January 01, 2023 by Kumar, JV Mukul, Harold, and William J. Dubois

Movements Start Movements in South and Southeast Asia

By Kumar

In 1995 I started sharing the Gospel among unreached people and planting churches. My goal was to plant 100 churches by 2020. By 2007 I had planted 11 churches. Some people would consider that success, but I was devastated because I realized that at that rate, there was no way I would reach 100 churches by 2020. For two months I cried out to the Lord: “Show me the way to plant 100 churches!” Then in mid-2007 I got invited to a training in “4 Fields Zero Budget Church Planting.” I was only able to attend for one session, but that hour changed my life and ministry. I saw that Jesus equipped his disciples to multiply in a way that required zero outside funding.

I realized I had been planting traditional churches in which new believers were passively dependent on me. I saw that I needed instead to disciple new believers to share the Gospel, make disciples and form new churches. I started planting “0 budget” churches, which began reproducing.

At first, only fourteen people—unschooled oral learners— came to faith. I trained those fourteen in my house over the course of one month. Since they all had regular jobs, different people would come on different days. It was really challenging, but the Lord told me not to give up. After they were trained, they went off to plant churches.

Less than a year later, when I called them all together and did the mapping of the fruit, we had 100 churches! Using the 4 Fields (CPM model) approach, we had reached the goal of 100 churches 12 years ahead of time!

I asked the Lord “Where should I go now?” He said, “Don’t go anywhere. Coach churches. Train the 100 churches to plant three more churches each.” As I trained my local church leaders, they trained their people. Some churches planted five new churches. Others planted none. By the next year the network of 100 churches had grown to 422. We trained those churches to plant three more churches each. By the following year we had 1268 churches.

Then the Lord told me: “Cast vision to other churches.” So I  began  to  do  this  in  other  parts  of  the country. I told people, “Come and see what the Lord is doing; see how our believers live and serve.” As people came and were trained, they multiplied to the third and fourth generation. I asked for 5000 and the Lord gave 5000. When I asked for 50,000, the Lord gave 50,000.
This movement is starting other new movements in three primary ways:

1.  Believers with a vision for reaching their own people come to observe our work and receive ten days of training. Then they go back to start a movement.
2.  We personally go to their countries since some cannot afford to come to our location. First we do an initial training, then I invite some of them to a second training where I do 50% of the training and they do 50%. Then for the third training, I coach them to do all the training. I then follow up with ongoing coaching of those who have implemented the training principles. Every three months, we try to call them and see how it’s going. Then we go back to follow up. We keep doing follow-up in different countries on a quarterly rotation.
3.  Finally, we cast vision to coalitions of partners for “no place left” in their regions. For follow-up  training,  we send master trainers (people who understand the whole model and can train others to start movements) to equip them.

We have now engaged 56 previously Unengaged UPGs. We have ministry in almost every state of our country, and the work has spread to 12 countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia. We have developed 150 master trainers in our country. I’m very encouraged by 24:14 to learn that I’m not alone; I’m on the right track. Others in 24:14 are also seeing great fruit and have a similar vision. Our network’s goal fits with that of the 2414 Coalition: We want to see no place left without a Gospel witness by 2025.

How the Babu CPM has Fostered Other Movements

By JV Mukul

God is working in amazing ways among the Babu speakers of North India, with a CPM of more than 10 million baptized disciples of Jesus. God’s glory in this movement shines even brighter against the backdrop   of this area’s history. The Babu area of India is fertile in many ways, not just in its soil.

Yet the Babu area has been described as a place of darkness—not just by Christians, but by non-Christians as well. Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul, after traveling in eastern Uttar Pradesh, wrote a book entitled An Area of Darkness, describing well the region’s pathos and depravity.

In the past, this region was very, very hostile to the Gospel, which was viewed as foreign. It was known as “the graveyard of modern missions.” When the foreignness was removed, people started accepting the good news.

But God does not want to only reach Babu speakers. When God began to use us to reach beyond the Babu group, some people asked, “Why don’t you stick with reaching the Babu? There are so many millions of them! Why don’t you just stay there until that job is finished?”

My first response is the pioneering nature of Gospel work. Doing apostolic/pioneering work involves always looking for places where the good news has not taken root: looking for opportunities to make Christ known where He is not yet known. That’s one reason we expanded our work to other language groups.

Second, these various languages overlap in their usage, one with another. There’s no clear-cut line where use of one language ends and another begins. Also, believers often move because of relationships, such as getting married or having a job offer elsewhere. As people in the movement have traveled or moved, the good news has gone with them.

Some people came back and said, “We see God working in this other place. We would like to start a work in that area.” We told them, “Go ahead!”

So they came back a year later and said, “We’ve planted 15 churches there.” We were amazed and blessed, because it happened organically. There was no agenda, no preparation, and no funding. When they asked what was next, we began to work with them to help the believers get grounded in God’s word and quickly mature.

Third, we started training centers which expanded the work, both intentionally and unintentionally (more God’s plan than ours). Sometimes people from a nearby language group would come to a training and then return home and work among their own people.

A fourth reason for expansion: sometimes people have come to us and said, “We need help. Can you come help us?” We assist and encourage them as best we can. These have been the key factors in moving into neighboring areas beyond the Babu.
The work began among the Babu in 1994, then spread into a dozen other languages and areas. We praise God that the movement has spread in a variety of ways to different language groups, different geographic areas, multiple caste groups (within those language and geographic areas), and different religions. The power of the good news keeps breaking through all kinds of boundaries.

The work among the Makarios people serves as a very good example of partnership. Our partnership with one key leader was an experiment in expanding the movement. Instead of us opening our own office with our own staff, we accomplished the same goal in a more reproducible way.

While these movements are led indigenously, we continue to partner together. We recently began training 15+ Adelphos leaders in a nearby state in holistic (integrated) ministry. We plan to help start holistic ministry centers in three different Adelphos locations in the coming  year and raise up more local Adelphos leaders. Our key partner working among the Makarios is also extending work into the Adelphos area.

Surrendered: Movements Start Movements In The Middle East

By Harold and William J. Dubois

When the encrypted message came across my phone I was stunned by its simplicity and boldness, and humbled again by the words of “Harold,” my dear friend and partner in the Middle East. Though a former imam, al Qaeda terrorist and Taliban leader, his character has been radically transformed by the forgiving power of Jesus. I would trust Harold with my family and my own life—and I have. Together we lead a network of house church movements in 100+ countries called the Antioch Family of Churches.

I had sent Harold a message the day before asking if any of our former Muslim, now Jesus-following brothers and sisters living in Iraq would be willing to help rescue Yazidis. He replied:

“Brother, God has already been speaking to us about this for several months from Hebrews 13:3 (NLT) ‘Remember… those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies.’ Are you willing to stand with us in rescuing persecuted Christians and Yazidi minorities from ISIS?”

\What could I say? For the last several years our friendship had bonded into a deep commitment to walk the same path with Jesus and work together toward fulfilling the Great Commission. We were working feverishly to train leaders who would multiply our passionate surrender to Jesus, carrying His message of love to the nations. Now Harold was asking me to take another step deeper into rescuing people from slavery to sin and the horrific crimes of ISIS.

\I responded: “Yes, Brother, I am ready. Let’s see what God will do.”

Within hours, teams of trained, experienced local church planters from the Middle East volunteered to leave their posts to do whatever it would take to rescue these people from ISIS. What we discovered changed our hearts forever.

God was already at work! Broken by the demonic, barbaric actions of ISIS terrorists, Yazidis began pouring into our underground secret locations we called “Community of Hope Refugee Camps.” We mobilized teams of local Jesus- followers to provide free medical care, trauma healing counseling, fresh water, shelter and protection. It was one movement of Jesus-following house churches living out their faith to impact another people.

We also discovered that the best workers came from nearby house churches. They knew the language and culture, and had the heartbeat of evangelism and church planting. While other NGOs who registered with the government had to restrict their faith message, our non- formal church-based efforts were filled with prayers, Scripture readings, healings, love and care! And because our team leaders had been lavishly forgiven by Jesus, they lived completely surrendered and were filled with courageous boldness.

Soon letters began to pour in:

(From a leader of one of our Community of Hope Refugee Camps.)

Many Yazidi families have accepted Jesus Christ and have asked to join with our leaders in working and serving their own people. This is very good because they can share with them in their own cultural way. Today, as Jesus-followers we are praying for the affected people that God will provide for their needs and protect them from the Islamic fighters.

Please join with us in prayer.

A miracle had begun. A movement of surrendered Jesus followers from nearby nations—all formerly  trapped by Islam—had been freed from their own sin to live for Jesus as their Savior. They were giving their lives to save others. Now, a second movement of Jesus followers has begun among Yazidis.

How could this happen? As D.L. Moody wrote: “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him. By God’s help, I aim to be that man.”