Reading case studies is a good way to learn the dynamics of movements. East Africa Case study online here

Shoal Creek started where most start “enamored” with Discovery Groups.

But that is only one component of a movement.   Rarely do Discovery Groups evolve into a movement.  Movements are intentional and unfortunately counter intuitive.  It takes a (can’t say this strong enough) different kind of leadership.  If at this point you said to yourself, “I am not a leader” then you are probably at a good point because movements take a new kind of leadership.

This video represents the old view of leaders, it is only 3 mins so watch patiently

The plate spinner can’t start a movement of plate spinning, he can only spin so many plates.  Translated he can only lead so many groups, meet with so many people and he can’t seem to teach what he does very well.  No one can do what he does it is too complicated.  Movements are not about personalitites, passions or giftedness.  They are about the message of God redeeming the world without culture or people getting in the way.

Day 1 is as important as Day 100, if my goal is to start a movement of the gospel away from me then these things become critical

• working with the right people

1. Do they have spiritual discussions with others?
2. How do they respond when you don’t give them answers?
3. Is their interest in you or the spiritual journey?
4. What is their reaction when on day 1 you focus on them leading a group?
5. If it is a group, are you the energy that pulls the group together? Danger Will Robinson Danger-Dependency abounds!
6. Train everyone but only disciple the doers.

Summary:  to start movements we are looking for people who will take the message of God redeeming the world beyond our relational reach.

• how you lead

1. Simple, discovery process, simple, simple, simple
2. DWYSYWD-Do what you say you will do, make sure that you have i wills and a person to share with, ask them about their I wills and share every time you meet.
3. Pass off the facilitation quickly or meet with them personally and coach their leading the group so you never show up at the group.
4. Coach coach coach the process.  The Biblical DNA in the discovery process is vital.  Meet outside the group with someone who leads and review their performance.  If you won’t coach then, you are in the wrong discussion!
5. Think small and slow, quality is far more important than quantity.
6. Expect failure, experience GRACE.  You are learning something that is so different from your culture or Christian upbring that it takes time.  Don’t let the skinned knees and bruised elbows of your first few attempts to ride the bike keep you from the adventure of learning to ride.

Reactions, thoughts, questions?

Too much of our American lifestyle is spent keeping things “balanced” and addicted to Kingdom of self-comfort and mediocracy rather than being radically surrendered to Jesus and his kingdom.

The test (are you doing it the way Jesus would want) of whether the way you lead your group is not, people discovering God or growing deeper, the limitus test is whether you are making disciple makers.

I’ve been at this for a long time and my heart breaks because I’ve seen lots of “growth” and “people discovering God” but I’ve made few disciple makers and that is the limitus test of my commitment to Jesus.  I can no longer ignore the final command of Jesus so everything I do must in some way lead to making disciple makers.

I will no longer settle for meetings where people share deeply the hurts of their life, discover their depravity, expose their wetness and experience the wonder and freedom of being known (community).  If that kind of environment doesn’t produce disciple making disciples then we are no better than the pharisees making people twice as fit for hell.

The discovery process is like a mouse trap, if all the elements are not there it doesn’t produce the expected results.  When you learn a model from someone it is best to practice it fully before you decide to alter it.

The mouse trap analogy is related to the DNA or essential guiding elements of spiritual growth.  The six elements of the Discovery Process, Thankful, Stress, Needs, God’s Truth, Obedience and Sharing are simple essential elements of the life of Jesus developing in us. These are essential to spiritual life so that if overtime one of them is not present then I know that I may have emotional growth but not  genuine spiritual growth, a life becoming more about Jesus’ concerns in this world than mine.

I observe a trend of people ignorning the Needs and Sharing so groups are phenomenal places to come to but the thought of banding together to provide—- meals, transportation or mow someone’s yard because of cancer, divorce or loss of job—just never surfaces.  There are needs all around us that if we open our eyes we could pour out the love of Jesus on unsuspecting people every week.

What you are doing maybe be producing good results but it still has a ways to go, if you are like me.  It is good but it might not be the best, so it could be tweeked.  What you are doing is not wrong but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to alter the way you lead your group. It might mean that  your group needs to become more obedience based rather than community based.  (Which by the way may not make you popular with your group.  I would prefer to not be liked by you and provoke you to become more like Jesus than the antithesis.)  It is often hard to mentor people spiritually and be their buddies.

Disciple Making Movements will have a hard time developing in the US because Americans hate to fail almost as much as they hate to die.

The point is that to take a process that has worked in multiple cultures around the world and find its culturally appropriate application in the US takes a lot of failure and Americans have such an addicition to succeeding that they won’t go thru the failure (learing process) long enough to figure out how to apply what God is doing elsewhere around the world.  We are experiencing that at Shoal Creek.

This is why we provide opportunities for Group Leaders to get together and learn from one another and be coached to become better.  Taking advantage of these opportunities is important enough to inconvenience your self.  You and I both need to have a habit of continual growth or we are engaging the dying process!

Keep moving, learning, growing, it is not about getting it right but just being faithful to move and let God show up.

While engaging disciple making movement thinking over the past 4 years I’ve noticed this effect.

Evidences of what I’ve seen

• an unwillingness to ask for coaching based on the assumption that buiding Disciple Making Movements (DMM) is simple
• an inability to recognize the severe penalties that come from developing dependencies
• and a lack of mental framework to understand the power of self reliance in disciple making.
• mistaking simple for simplistic and failing to engage with the intellectual perserverance to understand the complexities so that it could be simple.
• a failure to understand that day 1 is just as important as day 100 and day 1 will predict what is happening at day 100

Is all the above thoroughly confusing?  Leave a comment or ask a question.

If there is one common allergy that the west and especially Christians in the US possess it is an addiction to success and an allergy to failure.

What does this mean?  We must begin

• learning to lead differently, eradicating dependency creating strategies
• learning to think differently about spiritual growth, eliminating the illusion of accumulation of knowledge as growth
• learning to propose a different gospel, expose the full good news from creation to consummation focusing on obedience not acceptance.

On failure!  Fast Company has a little feature that puts in perspective the path to success leads thru failure!

Click here to find out what WD-40 stands for http://bit.ly/H9JVf9.

Join the discussion in Kansas City, May 8th, 11:00 am to 12:30 PM and find out how other folks are failing faster.

At the present the meeting is scheduled at 6816 S Church Rd Pleasant Valley, MO 64068.

This is a presentation of J3 moving from receiver to giver in your spiritual journey.

http://shoalcreek.org/files/DiscipleMaking%20DNA.mp3