The Ministry Multiplication Cycle

Introduction

One winter afternoon my mother called me on the phone. Her voice hinted a bit of concern. A doctor had admitted her to the hospital in order to perform major surgery. She asked if I could come visit her later that day. Since the hospital was located close to my college, it did not take long to make the trip in my grey Chevrolet Nova. I have absolutely no memory as to why my mother was having surgery, but I clearly remember her asking me if she would go to heaven or hell if she died during the surgery.

Why she asked me, of all people, that particular question, I don’t know. Perhaps it was because I was going to graduate from college, something she and my dad had not been able to do. More than likely, it was because she had no one else to ask. You see, our family did not go to church on Sundays. Instead, we went water skiing and fishing on a lake outside of Atlanta where we lived. Our extended family didn’t really go to church either. A personal relationship with Jesus Christ seemed to have stopped with my grandparents. As a result, addictions, infidelity, divorce, mental health hospitals and suicide left devastating marks throughout the various family structures.

Seeing that the issue of eternity loomed large in my mother’s mind, I wanted to get the answer right. I told her that I needed to return to my dorm room to retrieve a little yellow booklet that three of my friends on campus had been reading to me.

It didn’t take long before I once again was sitting beside her bed. Opening the yellow tract, I read that God loved her and had a wonderful plan for her life. Her response seems heart-breaking now for she looked at me with a look of amazement and asked, Really? I read that she couldn’t experience God’s love and forgiveness because she had disobeyed God. I know that, she admitted. As I read, the booklet explained that Jesus Christ died on the cross to forgive her of her disobedience. Again, almost longingly she asked, Really? The booklet stated that knowing these truths was not enough to receive God’s love and forgiveness. She needed to invite Jesus Christ to come live in her heart. How do I do that? she asked. I turned the page and read two words, Dear God. My mother immediately repeated them after me. Each phrase I read, she repeated, all the way to the Amen.

Something supernatural took place that afternoon. My mother entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And He changed her. Something else took place a few weeks after that encounter. I also prayed and invited Jesus Christ into my own heart. And He changed me also!

Within days I was leading other people to Christ. I told everyone I knew or met about God’s love and offer of forgiveness. I longed for others to escape the sin and sorrow I had seen in my own family or, even better, to avoid it altogether.

I didn’t feel, however, that I was always effective at helping people cross over into a personal relationship with Christ. Sometimes people asked questions I did not know how to answer. Nor did I feel like I was great at helping people grow in their new relationship with Christ. Little wonder. How much can an eighteen-year-old new believer coming from an unchurched, non-Christian, dysfunctional background know? But I did feel that I could get better. That day started a lifelong journey of learning how to be as effective as possible at helping people both come to Christ and grow in Christ.

I started reading everything I thought would help. It wasn’t long before I came across a book by Leroy Eims that highlighted the importance of not only leading people to faith in Christ and helping them grow into disciples, but insisted that we need to equip disciple-makers and leaders. His background stressed that without multiplication, we would never reach the world for Christ. That added perspective resonated with me and became a driving force in the ministry God had called me to fulfill.

While I was helping to plant a church in Atlanta, three young female graduates of Columbia International University rocked my ministry paradigm. They politely, but insistently, told me that I did not understand what it took to reach the world for Christ. I explained, perhaps a bit smugly, how if we led people to Christ and discipled them well enough so that they could evangelize and disciple others to do the same, then we would reach the world in our lifetimes.

In the next few minutes, as I listened to these wonderful friends, my whole view of ministry was transformed. Looking back, I am surprised I understood them since they used a lot of unfamiliar words and concepts like cultural boundaries, unreached people groups, cross-cultural communication, and Muslim evangelism. Yet I caught on to what they were saying.

I later heard an analogy that perfectly captured what they were communicating. Until that day, I viewed the world as comprised of 200+ pancakes, or countries. I was convinced that by pouring the syrup of God’s love and forgiveness on each pancake, the syrup would spread by virtue of discipleship to the edges of that pancake, or country. Through the patient instruction of my three friends, however, I realized that the world consists, not of 200+ pancakes, but 200+ waffles. As we pour the syrup of the gospel over a waffle (country), it does not spread to the edges of the waffle. Rather, the syrup gets stopped by the waffle squares. These waffle squares represent the 17,000+ people groups found in the over 200 countries. The barriers separating the waffle squares vary, but the most significant barrier is the religious barrier. Other barriers are linguistic, historical and ethnic, or some combination of each. Geography can be a challenge, but not as much in our digital world. For the message of Christ to spread across the waffle, someone (we would call them a missionary) would need to scoop the syrup from one square and carry it over the barrier to another square. Eye opening! So eye opening that after much prayer, I soon made three life-changing decisions.

First, my wife and I, along with a nineteen-year-old named Joao Mordomo, started Crossover Global, an organization that starts churches among people groups (waffle squares) around the world that have little to no access to the message of Christ. Most of our church planters (missionaries) go to Muslim and Hindu cultures. I laugh today at how we naively stepped out in faith and obedience, but God has certainly empowered and blessed our efforts by allowing our missionaries to see thousands of new small churches planted in some of the most difficult places of the world.

Second, I enrolled in a doctoral program at Columbia International University (CIU). Even though I had participated in several mission trips and even spent one semester during college in the Soviet Union, I knew zero about missions. I needed to learn quickly. Since the three young ladies who had opened my eyes to waffles had attended CIU, I figured I should also. Toward the end of my studies (for reasons beyond my understanding), CIU’s administration asked me to join the faculty to teach evangelism. I’ve served there ever since in various roles: professor, vice-president of academics (I hated that position. Honestly!), and president of the university for ten years. Today I serve as the chancellor. (If you have watched Star Wars, you know that Senator Palpatine first became chancellor of the Galactic Republic and later the emperor. Please follow my own career path on social media.)

Third, out of great frustration, I began a study of the ministry of Jesus. Let me explain. More than anything else, I long for people to cross over into a right relationship with Christ. (If I gave it a percentage, I would estimate my longing for people to know Christ would hit around 99%. The other 1% longs for chocolate chip cookies, something about which I feel great shame.) Why did it take me so long to realize that over 40 percent of the world’s population not only did not know Christ, but also had no way of ever hearing about Christ because the waffle barriers separated them from having access to the gospel? I considered myself a voracious reader. Why had I not seen a book on world evangelization? I was frustrated that it had taken me years to get it. I wondered what else I could be missing.

Then it hit me. I had been reading a lot of books about ministry, but I had not gone to the book about ministry, the Bible. I was doing what everyone else was suggesting I should do. I began to wonder if I was truly doing what Christ wanted me to do. I figured that if the Bible taught me how to live in a way that pleased Him, then maybe the Bible might also teach me how to minister in a way that would please Him. This thinking launched a two-year, in-depth study of the Gospels to see what I might learn.

The next few chapters of this book share the results of that study from seven different perspectives:

•Chapter 1 provides the foundation for everything that follows by harmonizing the four gospels into one story. The insights gleaned from this process proved invaluable to me and I hope they will for you as well.

•Chapter 2 answers the so what question. The material from the first chapter suggests that Jesus emphasized different target groups during different stages of His ministry. It appears He is following a clearly laid out strategy of ministry.

•Assuming that He did follow a strategy, chapter 3 provides ten practical steps, which add some flesh to Jesus’ tactics.

•Chapter 4 is critical. If Jesus truly was strategic in His to ministry, that is, if Scripture wants to communicate an approach to ministry that is truly timeless, then we should see it replicated by those Jesus trained, the disciples, and those trained by them. So in chapter 4, we examine the book of Acts to verify whether we just might be on to something.

•In chapter 5, we consider if this ministry strategy can be used in cultures other than our own middle-class situations. We North Americans are often guilty of making the claim that our culture-specific programs are what churches need all over the world. As we learn to think in terms of biblical principles, we will see how this ministry of Jesus can be implemented in any culture.

•Chapter 6 shows how differently the ministry of Jesus might look depending on the cultural context of the ministry.

•Finally, chapter 7 looks at the ministry of Jesus from the perspective of where one should start if a person wants to begin implementing Christ’s strategy.

Regardless of whether you have just become a follower of Christ or have served as a pastor for decades, you probably have not spent enough time studying the book on ministry, the Bible. If you long to become more effective in ministry, let’s take a deep dive into Scripture. Let’s see what we can learn from Jesus Himself about reaching the world with the good news.

Chapter 1

Historical Perspective

What Did the Ministry of Jesus Look Like?

If you are like most followers of Christ who want to impact the world for His glory, you are very busy. Just taking the time to read a book like this may seem like a luxury. And I suspect that you probably didn’t read the previous introduction‒you wanted to get right to the heart of the book, glean what can make you more effective at your ministry, and move on.

But wait! You need to read the introduction to this book. It won’t take you three minutes. It will, however, help you know where we are going. Realizing the destination will motivate you to finish this critical chapter. Though perhaps not very exciting at times, this chapter is absolutely necessary because the information forms the foundation for everything that follows. So be quick about it. Go back and read the introduction.

Welcome back. Let’s get started.

The Story of the Bible

I’m convinced that the average Christian doesn’t know the Bible very well. Worse, I’m convinced that the average Christian worker doesn’t know the Bible very well. Even worse, the average pastor doesn’t know the Bible very well. Sure, most know stories