Disciple Making Movements

Even Though Sharing the Gospel was Hard at First

Oct 1, 2018 | Stories

The following testimony from one of our newest missionaries was shared with our training department last week. Savannah shares about how she came to be interested in disciple making movements and why she chose to go with Beyond. “Growing up in a Christian home, I heard and believed the gospel from a young age. But, shyness and fear prevented me from making a lot of friends and speaking up in groups.

In college, I felt convicted by God to share the gospel with people who were far away from Him, but this was really hard for me because I wouldn’t naturally reach out to people I didn’t know. Then, a friend reminded me that God loves me no matter what, even if I struggled with fear or if none of the people I talked to received the gospel. That was so freeing! I felt like a new person.

During college, I went on two summer mission trips; one to Bangladesh and one to China. After returning from the second trip, I was looking for other people with a heart for the nations. While searching online, I clicked on a small group at my church. It turned out to be the Launch Global group: a year-long training for aspiring missionaries to make disciples. I learned how to make disciples, and helped lead groups the following two years. Today, I still keep in touch with women serving in Asia, South America and the Arab world that I discipled through that experience.

As God nudged me that I, myself needed to go as a missionary, BEYOND was a natural choice for me for several reasons. First, I knew Kent and Erika, BEYOND’s president and his wife, from attending church with them before I went to college. Second, BEYOND’s vision for launching movements of disciples among unreached people groups resonated with my own heart. Additionally, the collective wisdom from experience of BEYOND’s members and their willingness to help me in my journey to the nations attracted me to join. I’m excited to serve with BEYOND among an unreached people group in Asia.

Please keep Savannah in your prayers as she adjusts to living in another country and culture. Pray that the Lord will go before her, that He will give her favor, that He will bring persons of peace to her and create opportunities to share His great love.

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Praying Kingdom Opposites

Sep 27, 2018 | Stories

From a field worker in Austronesia: “Yanti* called, desperate to line up a second DMM training. She described renewed enthusiasm and attested that this is the only method that really works in her region. We had trained other partners from the same region and when I (Melissa*) mentioned them, she described an ugly falling-out. This is a perfect scenario to pray Kingdom opposites over the work that was begun. God’s Kingdom is full of unity and peace (Ephesians 2:14, 4:3). Instead of division, I pray unity and peace over the situation, so that His glory will be showcased through these followers of Christ: “The glory You have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and You in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent me and loved them even as You loved me” John 17:22,23.

As illustrated above, praying Kingdom opposites means asking God to bring His Kingdom-sized future into being. Our prayers of faith are based on God’s promises, specifically those in direct opposition to troubling things presently happening. God has already declared His intentions through His promises. When we align our prayers with His declared intent, He will answer. Our lives will be changed from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18). As we wait on Him in prayer, we will see what else He will accomplish. Because, as God speaks, all opposition to His anointed King will fail. King David knew this when he penned Psalm 2 and Psalm 24:7-10. As we become aware of hindrances to the advance of God’s Kingdom, may we ask all the more for His Kingdom to come, and His will to be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6:10). May we usher in the King of Glory as His Kingdom reigns in and through our lives and our prayers.

A Few More Examples of Kingdom Opposites

• Confusion: Peace. “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace” 1 Cor 14:33.
• Hard hearts: Receptivity. Pray that Gospel seeds will fall on hearts prepared to receive it. Matt 13:8
• Despair: Hope. “Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, and he who believes in Him, shall not be disappointed.” I Pet 2:6.
• Weakness: Strength. “The joy of the Lord is my strength” Neh 8:10b.
• Rejection: Acceptance. “for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” I Pet 2:10.
• False religion: One Way. “There is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” 1 Tim 2:3-5.
• Mental fog: Clarity. “Gird your mind for action, sober in spirit, fixed hope on God’s grace” 1 Pet 1:13.
• Frustration in language learning: God’s provision. “The Lord has given me the tongue of disciples and He awakens my ear to listen” Isaiah 50:4,5.
• Darkness: Light. “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” John 8:12.
• Destruction: Life. “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” John 6:33.
• Deception and lies: Truth. “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” John 8:31b-32.
• Fear: Love. “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” 2 Tim 1:7.
• Unbelief and Doubt: Faith. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” Heb 11:1.
• Weariness: Rest. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” Matt 11:28

*pseudonyms

When Buildings are Useful

Sep 15, 2018 | Stories

Many people have the misconception that Church Planting Movements are opposed to buildings. What we are opposed to is the unwise use of God’s resources.

In some movements, buildings are used for community centers, community outreach, and training centers. This enables a movement to be a blessing to the community, and to train believers with a focus on Disciple Making Movement principles.

Some movements have decided that, rather than constantly renting facilities, they are better off building something or simply buying a property and saving the rent money to be used on other costs. Beyond’s own global headquarters (given to us by God through a donor) is a good example. By renting out most of the building, much of the mortgage payment is covered while we can also provide affordable office space for other ministries and small businesses. We also try to use the building as a vision-casting tool.

Our brightly colored, vibrant “Vision” wall in our offices illustrates how disciple-making movements reproduce churches that start churches that start churches–and includes many faces of the different cultures, ethnicities and continents of the world. The wall gives a global glimpse of our areas of focus and the movements we have impacted–and the massive ⅓ of the world which still has never heard or seen Jesus’ Good News.

About a year ago, a prospective employee was being interviewed for a position. We showed her the wall to help her understand Beyond’s mission. She prayed that day that she would get the job because of the faces on the wall (she did!). She had been a Christian for years and in ministry for a long time, but had never experienced such a burden for the unreached as she did that morning.

This “Vision” wall has similarly impacted many who visit–both believers and non-believers. When the Unreached are just statistics in a faraway land, it is easy to forget. When you see their pictures and look into their eyes, the enormity of the Great Commission becomes more pressing, and more urgent.

If buildings enable practical ministry and more vision-casting and better funding, they can be effective tools for vision-casting and for making disciples of all Unreached peoples. Pray that God would continue to break the hearts of believers who visit us in this building, that they too would get the urgency of Matthew 28:18-20.

God Changes Even the Hardest Hearts

Sep 11, 2018 | Stories

Recently, Wilson, one of our field workers got to meet with Mr. Suni, a local worker. Mr. Suni was born and raised a Muslim with very strong convictions about his faith. Upon graduating high school, he joined a hardcore religious group that trained him to be sent out as a “Muslim missionary.” In his first two-year assignment, he was tasked with converting people to Islam on one of the islands.

One day he heard a radio broadcast story about Jesus. He called into the radio station seeking to know if the things he was hearing about Jesus, so different from what he’d been taught, were true. After months of Mr. Suni pursuing truth and the lady at the radio station faithfully answering his questions, he renounced Islam and put his faith in Jesus!

The lady that answered those calls is now his wife and they now live and serve P-city, aiming to bring the Good News there.

It is amazing that God can change even the hardest of hearts and is now using Mr. Suni to draw others to Himself! Pray that our local partner, Danny, and his team will be able to work together with Mr. Suni in the future to engage this extremely devout Muslim area.

We hope these stories are as encouraging for you as they are us in showing God’s faithfulness to answer prayer.

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Always There, at the End of Ourselves

Sep 11, 2018 | Stories

It had been almost a year that Luke and his family arrived in their host country. After learning the language, acclimating to the culture in the capital city of this remote East Asian country, they started moving into the countryside. It was around midnight when Luke and his team had finished loading three vehicles in preparation for their big move early the next morning.

Everyone had already gone to bed when Luke discovered that the used brake line which he had installed after replacing a wheel bolt earlier that evening was leaking. He struggled alone for hours to fix it. Feeling frustrated and at the end of himself, Luke prayed quietly, crying out for God to help him. Seconds later, he heard gentle footsteps approaching. There in front of his vehicle stood a smiling, young man, a native from those parts, who offered to help. He helped Luke repair the brake line and the next morning Luke and his family drove the three-day journey to what felt like the end of the earth, which has now become their home.

Nate praised God for sending the young man to help and felt comforted that the God who led them to that remote part of the world would continue to help him and his family build His kingdom among the least reached peoples at the ends of the Earth.

Please pray for Luke and his family, that they would experience many more moments of God’s provision and intervention as they help spread the good news of the gospel in this village that has become their home.

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