cpm in central asia
Steve Hill has been involved out in Central Asia helping to start a church planting movement. Here's some of their story.

A/ History!
We started in ------ five years ago with a simple vision of relational disciple making and with one couple committed to carrying that vision. We are now a movement in at least 50 locations with about 3,000 disciples most of which are from mu--im background.

B/ The Story We Told!
You can enter the Kingdom of God through Jesus. You do not need to go through "the church" as we know it. If you have a vision of Jesus, you know that He is your Lord, Savior, Covering, Shepherd, Counsellor, King, Head and with that revelation you know that He can direct you to be community, to be His body and to express His life in the earth.

We told the story from Luke 10 and told them that Jesus was not a westerner! He was an easterner and understood eastern family values. We told them that the goal was not to get the disciple to "come to your church" but to teach them to be the pastor, leader, disciple maker in their home and then move on to the next home and create a community of disciples there.

We contrasted oak trees and strawberry plants, elephants and rabbits. We emphasized that strawberry plants multiply and cover the ground by sending out shoots to start the next plant but that each plant must seek its own sustenance from its own roots and must seek its own energy from the sun! Each community of disciples must be grounded in and seek the King for themselves! We told them that no one strawberry plant ruled over the others but were relationally linked! And that once the ground is covered with strawberry plants, you cannot tell which was the first one!

The story we told was one of functional leadership, foundational leadership rather than positional which left Jesus alone as the King and head of every man and the builder of His body. We told this story so often that I am called "Apostle Strawberry". This was the "sticky" concept that helped solidify what we were teaching and doing and placed a new paradigm in their minds.

The danger is that we talk new and act old! The old hierarchical picture is welded in people's thinking. We need to dismantle it and the Holy Spirit needs to burn a new, true picture of the Kingdom of God into their minds!

The Gospel of the Kingdom is good news since God Himself will be your God and will rule over you! There is no mediator between God and you except the man Christ Jesus! This is a completely counter culture movement!

C/ The Practice we Practiced!
Our leadership has remained hidden, servant and never based in permission giving. They have done things with which we did not necessarily agree. Our counsel has always been wise or foolish never permission based. They are always left free to decide even if we do not feel such a decision is best. Most often time has proven them to have understood the Master in their situation better than we did. However, they have also had to face the consequences of not accepting our wisdom. We then work through the consequences together.

We taught this from I Corinthians 3 where Paul speaks of laying the foundation of Christ and then stepping back and allowing each man to build upon it. He does not step in with mother love to make sure they do not make mistakes! He steps back in true father love and hands them full responsibility to succeed or fail in their building! The example we used was how Paul left them to work out the two issues of the day- eating meat and which day to gather as given in Romans 14. They will never learn to trust the foundation of Christ in their lives unless the one who laid those foundations does so! We step back and trust the foundation of Christ in their lives!

We continue to learn and continue to see that this message is absolutely primary! Not only in the Mu--im world do they wish to come into the Kingdom of God without going through the kingdom of the church as we know it but also in the West!

posted by alexander @ 12:25 PM    0 comments

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