Missions | Beyond

Small Disciple-Making Habits Part Two

Dec 7, 2022 | Longer Reads

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)

Are You Mary or Zechariah?

Nov 30, 2022 | Stories

John and another north Indian movement leader traveled to meet with ten Muslim men who had said they wanted to know more about Isa al Masih (Jesus). John and his friend shared some verses from the Qur’an about Jesus and the Old and New Testaments. The group liked what they heard. They did not immediately become followers of Jesus that day, but neither did they argue. They are open. They said, “You have taught us a lot! Please come back.” John plans to return another time.

A key movement practice is to go and go again. We can’t keep returning for years or maybe even months if no one shows spiritual interest. Because the harvest is plentiful, we must not waste time with those who aren’t ready. But where we find authentic interest, we can consider the door to still be open.

The movement leaders have learned the difference between genuine questioning and argumentative spirits. It is the difference between Mary’s awe-struck “How can this be?” and Zechariah’s scoffing “How can this be?”

Some people, like the group above, say, “Wow. This is a lot to take in. I need some time to think about it. But please come back and tell us more later.” But when we meet those who only want to argue, we can say, “I love you too much to argue,” and move on to others who are open to listening to the Good News. We can trust God to give the skeptics (modern Zechariahs) another chance (and another and another), even if not with us. But we must be willing to move on, staying in step with the Spirit, to find and share with those who are ready to hear the good news.

Thrown into Slavery

Nov 2, 2022 | Stories

PART ONE

Bahar and his paternal uncle, Navi, traveled to a faraway province in their South Asian country in search of work.

Not long after arriving, they had a dispute with some local people. Because Bahar and Navi were poor migrant workers who spoke a different language, they were handed over to corrupt officials. They were immediately thrown into slavery and forced to work long hours.

They were beaten daily and told they would be killed and chopped up into pieces if they didn’t obey.

For 45 days, Bahar and Navi prayed to their Hindu gods, pleading to be released from their slavery. But nothing happened.

Then Bahar said, “I have heard of someone named Jesus, and that if people pray in his name, he answers them.” So they started praying to Jesus, asking him to make a way for their escape. Jesus immediately spoke to them and told them he would rescue them. He told them which day to leave, how to escape, and where to go. Encouraged, they began to pray more earnestly. Six days later, on the exact day Jesus had said, they were able to escape and begin the journey home! Bahar and Navi knew Jesus had saved them.

Don’t miss part two next week.

Queens, Killer Bees and Multiplication

Oct 19, 2022 | Stories

Charlie and Sarah have been stretched a lot lately, and at times they have felt quite discouraged. They continue to find people who seem interested in following Jesus, only for them to lose interest or push away for various reasons. Language is a constant challenge. And recently, three disciple-makers they have invested in for 18 months decided to head in a different direction.

“As we took our discouragement to the Father,” Sarah shared, “God reminded us of a seemingly unrelated experience a few
years ago …. with bees.

“Several years ago, while stateside, we discovered a colony of bees living inside a wall in our house. After relocating the hive to our backyard in a newly purchased beehive box, Charlie began learning the art of beekeeping while watching the bees grow in numbers. Unfortunately, the colony was lost when the queen bee mated with an Africanized drone, a “killer bee.” The resulting colony was extremely violent; it even tried to kill Charlie when he accidentally bumped the hive while mowing. We thought of buying a new queen and some worker bees to restart a colony, but we sensed God saying to just put the now-empty beehive box into the garage and wait. Maybe our beekeeping days were over.

“Then, lo and behold, a neighbor found a large clump of bees in a tree and called us. Charlie immediately knew this was a swarm protecting a queen looking for a new home. So, we relocated the swarm to our beehive box, and the colony started growing and multiplying. It is still going strong to this day, making honey that, God willing, will be enjoyed for years to come.

“You see, God provided the first bees. He took them away. And, then he provided us with the second set of bees which continues to multiply to this day. All Charlie did was scoop them off the tree branch while giving them a healthy environment in which to live!

“Job 1:21 says: The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised. God has reminded us that any fruit in ministry is His fruit. We are only called to be obedient disciples. The fruit is not a burden we are asked to bear.

“Jesus told his disciples: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Mat 11:28-30)”

When we face discouragement, let’s go to our knees to ask how God wants to mold us to be better servants and witnesses for Him.
Related Reads:
We Walked As He Parted the Waters
Getting to the Harvest is Doable
I Told Him I was Quitting
Trading Tradition for Multiplication

Obedience to God’s Word Overcomes Systemic Prejudice

Oct 5, 2022 | Longer Reads

by the Walker Family
The movement with which we are connected is bringing transformation—not just to the lives of families and individuals, but also to deeply rooted social problems including systemic prejudice.

The early church celebrated the Lord’s Supper: “They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity” (Acts 2:46 NLT). A few years ago, we learned of some churches in the Listening Movement that were not taking the Lord’s Supper. India’s systemic sin of casteism was the root of the problem. Casteism dictates that eating with a low-caste person makes a high-caste person spiritually unclean. “We cannot take the Lord’s Supper across caste lines,” they explained.

Sanjay,* the main leader in the area, didn’t know how to tackle this issue. We were out of the country at the time, so he wrote to us for advice: “What should we do?”

Teaching obedience is very different from simply teaching about Jesus or about the Bible. Jesus’ final command to His disciples was to make more disciples, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). At its core, casteism is racism. Prejudice in any form is unacceptable to God. It runs contrary to the truth that all of us are made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27). Within His Church, racism violates the Lord’s commands to both “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34), and “in humility value others above yourselves” (Phil. 2:3b). Casteism, meanwhile, teaches that from birth, some people are better and more valuable than others.

In the Indian context, caste is a huge issue. The churches needed heart changes about this systemic Indian problem. Mere verbal assents to a teaching we might give weren’t going to suffice. We needed God to touch their hearts. To get there, the churches needed to learn from the Bible, not from us. We gave Sanjay a list of verses addressing the equality of all people in God’s kingdom, and how in Jesus, all barriers – including gender – are dissolved. We also prayed like crazy.

Sanjay took these Scriptures to the leaders of the movement. They studied God’s Word together. They discussed what God was saying regarding casteism and the Lord’s Supper. Sanjay did not preach or teach. He gave them the Scriptures. He prayed. He asked questions. They all looked at Scripture together. Finally, the leaders (not Sanjay) came to the conclusion that, “If I am in Jesus, I am no longer Brahmin (or whatever caste I was born into). I can either be a Brahmin, or in Jesus, but I cannot be both. If that’s the option, then I want to be in Jesus!”

It is important to note that we are not turning the above personal application statements into doctrinal statements for all the churches. These particular churches wrestled with the Scripture, then applied it to their personal lives in this context of casteism. This is what it means to teach others to obey Jesus. From the very beginning, even before these Brahmin families called themselves followers of Jesus, they had been taught to not just listen to Bible stories, but to apply them. Thus, when this issue arose, the DNA of “obey the Word” was already established. They had no idea that casteism was anathema to Jesus’ kingdom. So we gave them the Word, they wrestled with it and then applied it to their personal lives. They chose unity over disunity, to count all things as loss compared to knowing Jesus. And since they are committed to teaching their disciples to also obey Jesus, we know they will share the Bible verses with others.

How do we know they really meant what they said? Through their actions. After declaring they wanted to be “in Jesus,” the leaders did something seldom seen in their context. They apologized. In front of each other, without attempting to save face or defend themselves, they admitted: “We are sorry; we were wrong” both to Sanjay and to their disciples. Apologizing in public is a big deal anywhere, but it’s huge in Asia. Usually, apologies here are passive at best. For someone here to take ownership of a wrong they have done and apologize, not just to someone they consider “above” themselves (Sanjay), but also to people who look up to them (their disciples), is stunning. We were speechless!

That’s not all. After apologizing, the leaders intentionally gathered multiple churches with mixed caste-background people, and they all took communion together! This may sound like a small thing to outsiders, but this is a huge thing for India. Casteism is the filter through which the vast majority of Indians think about relationships and community. God broke into their hearts and minds through His Word alone. Hebrews 12:4 says, “For the Word of God is living and active and full of power [making it operative, energizing, and effective]. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating as far as the division of the soul and spirit [the completeness of a person], and of both joints and marrow [the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and judging the very thoughts and intentions of the heart” (AMP). We have always believed this to be true. Now we have seen it in action, bringing transformation to individuals and to whole churches. What a joy!

“Teach them to obey all that I’ve commanded you.” Sadly, we Christians tend to believe that lectures, sermons and codified theological doctrines will accomplish this task. But we need to ask ourselves: is all the sharing of information resulting in obedient disciples of Jesus, even when His commands run directly counter to their deeply ingrained cultural patterns and habits? When the Holy Spirit speaks through the Bible, people recognize that they are accountable to Jesus for their obedience (or disobedience). Praise God that discovering His will through group study of His Word helps people learn to obey Jesus for themselves. It is a priceless, humble privilege to watch God tear down destructive attitudes and practices, and build up an out-of-this-world fellowship among people from all kinds of diverse backgrounds. Hallelujah!

This article was used with permission and was first published in Mission Frontiers

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