Video Transcript: The Cry For Spiritual Fathers and Mothers: Chapter 1 Wanted: Spiritual Fathers and Mothers
I found out something very interesting a few years ago. You know, the key for us always to see the kingdom of God grow as people come to faith in Jesus. I found that the best way, the most effective plan, to see people come to Christ for evangelism, is actually church planting. And my friend, Dr Peter Wagner, is now going on to be with the Lord. And he said like this, and he said, there's a research done by Fuller Theological Seminary where he taught for many years. And they found if a church is 10 years old or more, only one person is led to Christ for every 85 people. So church 10 years older, one person comes to Christ for every 85 people in the church. However, listen closely if the church is between between four and seven. If that's how old the church is four years to seven years of age, one person led to Christ for every seven members. So the newer the church, the more people come to Christ in that local church. But listen to this, if the church is less than three years old, in other words, it's a new church, brand new church plant, one person is led to Christ for every three members. See church planting. And Dr Wagner has said this many times. He says the most is single most effective way to evangelize is to plant new churches. And house churches is the simplest form of church to plant. So I believe so much the house church the beauty of starting house churches. You can start a house church and become in start other house church, become part of a house church network, which we've been talking about throughout whole course. Or you can set a house as God could lead you for that house church to become a community church or become a mega church. And but my strong encouragement is, if you do that, make sure that in the system, so to speak, there are strong small groups, strong House Fellowship, strong relational based church. So we following the book of Acts. Tim Keller, renowned Presbyterian pastor from New York City, says this, he's from Redeemer Presbyterian Church. He says it like this, the vigorous, continual planting of new churches, new congregations, is the single most crucial strategy for the numerical growth in the body of Christ in every city. In other words, for the kingdom of God to grow, the best way can grow is the plant and start new churches. Couple years ago, I have some friends who are church planters from all over the world. Just to give their story, how do they plant their church? And is a great little book we call the invitation, inviting people to become part of planting churches, to see more people come to faith in Jesus Christ. Then in the back of this book, I list just 20 things to do. You say, Well, I think I might be called a plant a church. Well, here's some things that you can think about, if that's on your heart. That's how God's called you to do. I believe many of you taking this course. That's why you took the course developing house churches. What would that look like? And let me quickly tell you what these 20 things are very, very simplistic. I'll be this. This could help you, first of all, pray and pray and pray and pray. Because obviously prayer is the bottom line. Through pray, God gets our heart, he be fills our heart with with with faith for the future, for that which God's called us to, to see people
come to faith in Jesus. It also prepares a way for others who could join us in seeing this church plant happen. The number one, we pray. Secondly, you have to wait. You can start right now focusing on leading people to Christ, asking Jesus to help me, help you to who's somebody I can lead to Christ. See, it's really hard to plant a church if we haven't even been involved with leading people to Christ. Perhaps enter in the church were involved in now it, and hopefully most of you are involved in churches now, unless you're a brand new believer, taking this, obviously, taking this, this teaching, and there's no church available in your city. And find a church somewhere, find somewhere where you can connect now, before you plant the church, think and if there's no church available that, obviously you'll start the church that's in your village or your city. But if you can become part of a church, here's why you learn so much by being under someone else's spiritual oversight in this whole process. Third thing is disciple a new believer. And we're going to talk a little much more about that in this session and following sessions. But learn to disciple new, new believers. That's what it's going to be like when you plant your house church. Number four, help lead a small group. If there's some kind of small group, whether you're in a university campus or whether you're involved in some kind of parishes, ministry, local church be just get involved in a small group somehow. And many help lead it. Ask the leader, could I assist you and help you in this process of leading people in this small group? And then number five is it be great to lead a small group yourself talking about a church plant, but you're with another ministry, with another church. You're getting experience, you're learning from others who've been down this road, even though the church you plant might look much different than the church you're involved in right now, but you can, you can simply be. Learning from others in this whole process. Number six, be great if you could multiply a small group. This is not something you have to do, but it would really help you when you plant your own church. If you could take a group of people and see them disciple and multiply this small group, this cell group, this, whatever you want to call it, House Fellowship, it's going to help you in the process, when you plant a church in the future, and then after you get to that place, they give you some experience. Then my encouragement number seven is discuss what you're sensing from the Lord about church planting with your spiritual oversight, with your pastors or people that God's placed in your life. And some people say, well, our church doesn't want to plant churches within hopefully there's a church somewhere in your city, somewhere in your area, and you can connect with who would be willing to release you to do that. And so as much as possible, let's have good relationship connection with our local church and discuss that. So it's not just your vision. Comes more of a corporate vision with others who help you with that vision. And then, number eight, learn how to lead some kind of a Bible study. There I mentioned a few times in this course, discovery, Bible studies, and many different kinds of Bible studies, learning how
to lead Bible studies that bring other people into the process where they're all processing together. What is God saying? Read through a clear Bible story, a story of Jesus and performing miracles, or whatever it is, whereby you're bringing, you're leading a Bible study where there's life. And that's why I gave some teaching, and how to teach with confidence that brings life. And then number nine, meet with others who may be called to plant new churches. So you're doing this yourself. You're doing this with others, and they're used praying with them and saying, What could God be saying? See, this doesn't just happen just like this. There's a process in God, and we're walking through God's process where he's preparing us, preparing the way whereby we can see this church planted, because we want to see healthy churches planted. Number 10, receive training, and I have commend you. You're doing that right now with CLI, you're right now here in this Christian leaders Institute, you're taking this, this course on developing house churches. That's part of the training. Dove International has training also in planting house church. If you want more training, and that's online training, you can get there if you want to in the future, go to dcfi.org and we can help you with with even extra training, and there's lots more training available through CLI, I love this school, and I love what God's doing through CLI number 11, discern if you're called this is important. Discern if you're called to lead a church plant, or if you're called to help somebody else who will lead a church plant. See, some of us are called to primary leadership. Some of us are called to secondary leadership. Some of us are called to secondary leadership now, but in the future, we'll be involved in primary leadership. So you need to discern that in this season of your life, what's God saying to you right now? Are you called right now to be in primary leadership? Are you called by God to be in secondary secondary leadership, supportive leadership. I should say number 12, discern the type of church you'll plant. You feel like long term, it's going to be a community church or going to be a house church. Now I assume, for most of you who are taking this training, it will be house church, because that's why you signed up to take the training. Well, you need to discern, and it's okay to change. I mean, when I started many years ago, 40 some years ago, you know, it started ministry. Then we planted a church, and you are our first church, and about 30, whatever, six, seven years ago, you know, I thought we'd be a house church network first, and that's where we started. We weren't sure what it's gonna look like. And then we started bringing people together. And then we had more of a multi, you know, multi site, you know, 120 House Fellowship Church. That's the way that worked, a couple 1000 people, but and then later we started help people plant house churches and let a house church network. So in this, in this period of time, it seems discern, what do you think God's saying? But be open for him to change, to change that. So he discerned that number 13. Meet with others who have a heart to plant the type of church you feel called to plant. So if you feel called to
plant a house church, ask God to bring other people in that can help you build a team. Jesus sent them out two by two. And I encourage you to do the same. Do not try to do it yourself. Build, Build a team of people. I met with a group of leaders recently, and there's one young couple said, We're called to plant a house church. Whoever do that. And my first advice to them was, we asked God to give you a team. And now God's brought some people into their lives. They were commissioned out of their own local church this past weekend, and there's there in this process of starting this brand new house church, but they're following a process of God to do that. So build a church planting number 14. Build a church planting team, or become part of a church planting team, depending on your call. 15, develop a prayer base, a team of intercessors. So much happens in the spirit through intercession. And those who will stand with you. My wife Lauren and I have a team of personal intercessors. They're praying for me right now as I am giving this teaching right right here in Western Michigan that's going all over the world, and they're praying for me right now. You need intercessors, people who will stand with you. And they may not be involved in your church plant, but they believe in you again, if they're those kind of people available. Ask them to pray, to pray for you. Number 16, find ways to partner with others in this new vision, and maybe there's a way to partner with another ministry, another some people in another church. And I mean, I just got an email a few minutes ago from someone who's gonna plant a brand new church, and he told me, and I'm going to be visiting another pastor in the area just to see if we can partner together. He knows what we're doing, and he and I know what his vision is. We learn, is there a way we can partner together? 17, discern who will be your this is important. Discern who will be your primary oversight, your primary spiritual connection. When you plant this church. Do not do it alone. In order is that. And there's possibilities through CLI there's possibilities through Dove Intgernational. There's possibilities in your own city, in your own area, a local church or someone else, you could maybe just be there for you, even though what you're doing isn't part of what they're doing. God is raising up spiritual fathers and mothers today in the nation of the world who say we want to help another generation plant churches. And though those kinds of people who are available. And so that's number 17, number 18. Discern who will be your possible mentors when you start this new endeavor. So you have some oversight, but there could be others who are mentors, people gone down the road before, who've done that, and and you find those kind of mentors now you have to do all these things but I just had written down when I did this book a few years ago, I was asked to write that. What are some things we should look at, be clear about before we start this new church, I'm just giving you the whole bit at one time, number 19 discern the Lord's timing with your team and your spiritual overseers and your mentor so you have three groups of people you will work with your team. Whoever God brings to help you your team, they're your
spiritual oversight, maybe a pastor or somebody that's oversee you in this process. And number three, your mentors, other people are mentoring you, and then together you'll hear the voice of God on. When do you start? And you don't have to be in a hurry allow God to unfold this vision before you in his time. Habakkuk 2 says The just shall live by faith. You may need to wait for it. You still wait for the timing of God for this and then 20 you continue to pray and take a step of faith and expect the Lord to bless you, and expect the Lord to do amazing things through the church that you plant now, in light of all that and all we've been talking about and what house church looks like, I want to take some time in this session and in some other sessions to talk about the heart behind it all, because we've used the term being a spiritual father being a spiritual mother a few times, and the the text that you'll be reading from here throughout the end of this course is from a book I written many years ago called the cry for spiritual fathers and mothers. See, here's the heart cry. The heart cry is God wants to get his heart, his father's heart, in you, so that when you start a church, it's not just starting some new vision or some new idea or some new program, but you're simply expressing the heart of God and saying, I want to help you in this new house church every person fulfill your dreams and your vision, because I want to be a spiritual father or spiritual mother to you. So if you take your Bibles and turn to your Bibles, to Malachi 4, Malachi 4, your Bibles, and we will simply take it from there, Malachi 4 and the last few verses of Malachi 4, he says this, verses 5-6, see, I'll send you the prophet Elijah, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes and have come the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, or also come and strike the land with a curse. So what is Malachi prophesying the last two verses of the Old Testament. He's saying, look, he says, before the Lord comes back, I'm gonna do this amazing thing. I'm gonna turn the hearts of fathers to children, hearts the children to fathers, both naturally and spiritually. And then he says, At the end of this, these two verses, he says, or else I'll come and strike the land with a curse that God promises he will do this turn the hearts of fathers to children, hearts of children to fathers. And you know, I see it happening all over the world today in an unprecedented way, where God's changing the hearts of leaders. And rather than just building their thing, they're simply saying, I want to be obedient and to build what God's called me to build by His grace. But at the same time, I want to help a younger generation fulfill the visions and the dreams that's in their hearts. I want to be a spiritual father, spiritual mother to the next generation. So but here's bottom line, every nation I go to, I find there's this curse. There's still, you still see the residue of this curse is a lack of fatherlessness, a lack of spiritual mothers. And I see it in every nation I go to. I remember speaking at a Bible school, at a one of America's amazing mega churches, and I was front row as a young man, intensely listening. I just mentioned the need for spiritual fathers and mothers. After it was over, I was walking out. He said, Could I talk to you for
a minute? He said, I'm on staff in this church, and the pastor of this church and my personal friend, a great guy. He said, I'm leaving this church. I said, Why would you do that? What is it great church? He said, I'm leaving because I need someone to Father me. He says, just one elder, one leader, one pastor. Would take one hour a month and sit with me and drink a cup of coffee with me and talk to me and ask me questions. I stay, but he said, I'm leaving because he was looking for a father. I sat with a I sat at a breakfast table few years ago with a pastor of a very popular denomination, and he wept. He just wept. He said, 35 years ago, my natural father committed suicide. I've never had a father in the LORD. Ever since I'm part of a system, but I've never had a father. You see, there's such a need for spiritual fathers. I meet young men. You say, I see someone, a new in the Lord, someone, yes, I love the books and I love I love sermons and all those things. I love worship, but it's asking someone to Father me. So a heart and a heart cry every generation back in your heart, you're looking for fathers, you're looking for mothers, and we're called to be fathers and mothers, and we're talking about how we do it, because this is the heart cry. This is the underpinning behind house church, and really for any kind of church, any kind of believer. But that's where this that's where the focus of this whole course is, is helping you develop, how do you develop a house church? How do you do that and a house church network. The heart cry must be, we're called to be spiritual fathers, and we're called to be spiritual mothers. I was on an airplane flying from East Coast, USA to West Coast, USA. I picked up an airline magazine, and I saw that in the state of Oregon, in Portland, Oregon, there was a businessman who was so concerned about the lack of parents in his city. In Portland, he gave $2 million to pay people to be parents to the kids in that city. Now that's just in the natural he was concerned how much more of it is in the spiritual See, often spiritual leaders have become Christian CEOs, spiritual CEOs, rather than spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers and God, who says, in the last days before I come back, I'm going to change that. Now. How's going to change it? He's got to change our hearts. And our hearts. We were saying, I'm going to be a spiritual father, spiritual mother to the next generation. I'm going to say this again and again, because I want you to get it. You might say, I don't have a spiritual father. How can I be a spiritual father? You cast your bread upon the waters and it shall return. You become a spiritual father. You become a spiritual mother, and God, by His grace, then will pay his head back and you, he will be, you'll become, you'll find, you'll have spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers in your life. So who needs spiritual moms and dads? Everybody, new believers, older Christians. There's always areas to grow. I'm blessed. I have some two spiritual fathers in my life. They're wiser than I am. They're older than I am. And your spiritual father or mother does not be older, maybe older in the faith, but in my case, they are older in the faith, and also they're older, older chronologically. And I'm a blessed man, because I didn't always have that.
Here's the bottom line, we all need spiritual fathers and mothers, but we're all called to become spiritual fathers and mothers. So we'll continue on in the next session and talk more about how this works, practically in our lives.