The Counter Intuitive Principle
In this last look at Mark 4, let's check out what I am calling the Counter Intuitive principle.
Mark 4: 30-32
"Again he said, 'What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.'"
You could look at this principle in several different ways. You might say that this is a parable about the power of a seed. As they say, you can count the number of seeds in an apple, but you can't count the number of apples in a seed.
Clearly it is talking about the kingdom of God growing from a small seedlike start, to a large multiplying movement. I have preferred the version in Matthew 13: 32 that says that the mustard seed grows into a "tree". I have a personal interpretive thought about this that when he says "tree" and in Mark "big branches" that interpreters who have tried to explain this in terms of the mustard plant, have missed the point entirely. I think that Jesus was kind of telling a kingdom parable joke! (Told in a 3rd world setting, this kind of thing is really funny. Take my advice and don't ever try an American joke in the global south....they won't get it. But this kind of story might have produced laughter in Jesus' day and culture). Perhaps Jesus was telling an absurd story....the mustard seed grows into a massive tree! It does not happen in real life, but in the kingdom of God, a mustard seed becomes supernaturally large!
That is why I call this the counter intuitive principle. The kingdom expands supernaturally and in ways that don't make sense to us. It is not the BIG outreach that is going to make the most impact. It is not by the huge crusades (not criticising those who (like myself) have worked in that arena). It is the small seeds....the cpm type discipling of families....that begin to multiply and really change the world.
Some time ago, I received a list of Counter-Intuitive Principles of Church Planting Movements from one of my friends who is working in cpm worldwide. I am going to give the list, without comment, and while risking some misunderstanding, thus give several examples of counter-intuitives that seem to describe movements that are seeing great multiplication. Here they are:
1. Go slow to go fast.....focus on few to win many
2. Share only where Jesus has prepared someone's heart to hear.
3. A novice insider is more effective than a highly trained mature outsider.
4. Start with creation, not Christ.
5. It's about discovery, not preaching.
6. Let the lost lead the Bible studies.
7. Disciple people to conversion.
8. Prepare to spend a long time making strong disciples, but anticipate miracle accelerations.
9. The best time for a church to plant a new church is when it is brand new.
10. Do no personal evangelism at all so that masses will hear.
11. Focus on discipling ordinary people, not developing "professional" Christians.
12. Expect the hardest places to yield the greatest results
13. Small for-profit projects often yield much higher long-term access than free services.
Some of those are easier for our minds to accept than others, but all are counter intuitive to the traditional way of doing missions.
Focus on the small....the seed... and expect God to act in such a way that the resulting "Tree" is beyond human possibility.
Mark 4: 30-32
"Again he said, 'What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.'"
You could look at this principle in several different ways. You might say that this is a parable about the power of a seed. As they say, you can count the number of seeds in an apple, but you can't count the number of apples in a seed.
Clearly it is talking about the kingdom of God growing from a small seedlike start, to a large multiplying movement. I have preferred the version in Matthew 13: 32 that says that the mustard seed grows into a "tree". I have a personal interpretive thought about this that when he says "tree" and in Mark "big branches" that interpreters who have tried to explain this in terms of the mustard plant, have missed the point entirely. I think that Jesus was kind of telling a kingdom parable joke! (Told in a 3rd world setting, this kind of thing is really funny. Take my advice and don't ever try an American joke in the global south....they won't get it. But this kind of story might have produced laughter in Jesus' day and culture). Perhaps Jesus was telling an absurd story....the mustard seed grows into a massive tree! It does not happen in real life, but in the kingdom of God, a mustard seed becomes supernaturally large!
That is why I call this the counter intuitive principle. The kingdom expands supernaturally and in ways that don't make sense to us. It is not the BIG outreach that is going to make the most impact. It is not by the huge crusades (not criticising those who (like myself) have worked in that arena). It is the small seeds....the cpm type discipling of families....that begin to multiply and really change the world.
Some time ago, I received a list of Counter-Intuitive Principles of Church Planting Movements from one of my friends who is working in cpm worldwide. I am going to give the list, without comment, and while risking some misunderstanding, thus give several examples of counter-intuitives that seem to describe movements that are seeing great multiplication. Here they are:
1. Go slow to go fast.....focus on few to win many
2. Share only where Jesus has prepared someone's heart to hear.
3. A novice insider is more effective than a highly trained mature outsider.
4. Start with creation, not Christ.
5. It's about discovery, not preaching.
6. Let the lost lead the Bible studies.
7. Disciple people to conversion.
8. Prepare to spend a long time making strong disciples, but anticipate miracle accelerations.
9. The best time for a church to plant a new church is when it is brand new.
10. Do no personal evangelism at all so that masses will hear.
11. Focus on discipling ordinary people, not developing "professional" Christians.
12. Expect the hardest places to yield the greatest results
13. Small for-profit projects often yield much higher long-term access than free services.
Some of those are easier for our minds to accept than others, but all are counter intuitive to the traditional way of doing missions.
Focus on the small....the seed... and expect God to act in such a way that the resulting "Tree" is beyond human possibility.
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