The goal that God has is to see regions and nations discipled. Multiplying simple churches are the vehicle to get us to God’s goal. Jesus didn’t come to plant a Church. He planted the Gospel and Himself into a handful of ordinary guys.

We read in scripture that God’s desire is to see His glory covering the whole earth and to see disciples made in all the people’s and tribes of the world….As nice as Belgium is – we are not going to look at it’s architecture or sights. We are going because we carry something in our heart to see Belgium discipled. To see people in that nation not only reached – but discipled!

On this trip we are looking to do some major connecting with people who do not know Jesus and who are not anywhere near being involved with a ‘Church’.  To see a vision fulfilled and to see a region/nation discipled then there needs to be some serious sowing.

So we hope to spend our time sowing.

Sowing the Gospel into people who do not know Jesus through sharing with them, praying for them and doing whatever the Father leads us to do! We will be hitting the basketball courts in Antwerp and meeting young people where they hang out.

Sowing the Vision of seeing Belgium discipled into the brothers and sisters we meet and spend time with there. We will be staying with friends and seeing believers who have a heart to see disciples made in their land.

The vision has to be about so much more than church. The vision has to be about seeing a nation transformed. To see believers connecting with people who do not know Jesus and to see simple/organic churches growing and multiplying.

Please pray for Belgium – that the Lord of the harvest will send out laborers into the Belgian harvest (Matthew 9:35-38)

I have broken up into four parts ten minutes each, the links below will take you to YouTube. Enjoy!

Simple Church Planting Part 1

Simple Church Planting Part 2

Simple Church Planting Part 3

Simple Church Planting Part 4

Hope these are a blessing to you!

[These have also been posted on the House2Harvest Website as well as my personal blog: The Dreaming Revolutionary.]

God Bless!
Don Davis

(William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army)

As I read this quote by William Booth it made me think about Jesus and what His ambition was…“for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10)…..“My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work…” (John 4:34)

It made me think about what my ambitions are….

Jesus’ ambition was to see every person of every tribe of every part of the world given the chance to respond to His message of good news in a way that they can clearly understand. The most effective way for this to happen is through indigenous movements of churches growing amongst all peoples. Jesus’ ambition was to seek and save what was lost and to finish the job that the Father had given Him.

I wonder what your ambitions are? To travel the world? To become financially secure? To build a family and home? To be involved with a loving and caring simple church?

All of these are noble and ‘sensible’ ambitions. But is there something more? When Jesus called 12 men to Himself what did He show them? He showed them a life of seeking the Father’s ambition. He moved them beyond what was sensible, acceptable, traditional and even possible. He showed them that going the Father’s way even when it seemed impossible was what it meant to be a follower of “The Way.” He showed them what it meant to live according to the leading and purpose of the Holy Spirit.

So…

What do you think about when you look at “The World”? I see the Father’s unfinished work. Jesus started it and now He is asking us to finish it. We have an invitation to join in the work of the Father here on earth. What a privilige and what a responsibility.

The potential is endless if we will seek the Father’s ambitions and respond to how He is asking us to share the Gospel of the Kingdom with….

…every person

…of every tribe

…of every part of the world

Simon Chan has written several articles about the importance of Trinitarian Ecclesiology, having the Trinity shape the way we do church, and importantly a ‘liturgy’ that informs us of our God, God’s gift to us in Jesus Christ, and through the Spirit, our mission in the world. Chan writes in an article published in Christianity Today (online article found here) of a phenomenon that he has seen in his native Singapore and, no doubt, we could also see is happening in the West, of a migration that happens in our churches today.

Chan notes that many ‘free churches’ are good at evangelism and outreach, but over time, people in these free churches migrate to more traditional churches that tend to be more focused upon discipleship, theology, and liturgy. Churches in Singapore (and the United States, for that matter) do not really have earth-shattering ‘net growth’, but experience a ‘migration’ or what some from the United States would say, ‘transfer growth.’

I see the house church movement being a great meeting place for the migration of Empty Nesters, particularly Empty Nesters that have been in the church for a long time. They have served on the committees and church boards, they have gone to so many meetings, etc. Coupled with that is the reality that their life’s end is getting closer. They don’t want to be on the planning end of mission, but rather on the action end… they really want to help people. They have their theology down; they’ve been to all the studies and retreats one needs to know what they should and could be doing with their lives.

It can go without saying, but maybe it is worth mentioning, that Empty Nesters tend to have a significant amount of resources and more time than the average suburbanite couple.

So house church leaders out there interested in finding faithful people, interested in doing meaningful work, energized to help people, I advise you to start looking for empty nesters. There is a chance that they are leaving their traditional church for a more relational and ‘real’ experience. Perhaps they will find such an experience in your house church.

Background

Rick Wood provides the historical background on the use of people groups as a way to approach the task of world evangelization:

“In 1974, Dr. Ralph Winter changed the course of mission history and world history with his address to the first Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, where he revealed that we would never complete the task of world evangelization if we continued with the same strategies and methods. Dr. Winter clarified that the global Church had not adequately understood the vast and diverse ethnic realities of the world, with the great majority of mission resources concentrated in areas where the gospel had been available for many years while great swaths of humanity were left untouched. A dramatic course correction was needed. In his address, he reiterated the biblical mandate to reach every tribe and tongue and thus catalyzed what has been called the “unreached peoples movement.”

Wood brings this down to the type of practical application of this that has driven missions work for decades when he says: “Nowhere in Scripture are we promised that every person will be saved, and it should not be our goal or expectation to get everyone saved. In world mission the goal is to provide every person on earth with access to the gospel by discipling all peoples so that each person may have the opportunity to choose to follow Christ or not. This involves a process of discovering and overcoming every barrier to understanding and acceptance that keeps people from having access to the gospel. Geographically, we need millions of new churches to be planted so that every person is within reach of an indigenous church that can speak his language and communicate the gospel in a way that is culturally appropriate and meaningful.”

Complexity of Urbanization and Globalization

Brad Gill raises the issue of the impact that globalization has on the ethnic boundaries of people groups: “So, do the ethnic boundaries of people groups persist, or does globalization rupture and flatten people groups into another social reality?”

Further, Bruce Graham asserts that there are many contexts in the world where people group boundaries are not clear.  He says: “In most field contexts, work develops through relational networks, or through recognition of a problem enslaving particular peoples.  These networks or problems vary according to context and in some situations may cross ‘people-group’ boundaries.

It’s Still a Place to Start

Yet, Duane Frasier suggests: “An emphasis on unreached peoples is primary not because it is the end-all strategy, but because it is one of the beginning strategies.  In incarnational mission we must arrive at a geographical location, communicate in the heart language and reach peoples within natural circles of cultural affinity.  Sure, there are deep and complex considerations to be taken into account.  But we still have to arrive, communicate and reach.”

A Bigger Story

Finally, Brad Gill pushes the discussion toward the younger generation when he speaks of a more comprehensive Kingdom mission that transforms the evil injustices and inequities of global society. “And what is the Kingdom story from which we draw our sense of mission?  Responses to this Kingdom dynamic will come from younger leaders… in touch with this emerging generation.”

Applications to church planting movements and simple churches?  You tell me!

Read all of the articles here.

The Lausanne Conference which began with leaders from all over the world made up the Lausanne Covenant for missions leaders to work together. A Lausanne Strategy Working Group had gotten together to determine what still needed to be done in world mission. They came up with these definitions:
People group:

“a significantly large grouping of individuals who perceive themselves to have a common affinity for one another because of their shared language, religion, ethnicity, residence, occupations, class of caste, situation, etc., or combinations of these.”

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.

Unreached people group:

” a people group within which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians able to evangelize this people group.”

There are still 639 totally unreached people groups in the world where they are still even unengaged which means that no one is even committed to pray or go to them to see them reached!!!

Check out this video on unreached people groups…
and Joshua Project.