The work of God, particular the Great Commission, must unite, not divide

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What are we going to do?

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We are going to discuss the following:

o The use of Catechized Bible Studies (CBS) in the Catechized Disciple-Making Church-Planting Movement (CDMCPM) restricts its applicability to people groups that are literate and that have the bible or at least portions of the bible in their own languages.

o With CBS CDMCPM introduces a light-weight and hence a more reproducible pattern of training leaders that effectively eliminates the Achilles heel of reproducing leadership in the Disciple-Making Movement (DMM) and the Church-Planting Movement (CPM).

o In contrast to DMM and CPM, CDMCPM can in the midst of shortages of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill leverage the handful of available leaders for sustaining a movement without adding more complexity to the organizational structure of training.

o There are other benefits of conducting leadership training through CBS in CDMCPM that are not available in DMM and CPM. Please see below for details.

o There are benefits of CBS that pertain to other areas of CDMCPM than leadership training and that are not available in DMM and CPM. Please see below for details.

o CDMCPM is in a better position than DMM and CPM to draw disciples from traditional-model churches as co-laborers and stake holders in the movement for both cross-cultural mission and teaching local disciples to obey all things whatsoever Jesus has commanded while they continue their traditional model.

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What are we going to do?

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What distinguishes CDMCPM from DMM and CPM?

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What distinguishes CDMCPM from DMM and CPM is the use of CBS in CDMCPM. We are going to focus on characteristics of CDMCPM that can be traced to the use of CBS in the discussion of how CDMCPM is designed to be an improvement of DMM and CPM.

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What distinguishes CDMCPM from DMM and CPM?

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Limitations of CDMCPM as a result of its use of CBS

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The use of CBS in CDMCPM restricts its applicability to people groups that are literate and that have the bible or at least portions of the bible in their own languages.

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Limitations of CDMCPM as a result of its use of CBS

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With its use of CBS CDMCPM effectively eliminates the Achilles heel of DMM and CPM in reproducing leadership

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Leadership training can have the following two components:

Training for providing bible-based services such as family counseling, counseling for bereavement and terminal illness, counseling for addiction, conflict mediation, etc.

Training for teaching disciples to obey all things whatsoever Jesus has commanded.

Leadership training for providing bible-based services is not critical for the survival of a movement while leadership training for teaching disciples to obey all things whatsoever Jesus has commanded is. In the following discussion leadership training specifically refers to training leaders to teach disciples to obey all things whatsoever Jesus has commanded. Leadership training for providing bible-based services would be the topic for discussion on another occasion.

In DMM and CPM attempts are made to keep things simple and reproducible to facilitate reaching and sustaining a movement. However, the training of leaders has not been made reproducible enough such that reproducing leaders can be quite problematic in both.

An article entitled

The Engine that Sustains Movements

by Steve Smith

was carried in the March-April 2014 issue of Mission Frontiers. It states:

Yet failure from the beginning to develop a system to train the dozens, then hundreds, of emerging leaders has hamstrung a number of these budding movements. They plateau generally at the capacity of the missionary and initial leaders. Leadership overload, in which these leaders pastor several small churches each without raising up new leaders, stifles the expansion. At this point the missionary and key national leaders work frantically to address the need for more leaders, but it s often too little too late. The expansion grinds to a halt with the majority of the population unreached with the gospel.

To fulfill God s vision of His kingdom coming to every neighborhood, town and village, CPM practitioners must focus on a fifth principle prior to the beginning of the first church: reproducing leadership development. Leadership development is the engine the Spirit uses to sustain movements. In fact, sustained Church Planting Movements are by default leadership multiplication movements.

The above excerpt from the article exposes the critical dependence on the development of large numbers of leaders as overseers of churches of sustaining a movement. The development of leaders as overseers of small churches and not as overseers of an entire movement is in focus in the current discussion. (The development of leaders as overseers of an entire movement would be the topic for discussion on another occasion.) If the training of leaders has not been made reproducible enough, budding movements cannot be sustained. The article gives examples of training policies and schedules as follows:

Bring training to locales where the leaders can easily travel.

Bring training more frequently for shorter durations with a smaller amount of training materials to facilitate retention and application.

Bring training in accordance with the schedule of the leaders such as:

o Monthly on Friday night and Saturday.

o For 4-10 days two, three or four times a year.

o Rainy-season training for 3-4 weeks for farmers in addition to monthly meetings.

For a movement of 10,000 disciples with an average church size of 20, the number of leaders required is about 500. The logistics and cost of regularly training these 500 leaders are substantial to say the least, especially when they live in geographically disparate areas. If the movement grows bigger, training will take increasingly more resources. Issues with training like these are applicable to both DMM and CPM.

The article cites an example of how a missionary created the training system for a movement by focusing on week-by-week mentoring of top national leaders and giving special attention to enabling them to become effective mid-level trainers. In time, these leaders raise up other leaders to do the same by training them. The simplest training pattern has training materials originating from a single layer of mid-level trainers and percolating down to the leaders. In a more complicated training pattern as the movement grows, training materials would percolate through layers among the mid-level trainers to step up the number of trainers before they reach the large numbers of leaders. The leaders then return to their churches and relay what they have learned to the disciples. The result is a system whereby mid-level training of leaders can expand endlessly as the movement grows. In fact the movement referred to has grown to over a million disciples according to the article. One can imagine the logistics and cost of regularly training leaders of this movement. It is a heavy burden.

Both DMM and CPM follow this pattern of training leaders that is not so reproducible and that, if not properly handled, will turn into the Achilles heel of a budding movement. It has been the motto of both DMM and CPM to keep things simple and reproducible to facilitate reaching and sustaining a movement. This not-so-reproducible pattern of training leaders in DMM and CPM needs to be replaced with a more reproducible pattern to improve the odds for a movement.

In CDMCPM evangelism, discipleship and leadership training are all conducted through CBS. It is entirely appropriate for leadership training that is primarily theological training to be conducted through CBS since theology is the study of God based on the bible and catechism is a tool for teaching doctrines.

In CDMCPM the only amount of resource required for composing CBS for discipleship and leadership training to be used during the routine session of a church is the time and effort of a relatively small team of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill. Only a relatively small team of leaders is required regardless of the size of the movement, be it a movement of thousands of disciples or of millions. Thus the composition of CBS for discipleship and leadership training for routine use incurs a low fixed cost and does not incur incremental costs when the movement grows. Furthermore conducting leadership training through CBS does not incur any logistics and can be done any time, anywhere, on demand. With its use of CBS CDMCPM introduces a light-weight and hence a more reproducible pattern of training leaders that effectively eliminates the Achilles heel of reproducing leadership in DMM and CPM.

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With its use of CBS CDMCPM effectively eliminates the Achilles heel of DMM and CPM in reproducing leadership

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In contrast to DMM and CPM, CDMCPM does not add complexity to the organizational structure of training as a result of shortages of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill

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Some say that a smaller church only needs a leader with enough, i.e., lesser, capacity in comparison to a larger church such that qualified leaders for sustaining a movement should be available if the size of churches is set at a number small enough is not completely valid. This is true in terms of management skill but not true in terms of bible interpretation skill. There is certainly a difference in the management skill required for taking care of 10 disciples and 10,000 disciples, but there is no difference in the bible interpretation skill required for taking care of 10 disciples and 10,000 disciples. The small size of churches does argue for a requirement of lesser management skill on the part of leaders but not a requirement of lesser bible interpretation skill.

If we have shortages of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill (it is a given among disciples of an unreached people), a movement with a large number of small churches will suffer at least as much as when the size of churches is larger. In fact making the size of churches smaller when there are shortages of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill actually makes the problem worse because the handful of available leaders with sound bible interpretation skill will exercise less influence and impact in smaller churches. Therefore keeping the size of churches small is not a legitimate way of mitigating shortages of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill though it is a legitimate way of mitigating shortages of leaders with management skill. Shortages of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill among the disciples of an unreached people need to be handled in a more direct approach.

In both DMM and CPM shortages of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill among the disciples of an unreached people can be handled through properly organizing the structure of mid-level trainers. The handful of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill would constitute the top layer of mid-level trainers from whom original training materials percolate down through a lower and larger layer of mid-level trainers, who then deliver the training to the leaders. If the number of leaders that need to be trained is large as a result of the size of the movement, there may already be multiple layers of mid-level trainers for the sake of stepping up the number of trainers. The problem of shortages of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill is alleviated by adding more complexity to the organizational structure of training of a movement in DMM and CPM.

By default CDMCPM assumes a relatively small team of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill for composing CBS for discipleship and leadership training for routine use regardless of the size of the movement. In contrast to DMM and CPM it does not add complexity to the organizational structure of training of a movement as a result of shortages of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill.

Leadership training in CDMCPM should be done with an eye toward enabling disciples to compose their own CBS for discipleship and leadership training for routine use. In going through the weekly CBS composed by the missionary right from the beginning, disciples would learn how to compose their own CBS. They can mimic the principles of interpreting the bible embedded in the CBS they are studying. For instance the principle of using the bible to interpret the bible can be learned by going through a study that employs that principle for interpretation. The missionary only needs to put in place a relatively small team of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill in order to sustain the movement in the long haul after his/her departure.

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In contrast to DMM and CPM, CDMCPM does not add complexity to the organizational structure of training as a result of shortages of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill

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Other benefits of conducting leadership training through CBS in CDMCPM that are not available in DMM and CPM

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The following is the list of other benefits of conducting leadership training through CBS in CDMCPM that are not available in DMM and CPM:

All disciples receive leadership training and not just the leaders to energize all of them to develop their potential and to become leaders. Leaders with sound bible interpretation skill will emerge from among the entire cast of the disciples.

It does not require any layer of middlemen for delivery of training materials to the target audience that is all the disciples. Problems with the understanding, retention and communication of the materials by the middlemen are eliminated. It maintains high fidelity to the original training materials in delivery to the target audience.

It promotes retention of training materials learned as a result of individual thinking, group discussion and participation.

It can be reviewed by individual disciples any time, anywhere, on demand.

In areas where disciples are persecuted, not having to assemble in large numbers for training to avoid potential scenarios of trouble is a plus.

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Other benefits of conducting leadership training through CBS in CDMCPM that are not available in DMM and CPM

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Benefits of CBS that pertain to other areas of CDMCPM than leadership training and that are not available in DMM and CPM

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The following is the list of benefits of conducting evangelism, discipleship and leadership training through CBS in CDMCPM that are not available in DMM and CPM:

Evangelism and leadership training like discipleship are conducted through CBS as the standardized structure for delivery and can be considered functional categories of discipleship. This seamless integration of functions of discipleship through CBS makes CDMCPM simpler and hence more reproducible overall.

CBS eliminates the burden of preparing biblical content that deters disciples from becoming leaders thus freeing more disciples to become leaders.

CBS stimulates individual thinking, group discussion and participation thus rendering CDMCPM a more participatory model.

Evangelism, discipleship and leadership training are fully scripted as CBS and can be analogized to a do-it-yourself project with instruction that anyone can handle.

The brain of CDMCPM resides in the collection of available CBS and not in the brains of leaders who can forget, die, get sick, move out of town and fall away.

Documentability of CBS in a standardized format encourages collaboration of various parties, for instance, the missionary, disciples from the sending church of the missionary, disciples from existing churches on the mission field, toward a successful joint implementation effort of CDMCPM otherwise infeasible.

The missionary who has catalyzed a movement can continue to provide CBS for the movement after he/she has left for another mission field. Please note that the CBS that the missionary composes can be used on any mission field he/she serves.

Worse comes to worse, a church is isolated and needs to compose its own CBS. The leader can coordinate collaborative composition of CBS by all the disciples in the same church in the prior week. The disciples would provide what they have learned from the same bible passages in their personal devotion time in the form of questions and answers and the leader would put them all together to be discussed during the CDMCPM session. This would keep the church alive.

Traditional-model churches within reached and unreached peoples have more incentives to participate in CDMCPM by virtue of having a means of control in a decentralized movement through the CBS they contribute.

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Benefits of CBS in other areas of CDMCPM than leadership training that are not available in DMM and CPM

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Benefits of using the Online Catechized Bible Studies Library (OCBSL) to teach the disciples to obey all things whatsoever Jesus has commanded through CBS in CDMCPM that are not available in DMM and CPM

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In the document The Catechized Disciple-Making Church-Planting Movement , we discuss the benefits of CDMCPM being supplied by an adequate Online Catechized Bible Studies Library (OCBSL). Please refer to that document for the discussion. We would mention here in passing that an adequate OCBSL can not only buy time on the mission field for the development of a relatively small team of leaders with sound bible interpretation skill for composing CBS for discipleship and leadership training for routine use, but can even decouple the survival of the movement from the ability of disciples in the movement to compose their own CBS.

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CDMCPM is in a better position than DMM and CPM to draw disciples in traditional-model churches as co-laborers and stake holders in the movement while they continue their traditional model

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The work of God, particularly the Great Commission, must unite, not divide. CDMCPM gives disciples in traditional-model churches more control over the direction of teaching local disciples to obey all things whatsoever Jesus has commanded through the CBS that they can compose. It also opens up opportunities for them to directly participate in cross-cultural mission again through CBS. CDMCPM is in a better position than DMM and CPM to draw disciples in traditional-model churches as co-laborers and stake holders in both areas while they continue their traditional model.

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CDMCPM is in a better position than DMM and CPM to draw disciples in traditional-model churches as co-laborers and stake holders in the movement while they continue their traditional model

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