Journal - February 2010

 
 

February 21 - Unconventional Church Planting

The methodology of church-planting here is like nothing we’ve seen before!

In fact it's so untraditional we have our own questions. However it's working all over South Africa. People are being discipled and hearts are being changed from the inside out.

Can we argue with that?

David Broodryk spoke this week and talked about the sad fact is that traditional “church” is not growing – but shrinking across the world (churches are loosing thousands of people each year). Of course some individual churches are growing - but statistically most are not.

The idea here at CPx is for a “movement of a simple house churches.” It works because this format is easy to reproduce and not reliant on an “outside foreigner” to keep it going.

Here are some examples of this unusual approach.

Ocean View (the community where we will be working)

It starts as a "Discovery Bible Study" and grows into a simple church:

Don’t ask people to come to you (your church building) – You go to them. You are not bringing them in to your fancy structure – you are going out and setting up a meeting where they already are.

Don’t collect people - In many church plants – you spend a lot of time and energy going around meeting people and inviting them to your church. You are often “collecting” a diverse group of strangers. The idea here is that you meet someone and ask them to gather a group of people of their choice in their own home (their friends, family, neighbors, etc.) – whoever is already within their circle of influence.

Discipleship before conversion – In essence, the model is that you begin to disciple people before they are “converted” (you belong to a group before you believe). I didn't realize this is what Jesus did with his disciples.

The emphasis is on obedience to the Word of God – Literally someone in the group reads a few verses or a chapter from the Bible - then everyone goes around and shares how you will specifically obey something God is showing you right then with an “I will” statement (ie. “I will be patient with my children, I will forgive so-and-so, I will thank God in all situations, etc.”)

Here's the basic format:

You go around the circle and each person participates:

• Ask what everyone is thankful for
• Ask what is one thing they need
• See if there is input from the group on the needs mentioned (if anyone can meet those needs)
• Pray for each other’s needs (30 second prayers per person recommended)
• Read a Bible passage
• Ask one person to put it in their own words
• See if someone else has something to add
• Break it down – verse by verse
• Everyone goes around and shares something specific that they will obey in the scripture they just read (or if they don’t want to obey – something that could be obeyed by someone who wants to).

 

We've never done something like this before and frankly it sounds a little strange.

However, hundreds of these simple house churches have been planted all over South Africa and lives are being changed from the inside out.

HOW WE ARE INVOLVED: For the next few months we will working in one of the townships, inviting people to be a part of these simple house churches. (Ocean View is our assigned community -where we work with 2 other teams of CPx students - each team has 6-8 people in it). In April we will go on an outreach to another country, starting simple house churches there.

LONG TERM PLANS: We are also praying and exploring ideas for opportunities here for long term work (which will start after our 6 months of church planting training that ends in July 2010). All Nations has many ministries and our heart is to work with vulnerable children, human trafficking victims and soccer ministries.

 

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