NAMS

by the Rev. Dr. Jon Shuler, PhD

As an American, I am a congenital “hugger.” What the Italians call an embrazio warms my heart and soul when I receive one from a friend. But as the country of my birth moves further and further away from the truth of the gospel, the frequency of receiving such an embrace has diminished greatly.

To be “touched” by others, let alone hugged by those we do not know well, has become for many a rare experience. Yet the meaning of such a sign when appropriately given—“you are loved and welcomed into my life”–is a deeply desired human need. I will never forget my first visit to Uganda, where the cultural tradition is so wonderfully embracing, and the multitude of times I was greeted with a warm smile and the words: “You are welcome here.” Is that true when strangers meet us? When they come to our churches?

How welcoming are our churches?

If we are talking about the “public” welcome–general hospitality and superficial kindness–my experience is that the answer is “yes.” Great progress in these points has been made in many of our churches over the last generation or two. But if we mean a welcome into the real life of a believing person, family, or small extended community of faith, then most often my answer must be “no.” The average Anglican congregation, at its best, has very few avenues of welcome into that place where authentic Christian discipleship will be seen and can be learned. We do not normally have that sort of structured life in our congregations, at least easily open to the outsider. And again and again, in many of our churches, we do not have that sort of life at all. We are often welcoming people to a body without arms to embrace them.

Learning to embrace the lost

My family loved me as a child. I had 16 first cousins in my small hometown. My maternal grandparents worshipped in the same congregation as I did. Three neighboring households, within a few doors, did so as well. Church, family, and community were a seamless whole for me for nearly 17 years. When I married and had a family of my own, it just seemed normal to have many friends and acquaintances in our life. I am sad to say it took a long time for me to realize how unusual my experience was, and how lonely and isolated many of those who came to our services were. I did not realize how few truly happy marriages there were in the congregations I served. I did not realize how few parents knew how to disciple their children. My blindness caused much of my preaching to fall on deaf ears. People did not know what to do with the truth of the gospel in any practical way. Even the converted were primarily taught the “behaviors of the church,” and not what would spread the kingdom of God. They had no arms to embrace the lost.

Preaching the gospel from the pulpit, and teaching it whenever possible, will bear fruit, for “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ” (Romans 10:17), but discipleship must be learned in relationship with real people who are themselves trying to follow Jesus with their whole heart. How are outsiders to the faith, let alone half-discipled church shoppers, to find that place? God intends every Christian home to be such a place. He intends every true believer to be capable of extending such a welcome. He expects it of every Christian marriage.

Practicing true hospitality

What I am calling the “arms to embrace them” is a way of life Holy Scripture reveals–to those with eyes to see–on almost every page of the New Testament. God’s people practiced true hospitality in the time of the Apostolic Church. People got to know real people who were followers of Jesus, and it did not happen in the Synagogue. So whether it was Andrew finding Peter, Priscilla and Aquilla inviting Apollos to their home, Lydia prevailing upon the Apostle Paul to come and stay at her house, or the pious Gentile Cornelius gathering all his family and friends to hear Peter, unbelievers saw real flesh and blood people who were followers of Jesus. Their pattern of life provided all sorts of ways–in addition to gathering on the Lord’s Day–for people who were not yet convinced to be embraced by a community being made new in the love of Christ Jesus.

Next Week: Groups That Die & Seeds That Die and Live

Yogi Berra

by the Rev. Dr. Jon Shuler, PhD

Yogi Berra, the famous catcher and MLB manager is reported to have once said: “The main thing you’ve got to remember is to keep the main thing the main thing.” It makes everyone smile, but what he said is true. How does that apply to those of us who seek to serve Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Risen Lord, as leaders in mission?

The Gospel of Matthew, which throughout Christian history has been the most commonly read and memorized, tells us that Jesus commissioned his apostles before leaving them. He gave them very clear instruction. For centuries the faithful have called the Matthean version of these instructions “THE Great Commission” because it was the most comprehensive and inclusive form of words encapsulating all that our Lord expected the church to do. Every word was sacred. The purpose and intention were unmistakable. The faithful leaders were told to “make disciples.” This was the mission. This was the first thing they were to do, the continuing thing, THE main thing. Two thousand years later, NAMS believes (with every biblically faithful Christian in the world) that the Gospel of Matthew still defines the mission of the church of Jesus.

Putting the Focus Back on Making Disciples

Yet anyone who has been part of a long organized church, especially one of the highly institutionalized churches of the West, knows that making disciples who obey the teaching of Jesus (“all that I have commanded you” – Mt 28:20) seems often to be the last thing attended to. The agenda is frequently filled with buildings and budgets, programs and problems, trivia and turmoil, and only rarely with the central task of making disciples. I well remember a divine intervention in my life–in February 1988–when I “saw” that we had spent over $40,000 for every new adult baptized member of the congregation the previous year at our church. I wept when I pondered that all it takes to lead someone to Christ Jesus, and subsequent baptism, is a dedicated disciple of Jesus willing to spend time with unbelievers. I was forever changed as a priest of the church. For 25 years I have worked to change the focus of my ministry in the light of that one day.

Why is it that the majority of churches in the West do not see more than one or two adult converts in a typical year? How can we be so proud of our apostolic heritage and yet be so un-apostolic? What would it take for this pattern to change among us?

Next Week: Preaching to the Converted

Jon Shuler

by Jon Shuler

For many years we have watched fads come and go in the life of the church. Christians, as a group, are not promised immunity from societal pressures, but they are expected to grow up into maturity. If we had a financial contribution to NAMS for every time someone has quoted to us, or recommended, the latest “hot selling” speaker or book, we would be supporting many more global missionary church planters! The central reality is this: many of us spend more time keeping up with what is “new” than obeying what is timeless. What is “timeless” is seeking to obey the Great Commission of the Lord Jesus, according to the commandments of God.

From day one of our work with NAMS it has been clear to us that what the Lord requires of us is more disciples who will obey his teaching, and that disciples are not casual Christians. Disciples may be very immature, but they are not careless with the things of God. Disciples may have much to learn, but fundamental things are clear to them – or they are not yet “made” disciples.

The Fundamentals of Being a Disciple

What might some of those fundamental things be? The writer of the letter to the Hebrews was very clear: the foundation was “repentance from dead works and…faith toward God.” (Heb 6:1) Every true believer has a testimony of the moment, the day, or the season when they “knew” they were going away from God and had to turn back to Him. For all of us it was a moment of brokenness and sorrow, however expressed, and it ushered us into the waves of God’s love as we put our trust in the work of His Son alone.

But that moment was not enough, we need teaching about “baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.” (Heb 6:2) In other words, we need to be grounded in a basic theology of the central things made known in Christ Jesus, who we have now “professed” as Lord and “believed” in our hearts to be the living risen Son of God who is to be loved and obeyed by all the peoples of the earth. (cf Rom 10:9ff) By the end of the first century, if not before, the faithful church was requiring a very clear understanding of the gospel of Jesus, and a willingness to profess it publicly, before entrance into the Household of God.

Never, however, was the new believer allowed to imagine — even for a moment — that he or she was “finished” after being initiated. On the contrary, now began the real journey — to follow Christ daily and to walk in “the works he has prepared for us to walk in.” (Eph 2:10) There is work to do, and every believer is to be involved, helped on (“discipled”) by those who were in the Lord before them.

New Testament Lesson about Being a Disciple

The New Testament unfolds a rich diversity of gifts and callings that are distributed in the body of Christ, and it makes abundantly clear that all are needed. But what seems to be missing in many parts of the modern church is a grasp of the clear expectation that everyone is to be learning to make another disciple. Everyone.

Some years ago I heard a wonderful set of lectures given by the late Raymond Brown, the esteemed New Testament scholar. He was lecturing on “The Church Before AD 100″ and he said this: “The early church had the disconcerting notion that a Christian who was not trying to make another Christian might not be a Christian. This caused no end of distress to the Roman Empire!”

What Raymond Brown understood, and many contemporary church leaders and people do not, is that the kingdom of God will only spread effectively through cultures if all the people of God understand that making disciples is not just for an “elite group” or ordained ministers, but is for the baptized. If we have churches full of people who are not discipling others in any effective way, what can we say? To extend the Apostle’s teaching to our own day, we must realize that “no one is a [Christian] who is merely one outwardly, nor is [baptism] outward and physical. But a [Christian] is one inwardly, and [baptism] is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” (Rom 2:28/29) Where there are authentic Christians, others come to faith. What heart do we reveal if we are not learning to make other disciples, and not learning only, but making them?

Four steps are involved in any new behavior: intellectual, emotional, volitional, and actual. The scriptures are clear. Our hearts have been touched. We say we want to be obedient followers of Jesus. Are we living his Great Commission? And if not, why not? And if not, what are we going to do about it?

Jon Shuler completes the series. NAMS — Living the Great Commission

The NAMS Method

By Dr. Jon Shuler

• Making disciples who make disciples
• Multiplying Great Commission Cells
• Planting Great Commission Congregations
• Building Great Commission networks

This is the method of NAMS.  It is not unique.  When we encounter other people who are actively seeking to disciple the nations we invariably find that these principles have been taught to them as well, so we are not in any way claiming them for ourselves.  We think they are Kingdom methods.  However, we make some very specific assumptions about leadership not all Christians may agree upon.

Three Leadership Assumptions NAMS Makes

Every NAMS Missionary Companion believes:

• FIRST:  The Holy Scriptures are true.  They are “the rule and ultimate standard of faith.“  This needs to be stressed, taught and affirmed and upheld.  No one at any level of the Church should lead anything  of importance if they don’t believe that.
• SECOND:  The Gospel is for all people. There is no one excluded. The Lord Jesus Christ has called His Church to bear witness to the ends of the earth, to all nations of the earth; to every tribe, people, and tongue.

All of us find it easier to witness to people like ourselves, and it is very easy to fall into a disobedient posture of imagining the Church filled with people like ourselves.  We have to constantly hold one another to the clarity that this Gospel that we have been entrusted with is for everybody.  There is no exception.  And the way the Gospel will get to everyone is that we will disciple disciples who make disciples—we will raise up people who will go to them.  And they won’t all look like us, act like us or think like us.

All people are called to hear and receive the Gospel

When I was leading an evangelistic campaign some years ago in England, we had a training day before it began.  I arrived at the church where we were holding our training, and no one was there.  The building was locked.  I was standing outside waiting, and heard the sound of a skateboard. I turned around to see a tall teenager coming down the hill on his skateboard—God forgive me, the kind of teenager I am apt to avoid–pierced and spiked in ways that cause me to shiver a bit. He headed toward the church where I was standing, and I said a secret prayer to God that I not be distressed by his looks.

I introduced myself, and he asked what I was doing there.  I told him I was leading an evangelistic campaign in the city next week, and was here to do some training. I invited him to join us for the training and the mission.  He asked, “You want someone like me?”  To which I replied, “Well sure we want you, because you will be able to reach other “someone’s” like you.” That young man was not a believer the day I met him, but was coming to a youth event at the church.  He went through the training with us and on the fourth day accepted Jesus Christ as His savior.  So in our midst we had an unbelieving “tribal teenager,” who was touched by God’s Spirit and brought to conversion.  We have to learn that all the peoples of the earth are called to hear and receive the Gospel.

• THIRD:  The basic element for discipling and reaching the nations is the small, “two or three- gathered-in-Jesus’-Name” groups—what we call Great Commission Cells.  NAMS believes that God wants every marriage, and every Christian family, to be a disciple-making cell.  This is God’s blueprint to change the world.

Our NAMS short-term strategy is this—we have divided the world into nine mission regions:  North America, South America, Africa, Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands), Europe, Asia Minor, East Asia, South East Asia, South Asia.  Our prayer and immediate strategy is that God would grant us at least one Base Community in each region.  A Base Community is that small band of disciples who are seeking to raise up disciples who will make other disciples, then group together in GC Cells, plant GC Congregations, and build networks in that region or another.

Our longer-term prayer and strategy is that from those nine Base Communities, all the nations in those nine regions will each come to have a Base Community.  We live and pray for the day when every knee will bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  We want to be used by God for as long as it pleases Him, until the earth is covered with the Glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.

Four Activities of a Successful Base Community (continued)

Jon Shuler

By Dr. Jon Shuler

The NAMS method is to learn to make disciples who make disciples, then learn to group them in small units we call Great Commission Cells, seeking obedience to the Great Commission.

Great Commission Congregations

The third activity of a successful Base Community is to begin forming congregations that do the same—Great Commission Congregations.  This is not a congregation that gets happy with itself–where the comfort of the believers, and the joy of the community, and the teaching that is given, the warmth and the ministry of the body is so wonderful–that they forget about the lost.  We don’t want to see that, so we believe a GC Congregation must constantly be prayerful for the Lord’s call to start the next congregation.  The means by which that will happen is disciples being made who can make disciples, and if GC Cells are being formed who are seeking the Lord’s will for how they obey the Great Commission. As sure as God made little green apples there will be someone in that congregation whom the Spirit of God will speak to about an unreached neighborhood, an unreached subgroup of the town or the village, an unreached region, an unreached people, an unreached nation, an unreached world.

A GC Congregation must be led by men and women who understand it is God’s absolute right and purpose to raise up people who will go out from them.  Sadly, a great error in the western Church, that is, the European Church, and its influence wherever western civilization has spread, has been that it is very good at getting one congregation started, then stopping.  The desire of NAMS is a heart’s desire for God to break through and teach every faithful church that though you may only be 30 people, if the Lord Jesus says, “I need three of you in a new work,” the 30 have to yield up the three in joyful obedience.  (There are times when people might want to leave too soon, then there is a pastoral judgment that must be brought to bear.   There may need to be submission to the judgment of the body that it’s premature for them to leave. I wouldn’t argue against that at all.  What I am speaking to particularly, is that resistance by a pastor that says “I can’t let go of my sheep. I don’t want my sheep to go anywhere else.  No one can teach them as well as I can. They don’t know enough yet.”)  We know from the New Testament that the pattern of the Apostles and the pattern of Jesus is that it doesn’t take 30 years to learn enough to start a new church.

Building Networks of Congregations

The fourth activity in the pattern that God has revealed to NAMS is that as GC Congregations give away life, and give away nurture and support, and as they coach and train other GC Congregations, they will inevitably build networks of congregations. These apostolic networks are another form of church life that must be understood and needs to be replicated.  The reason we need those networks is that there is no biblical basis for independent Christianity. The idea that one congregation can live in separation from other believing Christians is not biblical Christianity.  So the relationships between sister churches, or as some people like to say, mother-daughter churches, are meant to be structures that are discipling, encouraging, accountability structures.  It is possible to imagine that one of the congregations may begin to go in a direction that is not good, and the other congregations need to assist in calling them back to the Scriptures, to be faithful.

Congregation networks are a critical accountability structure in the life of the church. We must seek to encourage the formation of those networks and we must multiply them. It may not be a divine principle, but there is a precedent in Moses’ father-in-law giving counsel about judging Israel, that 10 is a good number.  As a working principle, 10 congregations in one network is probably a good number.  Around that number, there is great biblical wisdom in looking to multiply the network so that it’s possible to give quality care and have accountability and mutual knowledge of one another and relationship with one another, which will get harder and harder if you try to keep a greater span with more and more congregations.

To be continued next week…

Jon Shuler, NAMS Global Team Leader

By Dr. Jon Shuler

The NAMS Method

We feel that we have been directed to a simple method of planting Great Commission churches around the world. First, we establish a Base Community of disciples—a small band of men and women who know themselves to be called to the work of pioneer, global, church planting; who know themselves called to live lives of holiness and obedience under the Word of God; a small community of men and women who know that living the Great Commission, making disciples of all nations is the central work of the Church of Jesus Christ.

What is a Base Community?

A Base Community is a small number of disciples who have heard a call from God to move into a new place, to assist the faithful Church in planting new churches that are faithful to God.  So we first “seed”–that is, send a small Base Community into a field, or a new area where God opens the door for us.  Once that Base Community is established as a worshiping community, that is to say, it is living the life of the Christian Church, it is glorifying God in its life, its activities and in its ministries, and is worshiping the Lord, usually on the Lord’s day–once that Base Community is established, we seek to do four things.

Four Activities of an Effective Base Community

• We seek to make disciples who are making disciples.
• We seek to start and nourish Great Commission Cells, who will make more Great Commission Cells.
• We seek to raise up the leadership to plant new Great Commission Congregations that will themselves plant other Great Commission Congregations.
• We seek to build networks of Great Commission Congregations that over time will build other Great Commission networks.

Let’s go deeper with each of these four activities.

Disciples Who Make Disciples

I learned very painfully early in my ministry that in the existing churches of the world, an enormous number of people profess Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, who have been very badly discipled. They wrongly think that a disciple is one who receives Christ, or who has made a decision, or has been baptized, or has been confirmed.

We found very early in our work that we had to clarify what we meant by “disciple.”  If we were going to make disciples according to the Great Commission of Jesus, how would we know when we had made one? We came to the conclusion that we know when we have made a disciple, when he/she tries to make another disciple. When we see this, we feel that we can say he/she is a disciple, perhaps not a very mature one, but a “made” one. Then we begin to pray for God to show us someone else to disciple.  We feel it’s critical to use this understanding of a “disciple who makes a disciple.”  The Church, where it is healthy and vibrant, and alive and faithful, and useful to God in discipling the nations, has that kind of disciple.  We have friends who say, “And some day pigs will fly!”  But that is our dream, our prayer, our effort, our goal.  We do not want churches full of people who are not making disciples.  So we have to relearn from the Lord, by the teaching of Scripture and the Gospel how to disciple so that one disciple makes another, who will make another…

The Great Commission Cell

A second activity of effective Base Communities is perhaps the only thing in our ministry in which we have a sense that there is something particular that God has revealed to us. That is the power of what we have come to believe God wants us to call a Great Commission Cell (GC Cell).  We think a GC Cell is an intermediary structure useful to God between one disciple and one congregation.  It’s interior to the life of the congregation.  We would define a GC Cell this way—two or three disciples who know that God is calling them to obey the Great Commission.  They begin to meet and pray regularly, asking God to show them their assignment for fulfilling the Great Commission.  Two or three disciples, who know God wants them to obey the Great Commission, can ask for God to give them clarity about their particular path, their particular calling, their particular assignment, the field (as the Apostle Paul describes it) to which they are assigned.

A GC Cell starts very small, but the dream is, “how do we make disciples, so that our small cell can multiply and become two small cells?”  Before the number of people in one cell gets to about 10, it’s good to let some of those start a new cell, and both of those cells can continue to grow, until it’s time for more multiplication.  The pattern is the pattern of creation.  Exactly as the Lord Jesus Christ and His Father have given life to the creation, life is given in the body of Christ.  All living things live because life-giving cells multiply in a healthy and correct way to create and sustain the life form God has made them to be.  Without replicating cells of disciples, the body of Christ cannot grow as the Lord wills.

We think that the Great Commission Cell is the key missing ingredient in most traditional churches to discipling the nations.  Many missionaries have gone out to the world, and have recreated churches where there are a hundred people and one pastor, leaving out masses of people who have never heard the Gospel.  They have created congregations that are faithful, but the mediating structure to reach the lost—carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth—is missing.  We’ve seen this again and again and again. We have gone to six continents and more than 20 nations and never seen a church that seems to fully understand this.  The closest we have seen is in the new churches of China, where an enormous number of Christians seem to have been taught this by the Lord.  But, in general where the western church is, we see masses of unconverted people and tiny churches of faithful people.  We think the Great Commission Cell, if understood and embraced, is a critical missionary component.

To be continued next week…