his wife and children, who often do a good job of exposing his flaws as a leader! He will practice his shepherding skills with his family, including teaching and discipline. Normally other friends and relatives will soon join the flock. One’s home is an ideal place to learn basic shepherding skills. Some leaders fail in ministry because they cannot lead their own families. See 1 Timothy 3:5.

New leaders learn new insights along with their congregations. The church planting task group should help local leaders to begin immediately shepherding and training other leaders. Train new leaders in a way that they can imitate. Today, in most of the remaining neglected fields, you must avoid "classroom-only" teaching in which professors take little personal responsibility for the present, effective ministry of their students. In hostile fields where growth comes through multiplying clusters of tiny home-based churches, God’s sheep need many more shepherds than the number that traditional churches could provide. New pastors of tiny house churches should begin training "Timothies" to lead daughter churches, as soon as possible.

Let us examine some of the things that one who trains new leaders should do:

Maintain a caring, personal relationship with those you train, spending time together and giving attention to each one of them. Listen to each pastoral student to learn the needs of his flock. For a beginner that flock may be his household or family, which may soon become a cell or church. Share the responsibility for the discipline and effective ministry of each pastoral student.
Train more than one apprentice at a time. Personal discipleship training on the pastoral level is not one-on-one tutoring. It may be with one person, but tutoring is not its main purpose. Jesus trained twelve leaders; sometimes he dealt with only three; on rare occasions he worked with only one. Paul normally had a small apostolic band that he was training.
Model ministry skills. New Testament discipleship training on a leader level requires that you accompany leaders in their fieldwork. Planting churches by making forays out of a mission station or base is rarely effective. You must live among the people, bond with them, and work closely with the new leaders.
Share responsibility for the effectiveness of each pastoral student’s current ministry. Your pastoral student serves his cell or church under your guidance. He meets regularly with you to report progress, to plan activities, to discuss the Word and to pray.
Relate the Word directly to each pastoral student’s fieldwork. Adopt the "menu" approach:
Listen to each pastoral student report what his flock is doing. Like a waiter in a restaurant, first listen to hear what a pastoral student’s group or church is "hungry for".
Plan. Help each pastoral student to plan what his group will do for the next week or two. Write down those plans and hold him accountable for them. Pray for God’
Locate the corresponding studies on the menu. The menu is a checklist or Progress Chart listing ministries required by the New Testament, key doctrines, Bible passages, and commands of Jesus. Provide the studies that support what your pastoral student has planned to do.

Please make definite plans now for you and your coworkers to train leaders on the job

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13G. Make Realistic Plans to Help Believers Do Effective Ministry

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 13.

If you help plan field strategy, you must envision the various categories of persons or groups at work. Wise mission planners, like military strategists, begin the planning process by stating their long-range objectives so clearly that the preparatory steps are obvious, almost self-evident. To plan strategically for a specific people group, envision the results that God will produce 20 years from now. What will the churches look like? How many? What size? Led by whom? How will they reproduce?

Keep these objectives for new mission work in view along with important facts about the people such as their resources or freedom limits, as you plan how the work should develop. Then focus on the intermediate steps, projecting what must happen to reach the objectives. Envision preparatory steps that only require resources that the new believers and leaders possess, to avoid programs too expensive or too technical for them.

The fourteen mobilization categories listed below appear in backward order. Counting down from 14 to 1 helps to think strategically. Reason from the farthest future objectives back to the present. Envision by faith with God’s help the final objective, then reason carefully the steps you must take. Starting with our final objective, ask what has to happen prior to each step. For example, in order to see churches multiplying in a chain reaction, what has to happen first to prepare leaders to coordinate such a movement for Christ?

When you focus on an objective in the list below, and the realities of the field that bear upon it, consider what must happen first, the prior step, then plan those earlier steps that lead to it.

Before defining in detail what the task group will do, you should determine what the new believers should do. With this in mind, most of what the task group will do becomes evident. Before you try to define how to prepare the task group, you need first to have a fairly clear picture of what the new believers will be doing.

After you know what kind of task group you need and how to prepare it, you will be ready to define the methods by which those who work at home will prepare and send the task group.

Take a moment now to do some backward planning. Examine below the "backward" list of steps for mobilizing categories of people who may have to participate. As you work through the backward list, start with your final objective, then reason back to the present. Define for each step what must happen prior to it.

To help you think ‘backwards’ this list starts with final objectives and works back. That is why the numbering starts with 14 and works down to 1. Make a note of any items that require special attention.

Planning Activities in Advance for Opening a New Field

(14) Churches organize on a national or large regional level for fellowship, inter-church projects and continued reproduction.

Ask yourself and your coworkers the questions for which you need answers before you can wisely plan details for this stage of the work. Verify before planning:

How will organization on this level happen?
Who will be able to take the responsibility for it?
What must happen first?

Reasoning backwards, strategic planners see what must happen prior to widespread church multiplication:

(13) Workers prepare to serve with humility at a regional level to coordinate inter-church cooperation.

Servant leadership on the regional or synod level requires that local leaders mobilize and humbly oversee newer pastors or elders. They will acquire this skill from their "apostles" who take personal, caring responsibility for their fruitful ministry, as the Apostle Paul did for his new workers. Otherwise, the first local leaders, lacking maturity for work at this level, might easily become grasping and demanding.

Verify before planning:

How will pastors learn to become regional servant leaders?
Who will model servant leadership for them?
How? Where?

Next, strategic planners envision what must happen first, to prepare regional level servant leaders as pastors of pastors:

(12) Local churches mature and bring transformation to their surrounding communities.

New churches grow in Christ and practice all vital New Testament ministries, being led by caring servant leaders. These new pastors not only shepherd their flocks with loving care but also mobilize other newer pastors for ministry. They acquire this skill on the job, not in classrooms. In new fields, it will be missionaries who demonstrate those skills to the first new leaders.

Verify before planning

How will we ensure that churches practice all essential New Testament ministries?
How will we make sure that their shepherds learn servant leadership?
Who will model servant leadership for them and how?

To prepare shepherds that will be servant leaders, strategic planners must first envision the kind of pastoral training that can ensure it:

(11) Training must be made available for many new leaders—as many as will be needed to continue church reproduction. Older ones during the first few years will guide them while they still lack experience. Leaders will learn to shepherd their people with loving care and not just to preach and to enforce rules.

Pastoral trainers do not simply pass information on to their students. They train them to edify and equip their local body of Christ for ministry. To do that, trainers with the gift of teaching must work in harmony with others who have different spiritual gifts, as God requires in 1 Corinthians 12 and 13. Good leadership training requires balanced discipleship training that relates the Word to Christian work through loving relationships in the power of the Holy Spirit. Trainers in a new field, where new shepherding elders cannot neglect their flocks to go study elsewhere, must avoid requiring impractical formal institutional training. Youths hoping for a paid church job would eagerly go attend a school but, lacking experience in well-established churches, they would fail to assimilate the intensive classroom teaching and apply it in their minds to an active church body. They lack models of effective shepherding and cannot realistically relate what they learn to their future ministry.

Verify before planning:

How will we prepare the people and their future pastors to appreciate and understand loving servant leadership?
What kind of discipleship training will lay a foundation for it?

Strategic planners, reasoning backwards, see that we must model loving discipleship training first on a more basic level:

(10) New Christians learn through caring, relational, discipleship training, to exalt Jesus by obeying His commands in love.

Disciple makers must teach new believers to obey Jesus’ commands before and above all else. Jesus requires us to believe, repent, be baptized and receive the Holy Spirit; then to love, break bread, pray, give, and make disciples. You must avoid long indoctrination before obedience training; detailed indoctrination at this stage would stifle loving discipleship. Students learn to be passive hearers; later it would be harder to mobilize them for ministries other than for teaching. Building on obedience, the new believers will practice New Testament church body life, serving one another with their God-given gifts in the power of the Holy Spirit. They will observe their trainers forming the loving relationships needed for this type of obedience. They see their trainers make disciples in a way that they can imitate at once with their family and friends.

Verify before planning:

Who will give this kind of discipleship training to new believers during the initial stages of evangelism, when there are no new local leaders yet?
What kind of churches will provide the right environment for it?
How will the trainers learn to do it?

Strategic planners recognize that relational discipleship training requires that trainers spend time with people, especially right after they come to Christ. This requires a much more relational form of evangelism than what Western traditions offer:

(9) Seekers take their first steps of faith with the help of a caring church body.

When seekers repent and discover the new, holy, eternal life in Christ, their conversion must be confirmed by being added to a loving church body by baptism, as Acts 2:38-41 reveals. Help seekers see the crucified and risen Christ living in among you, as affirmed in 2 Corinthians 5:15. Model a sacrificial pilgrim’s life in a hostile world.

Verify before planning:

How will we assure that a caring church body will exist so soon in the church-planting project?
Who will lead the infant churches?
What will they do to lay a foundation for loving discipleship training?

Reasoning backwards, strategic planners will see that evangelism brings not only to God’s forgiveness but also health, peace of mind, relief from extreme poverty, and freedom from demonic oppression. This requires that we first form a church planting task group skilled in relational evangelism and discipleship training:

Strategic Objectives for "Outside" Workers

(8) Workers penetrating a new community or field must identify with its social life and culture.

Workers from the outside must bond with the people and culture, and must learn the language. They will discern and use methods of evangelism and teaching that the people can afford, imitate and use without delay with others. They will focus on a specific people group and seek ways to penetrate it. They will use different spiritual gifts to deal with the diverse needs of the people group. They will ruthlessly screen out technology, equipment, and methods that are beyond the reach of the people, so that they can carry on the ministry model. They will recruit coworkers from among the people or from a very similar culture who can readily identify with the local culture.

Verify before planning:

Who will join a task group that can embrace the local culture?

How will they make sure they have truly bonded with the people and culture?

Strategic planners will see that they may need to arrange for a partnership with workers from another culture:

(7) Task group leaders or mission agency leaders must arrange for workers from the same or similar cultures to join the task group, at least during the initial evangelism.

In fields having a very different culture you must partner with missionaries from churches that are culturally near to the people on whom you will focus, and who can relate readily to them. No amount of anthropological training to adapt to a new culture is as effective as being born in into or into a similar one. The most effective evangelists for starting the kind of churches that will multiply freely within a different culture, are those with similar background, politics, race, language, economy, social status, education, family size, rural or urban life-style and world view.

Verify before planning:

How will missionaries from churches with limited resources be mobilized?
Who will provide a bridge to the other culture?
How will you avoid forcing your culture and values on workers from another culture, and avoid making workers from a poorer society dependent on you?
How will workers from other cultures get training for service in fields with hostile authorities?

Strategic planners must see that workers first need training and deployment as bivocational "tentmakers" who, like Aquila and Priscilla, have two vocations. (Acts 18:1-3). One is church planting; the other is a job that is acceptable to local authorities:

(6) Bivocational workers start businesses or other means of support to reside in fields where authorities forbid people to enter as missionaries.

Today, only bivocational missionaries can reside in many of the remaining neglected fields long enough to bring about church multiplication. Like Paul, they need to get cross-cultural church planting experience, to form task groups, have a formal commissioning and find employment like a small business that will enable them to mix with the working class.

Verify before planning:

How will bivocational workers be trained?
Who will develop the bivocational work?
Who can help us do the things for which we lack experience?

Strategic planners must help sending churches to envision how to adjust their mission approaches and to prepare and send the kind of workers who can help churches to reproduce in today’s neglected fields:

Strategic Objectives for Sending Churches and Agencies

(5) Workers must practice ministry skills and receive training in their sending churches, to prepare to help churches to reproduce in other areas.

The skills needed may include those required for bivocational work, language learning, incarnational evangelism, small group worship, organization of a congregation for organic body life, training leaders behind the scenes and church reproduction.

Verify before planning:

Who will serve as model of the needed ministry skills for workers who are to enter other cultures?
Where?
How?

Strategic planners must recognize the importance of those skills for work on the remaining neglected fields and must make plans for the preparation of missionary trainers who can impart them:

(4) Missionary trainers must learn to prepare workers in a way that will transfer to fields where institutional methods are impractical.

Those who train missionaries must keep in touch with workers in the field in order to learn what skills the new missionaries need. They also get practice with non-formal training methods, cooperating with experienced trainers who will prepare leaders the way Jesus and His apostles did.

Verify before planning:

Who will train the missionaries?
How will those trainers be prepared?

Strategic planners must recognize that to train for specialized ministries is useless if a mission agency fails to implement them. Therefore, they must also plan to seek a working relationship with agencies that can deploy workers having right methods and right coworkers in the right fields:

(3) A cooperating mission agency must deal realistically with today’s world and its neglected fields, including those in which bivocational workers must make disciples secretly.

By the time a mission agency is in a position to orient new workers, it is often too late to begin the training they need. The workers may have been exposed for years to methods and attitudes in a local church that hardly resemble those needed in the field.

Verify before planning:

How will sending churches cooperate with mission agencies to see that workers are prepared wisely?
Who will orient mission agency leaders who lack these strategic perspectives?
How?

Strategic planners see that, in order for an agency to develop an effective working relationship with sending churches, they will need preparation and a challenge:

(2) Sending churches that embrace these guidelines must make their people and mission agency personnel aware of them also when necessary, and follow them to equip workers.

Churches must cooperate to prepare missionaries; many of the skills that missionaries need cannot be acquired in institutional classrooms. So, they cooperate with training institutions and mission agencies to provide experience that teaches needed skills.

Verify before planning:

What leaders in sending churches know and follow these guidelines, or are willing to learn to follow them?
How will these leaders in sending churches communicate these guidelines to missionaries and their agency leaders, without appearing to be telling others how to do their job?
How will these leaders learn to discern things that only experienced field workers in other cultures can understand, to avoid meddling in areas beyond their grasp?
Who will motivate and orient these leaders in sending churches? How?

Strategic planners recognize that much advice for missionary training and field selection comes from organizations and individuals who have an agenda that serves only their own organization. Therefore, they must seek unbiased mission career advisors. They must discern between mere mission agency "recruiters" and unbiased career counselors who have no agenda of their own for missionary candidates. Both kinds of advisors are needed, but unbiased coaching must come first in order to avoid workers being trained in wrong ways, getting lined up with the wrong coworkers, or being sent to the wrong place.

(1) Unbiased mission career advisors help churches and missionary candidates to think through their plans.

Mission counselors should keep in mind all fourteen of these ministry areas, so that they can enable potential workers to explore all options for serving to see where they might best fit in. Many counselors fail to do so; unwise career advice abounds. Good career counselors will prepare carefully, in order to honestly present the options. They will help workers keep their final objectives in mind as they examine their gifts, experiences, resources, plans and working relationships, in order to help them to plan for their future ministry.

Verify before planning:

Who will serve as mission career advisors?
How will they prepare themselves?

Strategic planners must train or serve as unbiased mission career advisors who can counsel church leaders and missionary candidates.

Please take a moment now to arrange to meet with your coworkers to plan strategically, keeping your final goals in mind, then listing the preliminary steps needed to reach them.

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13H. Use Time Wisely as You Serve in Ministry

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 13.

We must manage our limited time in a way that will honor God. Church multiplication requires that many people give much time. To establish daily priorities to use our time wisely, as Ephesians 5: 15-17 requires, you must keep in mind Jesus’ commands as the foundation of your God-given priorities. You should also help coworkers to evaluate how they use their time in ministry. Note the following guidelines that you aim to deal with to improve your use of time.

Delegate pastoral and evangelistic responsibilities to other leaders.
Let new workers do things. Once volunteers agree to do something, avoid too much control of their work. Do not expect coworkers or your spouse merely to run errands for you.
Start immediately preparing new workers and leaders, in order to turn over the most important leadership responsibilities to local leaders.
Train all adults who are potential leaders, giving to them more and more responsibilities as they prove capable of handling them. Let new leaders make mistakes. How they handle mistakes is crucial. If they learn from their mistakes, then their mistakes become blessings. If they try to cover them up, then look elsewhere for leaders.
Spend ample time each day, and a whole day each week, with your family.

Take "Sabbath" days or weeks of rest. There was a time when you would have been stoned to death if you did not do so. Do not let your family have to compete with your ministry for your time. If circumstances force you to miss your day with the family, then make up for it without failure the next week.

Discuss your ministry regularly with your spouse and children, so that they appreciate it and will not begrudge time you spend away from them.

Talk and pray with them about your and their plans before you travel, and review with them what happened in both places when you return.

If you are an excessively hard-working husband, then ask your wife to schedule your appointments.

Does your wife feel insecure at times because of your time commitments? Must she or the children compete with the Lord’s work for your attention? If you are unsure, then they probably must—ask her about it! If the answer is yes, then authorize her to schedule your time, especially for activities that take you away from your home overnight or longer. If you often feel pressured or driven by guilt to fill with work every hour of your time, then you have taken on too many responsibilities. Discern which things that you are doing are not God’s will.

Give your wife authority to schedule regular days and times of rest, the equivalent of at least one day a week spent with the family. Celebrate special events together.

Avoid spending time arguing or discussing controversies.

New missionaries, seeking hasty friendships, often "cast their pearls before swine", as Jesus warned. They give the wrong people too much time discussing controversial doctrines or church practices. One may enjoy an occasional theological argument with friends, but one must not get caught up in never-ending issues. Discipline yourself to avoid non-edifying details of theology. Remember Paul’s warnings about foolish questions and genealogies (1 Timothy 1:4; Titus 3:9). Sometimes you cannot avoid a controversy, but you can avoid giving it too much time. You must keep doing the ministry work that you know God wants us to do. Do not feel that you always have to prove yourself right. Always to be "right" is dangerous.

Analyze often how you have spent your time during the day or previous week.

Be ruthless in cutting from your work schedule all ministry activities—no matter how enjoyable they may be—that do not move you or the churches towards your God-given goals. Avoid excessive television and entertainment that fails to edify or unite your family.

Ask another person to help you keep track of your progress.

Perhaps no one effectively evaluates the use of their own time; all need someone to hold them accountable to carry out their plans and God-given objectives.

Pray for daily self-discipline to follow God’s priorities.

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13I. Organize to Reproduce Congregations

Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 13.

Leaders must organize the body of Christ to enable it to reproduce normally, following the guidelines listed below. Note those that need your further attention:

Trust the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom to organize well and to motivate new leaders.

Do not fear that false doctrine will automatically creep into rapidly reproducing churches. History shows otherwise. Healthy, reproductive churches or cell groups are far more loyal to their teachers and obedient to Christ than are sterile, non-reproductive, older churches.

Some missionaries fear that false doctrine will creep in, if they let new leaders take responsibility. This causes resentment, which opens the door to all kinds of error to enter, including the same errors they fear.

Every newborn church has the same Holy Spirit, the same love for Christ, and the same devotion to the Word of God. We must make sure to train the new pastors and elders in the Word of God. The only sense in which newer churches are necessarily weaker is immaturity. They are baby churches, so let them take their baby steps!

Build organization on relationships and on workers’ strengths.

If a worker wins people to Christ, they will bond to him. So, arrange for him to give discipleship training to them, or for them to join a small group in which he is active. If a worker does a good job at giving discipleship training to new believers, then let him shepherd or teaches them in a new group. If a worker trains newer workers well, then let them continue in a group or in projects that he leads or in which he takes an active part.

Let a worker earn "promotion" by releasing his disciples and pastoral students for responsible ministries in a training "chain reaction" (2 Timothy 2:2). A worker who trains two others, who in turn train still others, creates a chain in which he will be respected as the primary trainer. If he has the gift of leadership, then let him lead the new network; if not, then let him work closely with a leader.

If you are a missionary from the outside, then you must edify the growing body of Christ through your pastoral students.

Do not do all the teaching, shepherding, and decision-making. Rather model it, then step back and let your "Timothies" do the work in freedom as you coach them from behind the scenes. Enable others to begin discipleship training and shepherding in their homes. Provide Bible study guides and reading schedules that are simple and easy to use in their homes or small groups.

Aim to create training "chains", in which you will train persons who will train others in turn. You might help each Timothy to set up a regular time for discipleship and Bible study with you in his home and encourage him to help another newer believer do the same. These "links" in the chain will keep multiplying, as long as you pray and work hard to forge loving relationships. New congregations will grow weak and wither if all the believers are linked directly to only one overworked pastor or church planter. They would only watch the church planter do all the work until he collapsed exhausted.

Train able, mature men, who will qualify as biblical elders.

In new fields avoid training unmarried young men as pastors. Rather train as shepherds those who qualify as elders. Paul lists their qualifications in Titus 1:5-9. In a new field, few men fully meet all those requirements, so train the best ones that God gives you, using scriptural guidelines as your criteria. They must be sober and able to teach. A new church in a field with no experienced pastoral leaders normally gets along better if several elders lead it.

Organize in a detailed way after you and the people know the specific things that they need to do. It is foolish to try to organize them before you and they know what they are to do.

Avoid policies and bylaws that do not come directly from Scripture, unless they obviously need them for the sake of order. If a problem keeps recurring, then form a policy to deal with it. If it happens only once or seldom, then simply take care of it and do not worry further, as Jesus cautioned about being too anxious about what might happen tomorrow (Matthew 6:34). Discard rules and policies as soon as you see that they are no longer necessary.

Keep evaluating your progress ruthlessly.

We keep our eyes fixed on your distant goals. Also focus on the path as you go along, constantly evaluating our progress toward the goal. Pray and plan for breakthroughs whenever snags block progress. Explore new ways to move around the obstacles.

Let workers do ministry that uses their spiritual gifts and strengths. Do not assign them to do work just to meet a need that other over-worked leaders want to see done.

Avoid assigning new workers to a task simply because there is an unmet need. Where is there no need? Let them minister where they can use their gifts and talents freely. Do not place them in a position simply to maintain the smooth operation of programs. Mission agency field supervisors sometimes fail to mobilize missionaries and local workers according to their gifts and experience. This error causes many to "burn out" and resign.

Follow the biblical pattern of organization, arranging for loving cooperation among those with different gifts.

The Western institutional pattern of specialization separates persons having different gifts or ministries. Westerners often form independent and competitive commissions, departments, or programs. Thus Western organizations can stifle church reproduction. Rather you must help people with very different gifts to find ways to cooperate in ways that open new vistas for effective ministry.

Keep the vision alive and growing.

Workers in a task group or a church need a vision of what they believe God desires them to accomplish. Once the vision is clear, help all members to find their place. The vision will have to be adjusted as people come in with new spiritual gifts, thereby enabling them to practice their gift-based ministries. Thus, the vision will grow and shift as you travel from one horizon to the next. God will not let you see the whole future but will lead you from one horizon to another.

Help volunteer workers to set their goals and tell you what they expect to do.

Encourage self-initiative, rather than pushing people by offering rewards to those who out-do others, by threatening with organizational rules or by competition; rivalry is condemned in Scripture. Help workers to define their own jobs and goals.

The underlying motive for true Christian service is love for Jesus. When a mentality of loving obedience is established in a church body, then volunteer workers can more easily visualize and achieve what God wants them to do.

Let mature shepherds with a servant’s heart make crucial decisions for a church or group, rather than always taking a democratic vote or seeking a consensus.

God requires obedience to the shepherds that He has given us (1 Peter 5:5; Hebrew 13:17). Never decide spiritual issues by majority rule. Vote only on transactions requiring it for legal reasons, after listening to the shepherding elders’ advice.

Scripture and history show that the majority seldom votes for a cross-bearing, faith-stretching disciple’s route. The majority typically chooses a more secure, traditional, less demanding path that leads away from Scripture and from Christ’s guidelines. The Kingdom of God on earth in the church is not a democracy; it is a monarchy. That is the meaning of "kingdom"! Jesus is our King. Reproductive discipleship requires loving authority, by which the strongest leader is a humble servant, as seen in Matthew 20:25-28.

Sometimes sound discipleship programs fail, because participants submit to majority rule within their church or denomination. Rule by the majority means that the sheep lead the shepherd. It requires the abdication of godly, New Testament leadership. Let Jesus reign; human overseers are His "under-shepherds".

Develop church body life between new churches and groups.

Church multiplication thrives on loving relationships between churches. Scripture reveals nothing of the independent spirit and autonomy that some American missionaries teach to a new church. They may mean well, but they come from a culture that idealizes individualism and personal rights above the welfare of the community.

As soon as possible, leaders should set up fellowships consisting of several congregations. These are not for heavy-handed control but for fellowship, to help one another and to coordinate ministry projects in which more than one church participate. The churches’ leaders should meet together regularly for fellowship, training and counsel. They will discuss decisions that might affect the other churches in the fellowship. Their congregations should also meet together if possible, from time to time. Working in this way with other churches will prevent a congregation from developing a self-centered mentality or excessive devotion to one strong leader. It will also enables more experienced elders to train younger ones. Such congregational relationships reduce the number of failures.

The New Testament letters reveal a cooperative, edifying body life between churches. For example, Ephesians 4:11-16 urges interaction between the churches in a cluster of closely-knit house churches that made up the church in Ephesus. Christ’s body is seldom a single local congregation. In many of the remaining neglected fields, you should not try to form large congregations but an underground network of tiny, unauthorized, house churches. Healthy churches grow in clusters through multiplication, avoiding limitations imposed by physical facilities or legalistic control.

Do not always fear a new leader’s weaknesses, for we all have them. Rather, build on his strengths.

Trusting the Holy Spirit, build on what a potential leader can do; release him to do it, instead of building rules around him to make him do every detail the way you want him to do it. King David was a great leader, because God built on his strengths, not on his weaknesses. Strong men often have strong weaknesses. Give responsibility to the men that God gives to you. There is no perfect leader this side of heaven. However, if you will develop good relationships between leaders, then God will use some to give strength where others are weak. In so doing, a strong leader will not become independent and proud; rather, he will recognize his need of his fellow elders and will appreciate them.

Whether serving on a task group or in a church, leaders must set the pace in relying on others to help them in their weaknesses. As you become more aware of your own weaknesses, you will become more willing to mobilize other leaders who also have weaknesses. You will find more and more that you need to rely on others’ strengths.

Delegate pastoral responsibilities.

Let men with pastoral potential develop their gifts while you model pastoral skills for them. Give to them tools to study the Bible and to teach its truths to others. Help them to make disciples at all levels, to multiply themselves and their church or group.

Help potential leaders to set clear objectives.

Enable them to define their God-given goals for themselves and their people, to identify the little, intermediate steps and keep walking toward their goals.

Evaluate your progress by measuring results, not efforts.

Define goals in terms of the concrete results that you expect. Help the leaders of each task group, or church body, to evaluate progress in terms of results. Measuring efforts does not tell one if one is progressing toward one’s goals. Loving obedience leads to efforts made in the power of the Holy Spirit, which bring the results.

Efforts are the things we do to win people for Christ and to edify the church, through meetings, classes, lessons, reading and ministries. Results are outcomes like these:

new believers receive baptism,

churches give birth to daughter churches or cells,

workers start new ministries,

families practice daily prayer,

believers practice regular, sacrificial giving,

new disciples take on ministry,

new teachers apply the Bible.

In new fields, use a simple worship form that new leaders with limited training can imitate at once and pass on to others whom they train.

Use a worship style that fits the local culture. This makes it easy for new elders to lead others without a lot of supervision. If they are inexperienced, then they should not do formal pulpit oratory. Do not even model formal preaching for them, if avoidable, lest they will try and it makes them proud. Let them celebrate the Lord’s Supper weekly, read Scripture, exhort, and tell Bible stories or lead discussions about a Bible text that their teachers have helped them prepare.

Serve as spiritual "midwives" for churches that reproduce.

If you work in a different culture, then help new churches to reproduce at their own initiative, trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit. You cannot cause churches to reproduce. A new congregation should take responsibility, as soon as possible, for giving birth to other churches and for training their new pastors. Ironically, the stronger an expatriate church planting team is organizationally, the harder it is to keep its hands off the infant church and to let it grow and take initiative. Beware of protecting new churches too much!

Accept ongoing accountability only to those who encourage you in a ministry that uses your gifts and strengths, in fulfillment of what God is calling you to do.

Before committing your life’s career to a particular project or organization, prayerfully verify the attitudes and practices of those who overseer it.

Learn to make disciples on all levels:

evangelize seekers,

teach loving obedience to new believers,

shepherd growing Christians,

train leaders on the job.

The world’s remaining neglected fields need church planters and evangelists who are skilled in training leaders the way Jesus and His apostles did. On Muslim fields and others where Christian gatherings are restricted—about one-third of the world’s people groups—you must work without classrooms and pulpits. A church that practices biblical discipleship training will not need a special program or department for evangelism. Evangelism will be integrated into every aspect of the church’s life, just as Paul included it in the normal work of a pastor (2 Timothy 4:1-5).

Please plan prayerfully now to give attention to any of the above items that need it.

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