Praying with Purpose During Ramadan

Praying with Purpose During Ramadan

As a cross-cultural Christian in a 99.9% Muslim country, I find Ramadan to be filled with stark contrasts. On the one hand, multigenerational families gathering around tables each night eating homemade delicacies and food drives that collect pantry staples for poor families are almost universal. On the other hand, thievery due to pressure to buy gifts at the end of the month along with arguments, fist fights, traffic snarls, and shortened tempers due to nicotine and caffeine withdrawals all increase during the 30 days.

The sharp contrasts powerfully illustrate the ineffectiveness of outward religious practices to bring inward transformation. And yet, so few seem bothered with this reality and even fewer wrestle and search for a solution. Five times a day, the Muslim call to prayer continues to ring out. It echoes and clashes from the various mosques in my neighborhood that aren’t in sync with each other. Five times a day, the land is flooded with announcements from loudspeakers saying, “there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.” Year after year, many abstain from food, water, and nicotine during the daylight hours in an effort to appease God and try to earn merit.

In the midst of this environment, I and a relatively small community of other Christians seek to bring the Good News of God’s kingdom and the life, death, burial, and resurrection of His Christ to people who have had virtually no access for 1400 years. Such circumstances cause me to cry out, Who is sufficient for these things? (2 Cor. 2:16b, NKJV).

And that desperation, that utter helplessness I can feel as I engage in Gospel conversations with neighbors, friends, and strangers, leaves me no choice but to pray. The longer I live in the Muslim world, the more convinced I am that only the power of prayer and God’s Spirit can bring transformation.

So, when I heard about the opportunity to champion 24/7 prayer for the entire 30 days of Ramadan last year for the Muslim country that I want to reach with the Gospel, I knew I needed to say, “Yes!”

The team at Pray4Movement.org built a free, simple tool that empowers anyone who wants to promote continuous prayer for a people group, city, country, or region. In just a few clicks and by answering a few questions, I received a web page of my own that I could customize and then send out to my friends, family, coworkers, etc. They could then sign-up for time slots to pray.

I only needed to find 96 people who would commit to pray for a different 15-minute time slot each day of Ramadan to cover the entire 30 days with prayer. Intercessors received an email each day before their committed time slot with a reminder and a link to go view that day’s biblical prayer fuel. The Pray4Movement team developed content that could be customized for my people group with just a few keystrokes. However, I had complete freedom to write my own custom prayer requests and prayer guides. By God’s grace, we filled the 30 days with nonstop prayer!

Only in eternity will we know the full impact of what happened as the Church prayed extraordinarily for the Muslims in the country where I live, but I believe God answered our prayers and is answering them in beautiful ways. Since Ramadan 2022, our team has witnessed a significant increase in groups of people interested in reading, discovering, and discussing the Bible with their friends.

Our country wasn’t the only one that tried to go for continuous prayer coverage during Ramadan 2022. It turns out that 84 different champions took on the challenge impacting 64 countries. At least 6,395 intercessors filled more than 170,000 15-minute prayer slots.

One prayer champion in a sub-Saharan Muslim nation said they saw God move in powerful ways during Ramadan as people prayed. A Muslim man who cut off relationship with his Christian children began calling them, bringing hope of restored relationship. An elderly woman who refused to submit her life to Christ for decades accepted Christ during Ramadan. Other Christians in the country were compelled to grow their prayer life for their Muslim neighbors and sought to be brighter lights among them. Evangelism efforts among this people group in the weeks that followed proved more fruitful.

One of the most persecuted countries in the world rallied more than 100% prayer coverage during the 30 days. The prayer champion for that Muslim nation said, “I don’t think that we know even a small percentage of the impact that was made by praying 24/7 during Ramadan this year. Consistently, we heard how many people felt a heavy spiritual oppression. I think that signifies that we are pushing against the enemy in an effective way. We had several people around the globe that communicated just how impactful it was to have the prayer fuel and were encouraged by the unity of praying together with others. We are expecting that fruit will come from this initiative and some evidence of that is already coming.”

Another prayer champion working in a Muslim country in South Asia said, “We had over 100 people praying daily for the work, and we know of at least three Muslims that came to faith during this time. Normally, Ramadan is very slow, with few responses or new believers. So this year was different! Five more have followed Jesus in the month after Ramadan!”

As if these stories aren’t glorious enough, something important happens in the intercessors, themselves, as they devote 15-minutes a day to pray for a Muslim people group, city, country, or region. Yes, their prayers make eternal impact in the spiritually dark places they pray on behalf of. But their prayers also make an impact in their own lives. They begin to be changed and God softens their hearts for the people for whom they are praying. If you pray for the nations consistently, you’ll find that at some level you will have to go into action for the nations through giving, going, mobilizing, or serving.

During Ramadan 2022 (April 1-May 1), when all of the time committed to pray for Muslims across all of the 84 different initiatives was added up, it totaled 4 years, 359 days of prayer or 43,660 hours! The team at Pray4Movement is asking God for even more prayer initiatives and multiples of prayer hours totaled for the Muslim world in Ramadan 2023.

My heart aches for the millions in the land that I live in to know the Christ that came to save them not just from their evil deeds, but also from their good deeds done from wrong motives-from selfishness and self-righteousness, from outward religion to inward transformation. This Ramadan (Mar 22-April 21, 2023), technology has given our generation unprecedented opportunity to pray with insight and specificity for Muslim people groups, cities, and countries. Would you champion prayer for one of them among your family, friends, congregations, and partners?

This article was first published in Mission Frontiers: Women in Mission, Mar/April  2023 , pages 11-13. It was used here with permission.

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Cascading Movements

Cascading Movements

by Stan Parks

God is on the move! He is starting Church Planting Movements (CPMs), the only ministry approach in which kingdom growth exceeds population growth, while also transforming societies from within—in holistic and financially sustainable ways. In CPMs, disciples multiply disciples, churches multiply churches, and leaders multiply leaders. We are  also learning that movements multiply movements! A survey of leaders representing over 1500 CPMs showed that 80–90% of movements have been started by other movements. These movements  are cascading from their initial peoples and places into other peoples and places, both near and far. And these movements are our best hope under God to fulfill the Great Commission in our lifetime.

Matthew 28:19 records Jesus’ command to make disciples of all ethnē. And we know from Revelation 7:9 that there will be a vast multitude from every tribe and language and people and ethnē worshipping God before God’s  throne.  ALL.  EVERY. We don’t know when this will happen, but we do know this is God’s plan.

I use the Greek world ethnē because the common translation “nation” often causes people to think of political nation-states instead of ethno-linguistic nations. But seeing the church established in a political nation is not enough.

I was born in Indonesia, where my parents were missionaries and served during an amazing movement of God in 1966-68, when an estimated two million Javanese Muslims came into the church.1 Years later, my wife and I were praying about our call to missions. Where did God want us to go? We felt an urging from God to serve those in greatest need of the Gospel.

Due to the millions of Indonesian Christians, I saw no need for pioneer efforts there. Imagine my surprise to realize an estimated 121 million Indonesians were part of 200+ Unreached People Groups (UPGs)! In 1996, Indonesian leaders gathered to consider the Great Commission need within Indonesia. Significant collaborative advances were made in prayer, research and mobilization. Within just five years, the number of Indonesian UPGs being served by Gospel workers grew from only 21 to over 100! Amazing and sacrificial effortsm were made in the centuries prior and the years after 1996, but 28 years ago there were 121 million unreached Indonesians and today there are 192.5 million unreached Indonesians.

In 1996 and afterward, our motivation was right, our desire was great, tremendous prayer and mobilization happened, and many people made great sacrifices. But we made a fundamental mistake. We thought sending workers to all these groups would result in reaching them. But the vast majority of us used traditional methods to try to reach groups that had been either resistant or cut off from the Gospel for centuries. We saw some bright spots, but for the most part we failed to make enough impact to offer real hope of reaching these groups.

Around the world, there has been an upsurge in attention to the unreached in the last 30 years. But the results are not better.

  •  2.25 billion (28%) of the world’s people do not have access to the Gospel.2
  •  3.37 billion (42.5%) of the world’s people are members of the world’s 7,415 Unreached People Groups3.
  •  Only 18.3% of non-Christians personally know a Christian,4 and if current trends continue, that will grow to only 20% by 2050! How can they hear unless someone tells them?

And the problem is more complicated than just these facts.

Problem #1: We need to count up before we can count down.
One danger among some Great Commission thinkers is the desire to count down. We want to determine the number  of  groups  who  need  to  be reached, then mark them off our list—based   on certain markers of activities as opposed to outcomes. But our goal is the Gospel for every person and multiplying churches that saturate and transform every community within that people/ language/tribe/ethnē.

We almost certainly have more segments than just 7415 UPGs to reach. Some strategists estimate needing a movement effort for each segment of 100,000 people. One engagement for every segment of 100,000 people among 3.37 billion Unreached People Groups would be a minimum of 33,700 segments. When you add to “peoples” their “places” (such as the 43,000 world’s districts), the increase in complexity is daunting. If each district averages three segments, that could be 120,000 places in need of movements.

Answer: Movements are cascading into multiple people and places around  them.  With the DNA of every disciple being a disciple maker and close cultural affinity to the peoples around them, they are far better suited to reach them.

Problem #2: Some “single” people groups are actually multiple groups (they are waffles, not pancakes).
Jesus did not tell us to disciple a few individuals, but  to  disciple   entire   ethnē.   The   Greek   word ethnos (singular of ethnē) is defined as “a body of persons united by kinship, culture, and common traditions, nation, people.”5 Revelation 5:9 and 7:9 round out the picture of the ethnē who will be reached, adding three more descriptive terms: tribes, peoples, and languages—various groups with common identities.

In our urgency to simplify the task, for mobilization and strategy, we have  lost  some  wisdom  from the early pioneers  of  the  unreached  concept.  The Lausanne 1982 people group taskforce stated: for evangelistic purposes it is “the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance.”6

Here’s one specific example. In the 1990s, a research team led by Marvin Leech discovered that the Jawa (Javanese) people group, which had millions of believers and was counted as one large “reached” people group, was almost certainly at least eight distinct people groups by the Lausanne definition. Three of these groups had between 7–10% Evangelical Christians while five of them were less than 1% Christian. Obviously, barriers existed between the 10% Christian Jawa Negarigung and the 0.1% Christian Jawa Pesisir Lor. Counting them as one Jawa people group greatly neglected the five groups who were unreached.

Answer: We have seen movements start in all five of the Jawa UPGs in the last 10 years. They were started by movement catalysts from Indonesian and  Javanese  backgrounds.  Much  more  effort  is needed to reach 100+  million  Jawa  people,  but this is a very encouraging start. Also of great importance is that these Jawa movements and other movement practitioners are reaching out and have started multiplying disciples and churches, with movements in 30+ UPGs and some pre-movement fruit in another 40+ UPGs. This same dynamic is happening all over the world! You will read other exciting examples in the rest of this issue.

Problem #3: 2% may be too low.
A history of the term “unreached” shows that prior to 1980, 20% seemed to be the accepted line between reached and unreached. Then in the 1980s, various figures such as 5%, 10%, 20% began to circulate.

In 1995, a committee representing Operation World, Adopt-a-People, IMB, SIL, and AD2000 made a decision to choose “somewhat arbitrary” criteria of less than 2% Evangelical Christian and 5% Professing Christians.7

Dave Datema states he was “unable to find any  other research or study to back up the choice of  2% Evangelical as a criterion” nor could he find “research to justify” the use of 5%.”8

Interestingly, Patrick Johnstone writes in 2011 that many sociologists take 20% as the point at which a population segment begins to impact the worldview of the wider society.9

In 2011, a study out of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute found that the “tipping point” for the rapid spread of ideas was 10%. “Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.”10 Perhaps we should re-open the conversation about percentages and consider the current evidence in making this decision.

Answer: Movements are not just good at starting; they are very strong at sustaining efforts. Some movements are seeing 15, 20, even 30 generations. Once a movement reaches four generations in multiple streams, it is very likely to continue multiplying and effectively reach segments and sub- segments of their people group(s).

Problem #4: Overemphasis on ethno-linguistic groups
I have been an eager proponent of focusing on UPGs. But we have to admit that many of us have focused almost exclusively on ethno-linguistic groups, without significantly noting tribal, language, cultural, kinship and many other groupings.

Consider the reality that people groups are not segregated into one pure homogenous homeland. They are increasingly intermingled with other groups. This is why the 24:14 Coalition has the vision of movements in every unreached people and place.

The starkest example is cities. There are “593 majority non-Christian megacities”.11 Justin Long states that the incredible complexity of the cities “means that including ‘cities’ as segments to be listed, focused on, described, researched, documented, tracked, measured, and strategically engaged is probably just as important as ‘unreached people groups.’”12

Answer: Movements are increasingly focused on reaching cities and geographical segments, in addition to ethno-linguistic segments. Several of the articles in this edition offer examples of this.

Problem #5: The failures of the Church13

  •  The Church has roughly 3,000 times the financial resources and 9,000 times the manpower needed to finish the Great Commission.
  •  Evangelical Christians could provide all the funds needed to plant a church in each of the 7,400 unreached people groups, with only 0.03% of their income.
  •  Annually, we spend $52 billion on missions of any kind. Meanwhile $59 billion is lost to theft by church members.

Answer: God is doing a new thing! These movements are brand-new breakthroughs by God, with 2,000-year-old patterns. The global Church has the opportunity to join this fresh move of God. God is starting streams in the desert, as the most fruitful movements are growing in many of the (formerly) hardest, least reached peoples and places of the world. The rest of this issue shows the main way God seems to be working to reach the unreached.

In the article in this issue: “How Long to Reach  the Goal?,” Justin Long documents that since 1995, movements have grown at “an average annual growth rate of 23%, or the number of believers doubling on average every 3.5 years.” That is far different from the 1.18% average growth rate of global Christianity in the last 20 years, or even the 1.8% growth of Evangelical and 1.89% of Pentecostal Christians.

This 23% growth is primarily internal, as the movements reach their own populations.  And yet while seeking to reach their own desperately unreached people groups, these movement disciples are frequently compelled by the Spirit to reach beyond their borders to other nearby peoples and places.

We currently know of:

  •  1,967 CPMs
  •  1600+ pre-movements, with 2nd and 3rd generation fruit
  •  2000+ other movement engagements

Notably, 200+ initial CPMs have started approximately 3,300 CPMs and pre-CPMs! We can begin to see how 33,700 or even 120,000 movement engagements could be possible.

God our Creator loves variety. So while we can recognize similar principles, each story of a movement starting another movement is unique. Learn from the following examples of God’s cascading Gospel, as movements start movements.

1977 Indonesian Revival: Why Two Million Came to Christ
Status of Global Christianity
Urbanization and Measuring the Remaining Task
Unreached Peoples
Defining Unreached
Status of Global Christianity

As you read, ask God how you can be involved. Then read the concluding article, “What Must be Done?” for some specific ideas to spur your thinking.

About the Author: Stan is a Church Planting Movements trainer and a coach for leaders of Church Planting Movements around the world. He has been serving Unreached People Groups since 1994 while based in Indonesia, Singapore and Dubai. He is Co-Facilitator of the 24:14 Coalition which is focused on Kingdom Movement engagements in every Unreached People and place by 2025.

This article was first published in Mission Frontiers: Cascading Gospel: Movements Starting Movements, Jan/Feb 2023, pages 8-11. It was used here with permission.

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What Must Be Done?

What Must Be Done?

by Stan Parks

In some movements, their obedience question is “Since this Bible passage is true, how will you apply this in your life this week?” As you have read about movements starting movements, you might ask, “In light of this, what shall I do now?” An even better question is not, “What can I do?” but “What must be done?”

We don’t expect these movements to reach the world by themselves. God invites his global body to be part of finishing the Great Commission. We each have a part to play.

A seminary professor was urging prospective American church leaders to redistribute God’s resources to the rest of the world instead of lavishing it on ourselves. He said, “I say it respectfully, but I say it forcefully. God is not that stupid a general.” The disciples in movements are our most effective and strategic frontline Gospel messengers. We need to realign our Great Commission efforts to fully support them.

They are not asking or waiting for logistical and financial support to reach other people groups. They are already reaching out because they are empowered by the Holy Spirit and driven by their love for the lost and their desire to glorify God. But they recognize help from outside can enable them to reach more groups more quickly.

We need to avoid a misplaced nationalism that says, “Citizens of each nation must reach all their unreached peoples and places with no outside help, lest we promote dependency.” The  movements  are not asking for help  for  their  internal  costs  (to develop and sustain their movements). They fund those things locally. Yet as they plan and work to reach groups outside themselves, we can come alongside them and help with reaching each and every unreached group.

Six principles for helping movements should inform us all, regardless of our role.

  1. Prayer is first. The importance of prayer cannot be overstated. Informed, strategic prayer must be the foundation of every effort to reach the unreached. We are in a spiritual battle for the eternal souls of men, women, and  children.  We can’t afford to fight with earthly weapons. Every disciple of Jesus can play an important part in this, no matter their location or situation.
  2. Aim for holistic Church Planting Movements (CPM), not for various ministries as an end in themselves. CPMs are not one type of ministry alongside other types of ministries. Community development, medical work, arts, media, and Bible translation — all can both help begin CPMs and blossom as fruit of CPMs. As Jesus establishes his church, all the various types of transformative ministries will arise from within the church in that culture and community.
  3. The entire body of Christ is needed. 1 Corinthians 12 shows the need for honoring and collaborating with the whole body of Christ.
  4. True partnership among local disciples and outsiders. National and international outsiders need to defer to the necessary leadership of local disciples. At the same time, local leaders need to humbly encourage true partnerships.
  5. Funding should empower. All too often money  is given in a disempowering and dishonoring manner. Funding should be based on outcomes rather than activities, particularly when these movements have a long record of fruitfulness. One exciting model is foundations prioritizing assistance for movements and setting up task forces of movement catalysts and leaders to help evaluate the proposals.
  6. Cooperation not control. Many  movements have arisen from cooperation among national and international denominations, churches, seminaries, and agencies. This requires honoring one another despite different approaches, while honestly evaluating the impact of various efforts.

As you consider ways to help movements cascade, keep these things in mind.

1) Movements are not waiting for you to volunteer. You will need to patiently and graciously offer your help without demanding anything from movement leaders. You can imagine the load they carry, with movements doubling every 3.5 years, while trying to reach out to new peoples and places. And most live and serve in the midst of brutal governmental and religious opposition and persecution.

2) You may not be able to connect directly with movement leaders, due to security, their lack of time, or other considerations. But there are other ways to serve.

3) Movement leaders are looking for people to first and foremost be their brothers and sisters. As relationships and trust are built, possibilities for you to help may emerge.

4) You need to do all you can to learn about movements and become a movement practitioner right where you are. Your potential for being helpful is greater if you yourself are living a disciple-making lifestyle.

You may be called to be a Movement Servant. (See “Movement Servants Needed!” in MF May-June 2021, 37-41 and “Movement Servants — Helping Movements Multiply” in MF Nov-Dec 2022 for some specific ways you might help.) This involves patiently preparing yourself, and at the right times doing your best to do anything and everything asked of you by the movement(s) you serve.

However, you do not have to be a full-time movement servant to help. You could help in a wide variety of ways, including prayer, research, crisis response, medicine,  community   development, business for access to new areas, media 4 movements, funding, technology, Bible and media distribution, administrative help, supervising interns, etc. ‘For up-to-date information about these items and other possibilities, email us at cascade@2414now.net

Individuals, teams, churches, organizations, and agencies — what could you do to involve (or better involve) your entire group in these efforts? What could you give up? What could you change? Are you willing to make radical changes?

We thank God for what he is doing through movements in our day. Especially for the spontaneous multiplication of movements planting other movements among the unreached. Are you willing to lay aside whatever you need to, in order to be a part of doing whatever it takes to see movements in every unreached people and place in this generation?

About the Author: Stan is a Church Planting Movements trainer and a coach for leaders of Church Planting Movements around the world. He has been serving Unreached People Groups since 1994 while based in Indonesia, Singapore and Dubai. He is Co-Facilitator of the 24:14 Coalition which is focused on Kingdom Movement engagements in every Unreached People and place by 2025.

This article was first published in Mission Frontiers: Cascading Gospel: Movements Starting Movements, Jan/Feb 2023, pages 38-39. It was used here with permission.

How Long to Reach the Goal?

How Long to Reach the Goal?

by Justin Long

Since 2015, I have been laboring to document the spread of rapidly multiplying movements around the world. As of 2022, over 1% of the world’s population are disciples of Jesus in such movements: at least 114 million people in 8.5 million churches, found in 1,967 movements.

Additionally, 3,500 teams are working to start  more movements, steadily aiming toward the promise found in Matthew 24:14 — …this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world, as a witness to all nations…

The goal of the 24:14 Coalition has been “to engage every unreached people and place with an effective kingdom movement strategy by December 31, 2025.” How close are we? Are we likely to meet or even exceed the goal?

As part of my research, I have collected data on which languages in which provinces have teams aiming to catalyze a movement. I have tracked how fast new teams are being sent. Based on the compilation of that data, it appears that having teams engaging every language in every province by 2025 isn’t likely. However, while I am mildly pessimistic about reaching that goal by 2025, I am very optimistic about seeing it reached within my lifetime. I strongly believe that somewhere between movements in many places.

Here’s why.

Thirty-five years ago, movements were largely catalyzed by the combined work of an outside catalyst (a “missionary”) and an inside near-culture believer. We see this origin story behind nearly all the movement families. However, for most movements being founded today, this is no longer the case. New movements are mainly being started by existing movements.

This makes sense when we consider that movements in 2022 are comprised of thousands – even million s– of disciples who have been spiritually raised in an environment that takes for granted that each believer: 1) follows Jesus, 2) teaches others to follow Jesus, and 3) reaches out to non-believers, inviting them to follow Jesus.

These disciples can go to unreached places where no Westerner can go. These places are, for them, just next door, down the road, or over the hill. And they can do this faster because they don’t usually have to learn a new language or culture. Not only can they go more easily, but they are also going intentionally. Their own movements began out of a vision to reach the un-reached, so it’s perfectly natural for them to intentionally send teams of believers to nearby unreached peoples, and use their already-lived methodology to start new movements among those groups.

Over 90% of the new movements started in the past five to 10 years have been started by teams sent out from these movements — without any Western cross-cultural workers involved. This has resulted in a phenomenal multiplication of sending. While, as I said, I do not believe we will see teams in every language and place by 2025, I do believe that goal will be reached shortly thereafter. I believe this because we can see the fruit of this multiplication already.

We have collected data on the total growth of individual movements in five-year increments from 1995 to 2025. This data set is not completely comprehensive. It is the “floor” not the “ceiling,” but it is large enough to give us a sense of the overall direction and speed of growth.

In 1995, we knew of close to 10,000 disciples in movements. Today, we know of well over 114 million. This means there have been four “10X growth points” when the number of disciples in movements had grown by 10 times:

From 1995 to 2000, grew from 10,000 to over 100,000 disciples

From 2000 to 2005, from 100,000 to over 1 million

From 2005 to 2015, from 1 million to over 10 million

From 2015 to today, from 10 million to more than 114 million

This is an average annual growth rate of 23%, with the number of believers doubling on average every 3.5 years!

It is dangerous to predict the future. I have often quoted the old Wall Street disclaimer: “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” I know many things could potentially derail growth. However, consider the context of the past 30 years: wars, rumors of wars, pandemic disease, severe persecution, hostility from many traditional churches — in fact, pretty much everything we read in Matthew 24. I do not cite that famous passage to suggest I believe we are living in the end times. As anyone who knows me can attest, I resist eschatological predictions.

I am only saying that phenomenal growth in movements has occurred in the midst of, in spite of, and sometimes amplified by all these Black Swans.

If we estimate that what movements have done over the past 35 years, they are likely to continue doing for the next 25 — on to 2050 — what would the result be? A simple extrapolation of the growth trends would lead to two more points of 10X growth: one in 2035 and the other in 2045.

By 2040, a 23% annual growth rate would equal 4.2 billion disciples in movements.

By 2045, a 23% annual growth rate would equal 12 billion disciples.

The first would lead to a population of believers that is more than double Christianity’s 2022 total, and the second would exceed the world’s total estimated population for 2050.

Some might throw up their hands at such numbers. Why bring it up, when the numbers are obviously impossible, since one cannot have more disciples than there are people in the world? I address this not because the numbers are possible but because of the on-the-ground reality the numbers point to — that movements are filling up the places where they presently are. As they do, they are sending new teams go to “the next door” places — many of which are over harder boundaries. Each place that movements are entering, they are filling up. As a result, they are learning, rapidly, to cross successively harder cultural, linguistic, and political lines on the map.

While we recognize from Scripture that not everyone will follow Jesus (the gate is narrow…) our goal must be to share the Gospel with every person and family and group and pray that none would perish but all come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). Some people groups are a reported 95% evangelical. We aim for 100%, knowing that this is not likely. BUT what lesser goal should we aim for? Ultimately, only God knows the dynamics of these situations, so we trust him to sort it out.

Will this happen everywhere? William Gibson once famously said, “The future is here — it’s just not evenly distributed yet.” The same could be said of movements. There are a lot of believers in movements in certain parts of the world, and fewer in others. In some countries, multiplying the current number of disciples in movements by 10 would bring the country to over 100% Christian. In others, multiplying by 10 would still leave the movement as a small percentage of the country.

 By comparing the populations of each country to the number of disciples in the country, we can estimate the number of 10X increments required to get past — or at least very near — the line of 100% Christian.

To see what I mean, consider a fictitious country of “Versa.” It has a population of 100,000. If one were to start with one believer, five 10X multiplications would be required to reach nearly 100%: 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, and 100,000.

Due to security, I cannot name specific countries. But we can break down the world’s countries as follows:
39 have movements that need only one 10X for the country to be reach 100% Christian (based on the movement’s size alone, not any other Christians in the country); 90 need two 10X multiples; 50 need three 10X multiples; 27 need four 10X multiples; 17 need five 10X multiples, and four are less than one 10X away from completion. On average, each 10X multiplication currently requires a decade.

If we continue in the same vein, thirty years — three 10X multiplications — would be enough to bring 179 countries to the range of 100% Christ-followers through the efforts of multiplying movements alone — not including any other “Christians” of any other kinds.

In 30 years — one generation — a dramatic change in the world could bubble to the surface.

 Is this possible? Lest we think 30 years is a long time and wonder whether movements have that kind of staying power, consider that the oldest movement in the world has been around for 35 years and is now estimated to be tens of millions of disciples in size.

Will this work actually impact the unreached or — as with most Christian work — will it mainly affect countries that are at least marginally Christianized? Many of the 47 unreached countries (look at any list of countries that are less than 8% Christian by most global measures) are among these 179 that would require only  three  10X  multiplications. As noted earlier, movements can more easily send to “nearby, down the road” unreached groups — and are intentionally doing so.

How many unreached groups could be reached by these movements? How might we measure this question?

I analyzed what we presently know about the deployment of movement teams. While we know quite a bit more than when the 24:14 Coalition began in 2017, the “language-and-place” information about movement deployments is still thin, so this is a minimalist analysis. Despite that caveat, here’s how the data stacks up. My database lists 4,098 provinces. Of these, 517 are known to be engaged by a movement-catalyst team (not necessarily at movement stage yet).

 An additional 785 provinces directly border an engaged province — for example, Oklahoma shares a border with Texas. So, if we propose that a province is in reach if they are “next door” to a province that is currently engaged, then over a third of the world’s provinces are either engaged or conceivably within reach of a movement team right now. (And many of those provinces are actually on the border of more than one engaged province — meaning resources could be brought to bear from multiple avenues.)

To focus on the remaining task, we know of a total of 935 provinces in the countries that are less than 8% Christian (a rough measure of the least reached areas of the world). Uttar Pradesh is one well known example, with published case studies and books and the like. Of those 935, 215 are known to be engaged, and a further 315 are in range (in this model, for example, all the provinces bordering UP). This means 45% of the provinces of the least-reached places of the world are right now known either to be already engaged or engageable by near-culture movement teams (and again, this is what we know — more is certainly happening).

I have heard plenty of stories from movements in the field of sending people to the next province, to the next people group, or even over the border to the next country. Many of them have asked me specifically for “gap lists” so they know where to intentionally send teams. These movements are eager to engage the lost.

In most of these countries, most of these believers are deep underground. If the movement numbers are in the right order of magnitude — and I have no reason to doubt they are — then the published estimates of percent Christian for many places are off by an order of magnitude.

Lately, movement leaders have shared anecdotal stories of government leaders in countries discovering large numbers of Christians in their communities. Some of these stories have been in the context of election campaigns, as election workers went house to house to mobilize the vote.

 There are also multiple reports of both government and religious leaders warning about the significant growth of Christians and often calls for violent opposition to this trend. Global researchers — not just myself, but others — have asked, “When will you become visible?” and have been told, “When there are so many of us that nothing can be done about it anymore.”

I am reminded of a line from The Lord of the Rings, “A thing is about to happen that has not happened since the elder days. The Ents are going to wake up and find that they are strong.” I suspect something very similar will play out in the next generation, in many places around Africa and Asia. When people realize the number of Christ-followers that are around, quite a few significant dynamics could play out. It would probably be futile to try to predict what those will be. There will be amazing stories of turnings to Christ and there will also be painful stories of violence, repression, and martyrdom.

We love Habakkuk’s promise that one day, The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14). It does seem we are in a time when the waters are rising. I know history has seen times of advance and times of retreat. I pray we will labor to help believers around the world — and especially movements around the world — to fuel their current expansion and remove any barrier that might hinder this glorious spread.

This article was first published in Mission Frontiers Cascading Gospel: Movements Starting Movements, Jan/Feb 2023 issue, pages 34-37.
It was used here with permission.

About the author: Justin has spent the last 30+ years developing and contributing to various missions efforts including: the World Christian Encyclopedia, the strategicnetwork.org, the Ethné network, and the Movements Database. His research findings and missions articles have been published in several places, and currently publishes a weekly newsletter at justinlong.org.

 

 

Small Disciple-Making Habits Part Two

Small Disciple-Making Habits Part Two

by C. Anderson

How does this apply to disciple-makers? Is this humanistic thinking? Or has James Clear actually observed something about human behavior that God designed?

Zechariah 4:10 comes to mind. “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.” God rejoices in small beginnings and tells us we too should celebrate them! Psalm 139:14 says that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Created in God’s image, to display His glory, if humans make progress through regular habits, it’s because God created us to do so.

 An overlapping concept is the idea of spiritual disciplines, also called spiritual practices. Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Ruth Hailey-Barton, and others have helped us see their vital importance in spiritual transformation. Prayer, Bible reading, gratefulness, silence, solitude and others are transformative in our lives. Why not add to these key disciple-making habits as well?

Experimenting with Disciple-Making Habits
Each reader should prayerfully consider what habits they could begin. Think of what would set you (and those you train) on a consistent trajectory toward the rapid multiplication of groups of disciples. Here are a few new habits I am experimenting with. Perhaps they will spark ideas to consider.

1. Always asking the server how I can pray for them when they bring my food.
Initiating spiritual conversations can be difficult, especially for introverts. I needed to create a habit where I don’t have to think about what to say, or how to transition into talking about Jesus. In the last few weeks, I’ve started a new practice. Every time we eat out, after the server brings the food I say, “We are followers of Jesus and like to thank Him for our food. We appreciate your serving us today. Is there anything you’d like God to do for you? We’d love to include that in our prayer.” As a result, I’m having new spiritual conversations every time I eat out.

2. Praying every day at 5:50 am for five people I am coaching as well as for 50 new movements.
Last week we met as a Disciple Makers Increase (disciplemakersincrease.org) leadership team. We talked about Atomic Habits and decided together that each day at 5:50 am our team would set an alarm and pause to pray. Each of us is choosing five people we are coaching life-on-life. At that time, we will pray for them, then pray for our big corporate goal of releasing 50 new movements.

Prayer is such a key to seeing greater fruit! Developing a simple prayer habit that you and those you train   can follow could have a massive cumulative impact. Especially if it is one that is related to praying for the lost and for those you are training as disciple-makers.

3.Stopping to chat a few minutes with any neighbor.
In many cultures, this is  already  normative.  If  you  see someone, you stop to greet them. In other places, particularly in the West, we barely notice the people around us. We don’t engage with lost people, nor do we know their names or pray for them, even if they live next door!

It may feel overwhelming for those you train to think of skillfully giving a clear 10-minute Creation to Christ presentation to their neighbor. Make it easy! Something that takes only two minutes. The first habit can be to regularly stop and say hello and ask someone how they are doing. Do this whenever you see a neighbor outside. It may mean you stop your car and roll down your window to greet them. You won’t be late, it only takes two minutes. Practice friendliness.

Then, after that simple exchange, pause to offer a breath prayer for God to bless them.

Once this habit is established, add other habits to it. You might add other open-ended questions like “What’s been good about your day today?” Follow that by sharing something from yours. Or add sharing a three-minute testimony or Bible story. First, though, we have to become comfortable engaging in conversation with lost people.

At recent meetings, one of my Indian friends decided to learn how to swim. The hotel where we stayed had a swimming pool, and each day she and her husband practiced simple steps. The first step was to become comfortable in the water. She needed to learn to relax there and simply enjoy being in the water.

Many Christians used to staying in their church-friend bubble have forgotten how to be comfortable in the water that lost people swim in. Train yourself and others to take one small step. Apply a super easy habit, engaging intentionally with the lost around you.

4. After sharing a testimony or having a spiritual conversation, always ask “Would you like to hear more about this? Or read the Bible together sometime?” then follow that up with “Is there anyone you know who might also like to join us?”
This is a simple habit for those who regularly share the gospel. It can lead to the formation of groups of disciples.

What Disciple-Making Habits Could You Begin?
Time and space don’t allow me to unpack all the applications to disciple-making that my learning from Atomic Habits holds. If this article has sparked interest in you, get the book and prayerfully think it through. Feel free to write to me with your applications and we can think and grow together in this.

I’ve given enough though, for you to think of one disciple-making habit you could put in place this week. One that would set you on a trajectory toward greater fruit. You may want to discuss this article with your team and come up with a few corporate habits that you do together.

A characteristic of Disciple Making Movements is that every believer functions as a disciple-maker. It is not only the professional clergy making disciples and sharing their faith.

Motivating church members to make disciples can be too big a leap. Make it easy. Start small. Do it together. Habit stack. Don’t concentrate only on the goal of leading people to Christ, starting groups, or a movement. Focus on the systems and habits that set disciples on a path that leads to multiplication.

What new disciple-making habit will you start this week?

About the Author: C. Anderson is an experienced field practitioner and leader. The past 27 years, she served in Asia with YWAM Frontier Missions. Anderson trains and coaches both international and indigenous church planters toward the launching of Disciple Making Movements. She blogs weekly about DMM related issues at dmmsfrontiermissions.com

Small Disciple-Making Habits (Part One)