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How do We Know Who to Work With?

Is anyone out of bounds?

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Do you ever wonder who we should try to plant churches with? Some of the guys in the jail have done horrific crimes. Is there any hope for them? Is there a line when a person goes so far that God is done with them? I have a litmus test. If they are interested in learning more, they are candidates. This is a sign to me that God is working with them.

“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me (John 6:43-45 NIV).

Two weeks ago the prisoners were studying this text together. “What does this teach us about God?” One of the main lessons they all kept reaffirming was that God does not want people to grumble. I was trying to lead them to the fact that it is the Father who is drawing them to Himself, but they were convicted to not grumble in spite of their horrible living conditions. Still, God is drawing people to Himself. I can tell this is happening when I see people who are interested in learning more about Him.

Billy Graham was speaking at an event when someone questioned him how he could pray for and bless a certain president after some scandalous activity became public. “It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge and my job to love” (Graham, B., as quoted by Marin, A., 2009, Chapter 6, Project Reclaiming, para. 2).

If we are going to be effective out in the unchurched world we cannot be appalled by sin. We do not support sin, of course, but sin is a big part of the lives of the people with whom we want to become good news. If they are interested in learning more, God is drawing them in. How can we best help God?

What are your experiences when ministering to unchurched people?

Bibliography

Marin, A., (2009), Love Is an Orientation, InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

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Altamira Vineyard Churches 2017

A Short Survey

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Altamira has several Igreja da Vinha churches. Deanna and I participated for a few minutes in each of the four biggest churches. It is so awesome to see God at work. I wish you could all come and see what is happening.

Central Church. It gets packed on Sundays. Their people are planting in several outlying areas, and passionate about their faith. This is where we started in Altamira. From our garage we moved to a dance hall, and from there to this property.


Colina Church – The first Igreja da Vinha small group was in this location. I used to load up our white pickup truck with people from here to Central Church every Sunday, for about a year. Many others helped sacrificially for years. Kenin and Rosi have been the pastors here for many years now, and this building is always packed. They are constructing a much larger church on the side, and God is supplying for them in miraculous ways. Last week someone walked into the building and started weeping. They didn’t know him. He offered to buy the glass windows, about R$8,000 / CAD $3,200 / USD $ 2,500. I am amazed at how far they have come, and they are almost in.


Mutirão Church – They are planting a church a year now. Jefferson is the pastor. I remember when Bud met someone selling lots. The mission bought one or two because they were cheap, way out on the outskirts of the city. Now this church is here and the city limits have enveloped them and kept on growing. This is a church-plant out of Central Church.


Mirante Church – When we (Bergens) moved on from Central Church we planted the Mirante Church. Elba was on the start-up team, and soon became the senior pastor. This photo does not do justice to the amount of people here. They are more spread out because the room is bigger. This church has/is planting churches in many outlying regions.

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Jail Ministry

Discovery Groups in Jail

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I have been going to the jail for a couple of months now. Some weeks ago the authorities cracked down on who could visit because of an attempted escape. I have been going alone the two times, and am trying to get a group of people registered within the system.

I tell the inmates that their lives will transform if they will pay special attention to two of the Discovery Group questions.

1. Change something in your life because of the Bible Reading, and tell the group about what happened at the next week’s meeting.

2. Have a spiritual conversation in a natural way during the week, and tell the group what happened during the next week’s meeting.

If you learn to do this consistently, “This combination of study, action, and story-telling will transform you into strong, healthy Christians who have authority.”


The prisoners ask me for blank paper. Then some of them make lessons so others of them can learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. This is one of the ways they are obeying Jesus by loving your neighbor as yourself.

In the Discovery Group language, this is “Identifying and helping meet the needs of those around you.”

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How to Become a Senior Pastor

Note: It doesn't necessarily involve seminary.

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How To Become a Senior Pastor

Let’s imagine that a huge grassroots revival is coming around the world. People are flooding into the Kingdom. Who will help these people? How will the new pastors be identified and established? There are different ways a person can become a senior pastor. They are all good in certain settings, and they all come with challenges.

1. You can take over an existing church.
2. You can lead a team to plant a church.
3. You can train a local leader in a new area.
4. You can start a Discovery Group as a Person of Peace.

ONE: When the Vineyard movement was about 20 years old, there were many senior pastors who had been in the movement about 20 years. They grew up with it. They were / are awesome. Now some of these pastors are passing over their successful and large churches over to younger leaders. Only a gifted few can possibly handle such a role, and even then, hopefully these gifted few are being mentored and have faithful friends walking alongside them. Passing over the leadership of a large church is an interesting and risky challenge. These challenges are possibly more visible when you look at denominations that have been around for hundreds of years and observe how they have evolved their leadership selection / preparation process.

TWO: Another interesting and risky challenge is to try to plant a mature church. One popular strategy is to form a team of gifted people, and send them out to start a church. They will need to become embedded in the new community, earning trust from the locals. They will need to learn to work and live together, to follow the designated leader, just as the leader must learn to earn the position among this group. This strategy feels safe because the initial group starts out with a trusted team. The costs are high and no one knows what will happen when the storms hit.

THREE: Another strategy I have seen work with some success is when a church planting team goes out with the intention of raising up a local leader. In this case a team is sometimes invited to a new community. They share the gospel, and have some meetings. Over a period of time they identify a leader. Often this leader comes from a different church background. Sometimes they were backslidden and glad to get right with God again. The church planter trains the new leader in the nuances of their denomination and understanding of how to live out the faith. The new pastor calls whenever there are questions. The planting team often helps provide a building for the new group, or other props like chairs or a projector. A variation of this strategy is the adoption, when a  church leader wants to come under the covering of another church.

FOUR: A fourth possibility is when a church planter learns to identify People of Peace. The planter helps this group develop a Discovery Bible Study. Or maybe the church planter becomes the Person of Peace, gathering unsaved friends and relatives to do a Discovery Bible Study together. One challenge for the existing church is to keep trusting and sending out young, immature leaders, with young, immature groups, and watching God bring them to maturity. This feels scary and risky. We want to jump in and help, but if we over-prune or help the young leaders too much, this can be unhelpful. I struggle with this. Often I want to help too much, and often I talk too much. This is not a quick way to plant huge, successful churches. It takes many years for a mango tree to fully mature. But it is easy, and not expensive. Almost anyone can give it a try. Let the young leaders have the fun of successfully braving dangerous storms, and then laugh with them as they recount their stories.

What is your experience with establishing new senior church pastors?

Did anything come to mind that I missed in this brief assessment?

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What is a Church?

How do you define a church?

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What is a Church?

We love good churches. So, what is a good church?

Look at the photo below.

Question: Which of the following looks most like a mango tree?

Answer: They are all mango trees.

If we apply this to church planting:

1) To plant mature trees:

a) Costs a lot of money and effort,

b) We will not plant very many,

c) Our success rate may not be what we hope.

2) To plant seeds with the right DNA:

a) Easy to plant,

b) Anyone can plant a lot of them,

c) The success rate can easily surpass our imagination.

I noticed as we were checking out some of the really great Altamira churches that many people have been in the leadership roles for 15 years or more. This is healthy and natural. These people were not polished leaders many years ago but because their churches were small and young there was grace to grow together. The churches grew and matured as the leaders grew and matured.

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Discovery Bible Studies – Eight Month Review

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The youth in the Marabá church are starting to experiment with the DBS model. In the last couple of weeks, they started 14 new groups. Nine stopped after only one or two meetings. Five of these new groups are still going, and many of the young people are looking for other people who may be open to starting groups. Most people who try this type of a Bible study like it, but many people are simply too busy, or not ready. We are trying to honor those who start groups that stop as much as those who start groups that carry on. We have a total of about 14 groups in Marabá now that meet each week, and several who seem poised to start soon. Starting groups like planting seeds; when they don’t take, we are learning to move on and try again.

We started experimenting with the Discovery Bible Study (DBS) process in August. We grew to 23 DBS groups by Christmas. Our church started changing so rapidly the leaders became uneasy. Things started to take off in an unprecedented way and they did not have peace about where it was all going. There were other factors also that contributed to the apprehension.

In December Deanna and I left for about 6 weeks of travelling. This was a good thing. This allowed the dust to settle and the growth to slow down. When we got back 9 groups were still going. In the months following our return Ivanildo and I had some good talks at a deeper level than we have had in the past. Now the local leaders are feeling good about leading the Marabá church forward, and using this model, though there are still many questions. We are free to help here in Marabá, to start groups in new cities, and to help other churches learn the model.

Last week-end Elba invited us to introduce this DBS model to some of the Mirante church leaders. Elba is continuing with their cell group model for some of that congregation, but introducing this as their own pilot project with other leaders. This week-end I am going to Santarem to meet with Clenildo, Angelita, and some leaders in their church. Next week-end I am going to Canaã, with the goal of going there for five week-ends during April and May.

We are still waiting to see a whole Discovery Group decide to get baptized. Deanna’s lady’s group looks like they may be the first. They are 23 lessons into the first 26. I led one group through the whole 26 lessons, but they were all baptized before we started, even though they were in a lukewarm state spiritually when they started. Two of the key players in this first group experienced great disruptions in their lives during this process. Eliete’s brother died, causing weeks of travel and disruption. Then her ex-husband died, causing months of travel as she works to pursue legal rights for her children. Her teen-age son Luan was also a key person, facilitating his own DBS group and on the verge of starting yet another. It was his dad who drowned. He moved to Southern Brazil to resolve legal issues, and his groups stopped. That was months ago. The other fellows in my group were already baptized, and they continue to serve in the church. One is facilitating a new group.

I continue to be in relationship with Tiago (who was beating his wife the first time we met) and Leila, but their group has not restarted. Jaycee (“I am so sick of sin”) and Fabio are interested, but they also have not restarted. They both told me that Fabio used to be addicted to pot, but he has not had any interested since our second DBS in their house last September or October. This has been good for their family. Fabio and Tiago would both start going on missionary trips with me if I could figure out how to make that work. Maybe to Canaã? A lady in one of the Canaã groups got her wrist instantly healed during one DBS meeting. She couldn’t wash clothes. This was last Fall. In February I went back up there and it was still healed. “See. I can still wash clothes.” I am trying to figure out a way to spend more time in Canaã. A few hours once in awhile does not seem enough. I think there are four groups that will start or restart if I start showing up regularly.

Johnny (who leads a rock band) really wants to reactivate his group. They have trouble meeting without me present. Some who come do not value him as a spiritual leader. Last week they were going to meet without me, but then his Mom got really unreasonably sick with a bad attack of dengue, and they had to cancel.

It is hard to know what is spiritual warfare, and what is just part of living in a broken world. Elba invited me to come to lead some meetings in the Mirante church long ahead of time. “I’m sorry it is so far in the future, but the is the first time we can fit you in.” The meetings were to be in early March. The day we were to meet one of the beloved young fathers in their church died, and there was a funeral instead of the DBS meetings. We rebooked and did the meetings two weeks later. Clenildo and Angelita are running hard and really stretched. Still, they wanted to fit in a couple of meetings about DBS with their leaders before we leave for the summer. A few days ago they had a bad car accident. No one was seriously hurt, but there was trauma, car damage, and no insurance. I am still going to go there this week-end, just to be with them, and to see if it is a good time to have some extra meetings. I think this is Angelita’s first big car accident. Faithfulness and perseverance enable us overcome many obstacles.

One lesson I am learning is the necessity of finding ways to hang out with the various group facilitators. Once we identify group leaders, we need to find ways to hang out together. Pizza. Mission trips. Other ways. This is the most challenging part for me at this time.

In summary, we continue to learn about how this DBS process will work in our circumstances. The adventure is back in the game.

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31 Questions about Discovery Bible Studies

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Questions

  1. What should I do when the group only want to study one time?
  2. What are the lists of verses we can use for Discovery Bible Studies?
  3. What happens at the end of the 26 selections in the Creation for Christ study?
  4. How long should I persist with a group?
  5. What happens when many in the group quit coming?
  6. What is the difference between Discovery Bible Studies and discipleship?
  7. Can we arrange to do a Discovery Bible Study during the time of the church service?
  8. What is the difference between Discovery Bible Studies and cell groups?
  9. What should I do if my group has people who have problems with the law, and they confess things to me?
  10. Do you have to have prayer in Discovery Bible Studies?
  11. What should I do when the group is not a good location to do the studies, or when the group disagrees with the location?
  12. What should I do if the majority of the group gives up, if just one faithful person remains other than myself, and we have many visitors participating if they are passing by?
  13. What if my group is illiterate?
  14. Does the leader of the group need to be a Christian?
  15. What is needed to do a Discovery Bible Studies?
  16. What should I do if the group ends all 26 lessons without visible results?
  17. What should I do if someone is stealing my people or my group?
  18. What should I do when the people only want me as a leader / facilitator?
  19. What are the signs when the group is ending?
  20. Is there anything about men doing groups with men and women with women?
  21. What should I do when the group is quiet, when they do not speak or interact?
  22. What should I do if some in the group begins to believe false doctrines because of the stories studied?
  23. What should I do when a person in the group talks too much?
  24. What should I do if the group wants to increase the study time to be more than an hour?
  25. What should I do if someone in the group comes to harmful conclusions from a text?
  26. How can I tell who is a Person of Peace?
  27. How many people are needed for a Discovery Bible Study?
  28. Can an addict or someone trapped in a serious sin start a Discovery Bible Studies?
  29. What should I do if someone misses some studies in the group?
  30. How do I know who should be the leader in the group?
  31. What is the difference between the leader and the facilitator?