Sustainable Disciple Making Movements Part 2: Launching

 In our previous blog about Sustainable Movements, I shared the Big Picture of the concept:

3 Stages or Areas of Focus for Sustainable DMMs

1. Launching a Movement:  Foundation

2. Multiplying a Movement: Momentum

3. Sustaining a Movement: Structure

So today I want to focus on the first area: Launching

One of the best training organizations in the DMM strategy that I know is Contagious Disciple Making or CDM led by my friend and one of my mentors in DMM, Paul Watson.  Their training is done in an online and coaching format and I encourage any of my readers to download the CDM App and listen to their podcasts and if you have a real desire to understand DMM, become a part of their training program.  I love their approach to training people in the strategy and tactics of Disciple Making Movements for 2 reasons:

1.  It is a comprehensive approach.  They give the big picture of DMM and help people who are going to be strategic leaders of movements to understand the full strategy in order to become catalysts of movements.  

2.  It is a practical and step by step training.  It is probably the best coaching process that I have observed in the DMM strategy world.

Not to mention that Paul and his father David Watson, along with my good friend Jerry Trousdale, were the people that were our original teachers, trainers and mentors as we were learning the DMM strategy in 2006-2008.  I met Jerry Trousdale in 2005, when I took the Perspectives class in Nashville.  It was Jerry that first showed me the initial picture of what God was doing in multiplying movements through the DMM approach.  Through Jerry, I was introduced to David Watson.  David had been a pioneer of this strategy as a missionary in India in the 1990s, and the resulting movement there had become the original model DMM. David became the most influential person in training myself, our original missionary team and our team in Honduras about the strategy and practice of movements.  In fact, between 2006 and 2009, I took David's training no less than 5 TIMES!  (First through a set of CDs of a training he did in Africa, then in the Dallas area, then at our own church where I invited our missionaries to learn, then in Honduras when He trained our team, and finally in Colorado where he was conducting a training for missions leaders) 

Why do I mention this:  Because the Foundation that was laid in me personally, and in our Missions Team of Randy and Linda and Keith and Juanita Travis, and the Key Honduran Team members of our original team that started the work in 2008, was critical in the fact that we persevered through the early years of trial and error as the work was begun in Honduras.  Beginning with just 2 missionary families and 13 leaders in Honduras, the work has grown to touch nearly 100,000 people in multiple countries, cultures and tribes. Teams and missionaries, groups, churches, and training schools, along with other projects have resulted.  The focus has grown from Central America to Southeast Asia to Southern South America, to North American cities to Caribbean region to North American Native Americans to Africa!!!!

None of that would have happened if our original team had QUIT during the first 3 years.  Those first 3 years were years of 2 steps forward with 1 step back.  We learned to persevere through discouragement. Why?

Because We Believed in DMM.  We were Convinced.  We could try and fail and try again, because both Knowledge, Understanding, and Faith had been planted in our hearts.  

What is the foundation for seeing a Disciple Making Movement Launched?  It is a genuine understanding of and Faith in the Word of God that illustrates this strategy.  I can honestly say that if our trainers and mentors in the early years had not given to myself and Randy and Keith a well rounded Big Picture Vision of the Biblical Basis and the END VISION of DMM, I for one would have floundered.  We needed a foundation, not just a few techniques or a simple how to manual.  We needed a deeper understanding if we were going to stay the course until the beginning of breakthrough.  

I find that in recent years, some of the DMM training models I have seen, while excellent and accurate, seem to not lay the Big Picture Foundation.  It may be that simply giving a few tactical tips to try and then give more later is very effective with most people.  It would have been a failure with us.  As the President of a Missions Agency I had to not just acquire a few skills to try, but I had to have a big picture roadmap of where this thing was leading and some understanding of what that might look like in a year or 2 or 5!  Otherwise I would have NEVER begun the journey to a different way of doing Missions.

With thousands of New Churches and about 70,000 Baptisms today as a result....I'm so glad we did begin the Journey.  For me there's No Turning Back.

What are the basic Foundational things that were Key to Us in getting organized, transitioning to a DMM strategy, and beginning?

3 things:

1.  Obedience to the Word of God as the Foundation of everything in DMM

      Realizing that in the Bible God has not only SPOKEN, but God is Every Day SPEAKING and that He expects us to radically Hear, Understand and Obey His instructions revolutionized my personal spiritual life, my personal Bible Study, and our entire approach to reaching people for Christ.  Indeed this is what it means to Be a Disciple of Jesus Christ, and leading others in the process is the essence of Making Disciples. 

2.  Prayer as absolutely the Key to seeing Disciples Made and Movements Multiply.  In fact I always hesitate to even use the word "Launching" a movement  because of an exchange with David Watson one day as we spoke in a restaurant.  Our Honduran team had begun going into the village areas of western Honduras to begin groups and I was very excited.  Sitting at the table with David I said something like, "We are Launching a Movement in Honduras".  David, never one to mince words said to me, "No you're not!"  "We're Not?" I thought.  Then David said words that impacted me forever.  

"A Movement is a work of God Himself.  You are not going to Launch one!  If God does not give a movement in Honduras, there never will be one!"

I never forgot that lesson.  That is why an extraordinary Prayer base is critical to seeing DMM anywhere.

3.  Building a Team:  As we began in Latin America, the key for us was to see a team of leaders come together to be trained in the vision of DMM.  The Travis families did this first.  During those years where we were learning the strategy, we were also thinking about team members that could become a part of this foundation.  While not every DMM engagement starts with a team (obviously an individual could be trained and begin to make disciples where they are) when the vision is Nation Wide or People Group wide, a team approach is best.  Luke 10 (and other places) illustrate the 2 by 2 sending of disciples to make disciples.  Jesus had a team of 12, then a larger team of 72.  

For us, the foundation of Obedience to Scripture, Prayer, and Team forming has been priceless in seeing DMM become a reality.  

Next we will focus on the DMM process itself, that results in Multiplying a Movement.