By the “Walker” family_,_

Our team consists of a married couple, another expatriate, and two national coworkers, Sanjay* and John* (Sanjay’s younger brother). We are co-laborers. There’s no sense of “us” or “them.” We are all just disciples of Jesus, people trying to listen to Him and do what He says. Whenever one of us senses a need for a change or a new approach in the work, we present it to the rest of the team as humbly as possible, and then seek the Lord for confirmation in His Word.

We expatriates didn’t come to the field with this perspective. We spent many years on the field spinning our wheels. We were busy but unfruitful. In 2011, we attended disciple making trainings sponsored by our agency. The trainings changed our lives. For two weeks, we studied God’s Word. We didn’t read books about missions or study modern patterns in missions. We simply opened our Bibles and looked for answers to questions such as, “Did Jesus have a strategy for reaching lost people?”

God used the trainings to shift our paradigms. Most importantly, we faced this question: “What if, instead of focusing on what we can do (engineering, teaching, administration, communication), we focus on what needs to be done?” In all the years we’d been on the field, we had concentrated on using our skills. What if the question had never been about our skills, but rather, “What needs to be done in order to save the lost?” The answer to that question would necessarily include skills we don’t have (like befriending strangers, praying with unbelievers, and following the instructions given in Luke 10). What a relief to realize that obeying Jesus’ command to make disciples (Matthew 28:19) doesn’t revolve around our methods, personality types or intelligence levels. Jesus didn’t invite His first disciples to follow Him because they were the best or the smartest. They were uneducated fishermen, vile tax collectors and oppressed underdogs. But they obeyed Jesus_._

We were so excited. For the first time in our lives on the field, we began to focus on God’s desire that none should perish rather than on our skills. We began trying new things, including:

personal obedience (searching for people who would open their households to the gospel),

increased prayer (no longer just a personal, devotional time activity; prayer became part of our job description),

casting vision to existing believers to partner in this endeavor,

training interested Christians, and

receiving coaching from those ahead of us.

A few months after receiving training, we ran across an acquaintance named Sanjay, a man we hadn’t seen for several years. What follows is Sanjay’s perspective of that meeting.

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I was born into a Christian family. We followed the Christian traditions. When I was old enough, I received four years of Bible training, and then became a Bible teacher. Over time, I started 17 different churches in rural areas over a large geographical area of my country.

In December 2011, I met Brother Walker on the road in Delhi. He asked if I would like to come to his house for training in church planting. At that point in my life, I was a very proud man. I had a large ministry. I had started a school and a Bible training center. I thought, “What can this guy teach me?” I decided not to go.

However, a month later I called him to wish him a Happy New Year. When I called, he said, “I spoke with before you about a church planting training. Why don’t you come?”

This time, I gave in. I said I would come and bring some friends.

When we arrived, he gave us water to drink and thanked us for coming. Then he gave us paper and pens and said, “Today, we are going to study Scripture. I’m going to go make chai for everyone. While I do that, all of you please copy Matthew 28:16-20 from your Bibles onto your piece of paper. Next to the passage, write how you are going to apply it to your life.”

I thought, “What kind of training is this? All he did was give me a piece of paper and a pen!” I already had Bible college training. I had completed 12 years of very successful ministry. But, in 10 minutes time, I was a changed man.

I read in Matthew 28 that Jesus said we must go and make disciples. I wrote that down. Later, after I shared what was on my paper, Brother asked me, “Sanjay, you have a very large ministry, but do you have any disciples?”

I thought, “I don’t have a single one. In 10 years, I have done nothing for Jesus. He said to make disciples, but up to this day, I have none.

The next month, I came back to visit the Walkers again. We sat together and studied God’s Word. I decided that from then on, I would leave behind all other things. I returned home with one desire – to do nothing less, nothing else, than disciple making. I resigned from the school I had started, my position with the international ministry that paid a good salary, and my job as president of the Bible training center. I left everything. Since that time, I have focused on obeying Jesus’ command and nothing else. And God has faithfully provided for our every need.

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We began meeting roughly once per month with Sanjay and 15 friends he invited from various districts in his state. Most were Christian-background believers, while a few were Hindu background believers. Those who applied the CPM principles began to quickly see fruit. Sanjay was the head coach and cheerleader for this group.

By December 2012, there were 55 Discovery Bible Groups, all consisting of lost people.

By December 2013 there were 250 groups (churches and Discovery groups).

By December 2014 there were 700 churches, and an estimated 2,500 baptized.

By December 2015 there were 2,000 churches, and an estimated 9,000 baptized

By December 2016 there were 6,500 churches, and an estimated 25,000 baptisms.

By December 2017, there were 21,000 churches and it became impractical to try to count baptisms.

By December 2018, there were 30,000 churches.

Here are a few of the many lessons we learned:

Matthew 10, Luke 9 and 10 offer an effective strategy for connecting to lost people.

Miracles (healing and/or demonic deliverance) are a consistent component of people entering the Kingdom.

The easier the Discovery Process is, the more effective. Thus, we simplified the tool several times.

Training from God’s Word is more powerful, effective, and replicable than human made tools and methods_._

It is better to go deep in empowering people who are applying CPM principles than focusing on doing more trainings.

Everyone is to lovingly obey Jesus, and everyone is to pass on the training to someone else.

It is vital to point out when someone is following tradition rather than the Word, but only with cultural sensitivity and growing trust, not as an attack.

It is vital to reach households, not just individuals.

Use Discovery Bible Studies (DBS) for both pre-churches and churches.

Empowering illiterate and semi-literate disciples to do the work yields the most fruit. To that end, we provide rechargeable, inexpensive speakers with story sets on memory cards to those who can’t read. Roughly half of the churches have been planted through the use of these speakers. Disciples sit together, listen to the stories and apply them to their lives.

Leadership circles provide sustainable and reproducible mutual mentoring for leaders.

Intercessory prayer and listening prayer are critical.

The movement has consistently reached beyond the 4th generation of groups in many places. In a few locations, it has reached 29 generations. In fact, this is not just one movement, but multiple movements, in 6+ geographical regions, multiple languages and multiple religious backgrounds. Only a handful of churches use special buildings or rented space; nearly all are house churches, meeting in a home or courtyard, or under a tree.

Our Roles as Outside Catalysts (Expats)

We offer simple, replicable, biblical paradigm shifts.

We provide strong prayer support as a team, and also mobilize strategic prayer support from abroad.

We ask questions.

We train nationals to train others.

We provide guidance if/when the next step is unclear.

We are very careful when facing an issue about which we might disagree with Sanjay and John. We consider them as more important than ourselves. They are not our employees, but co-laborers seeking to obey the Lord together. Thus, we encourage them to not just take our word for any issue, but also seek the Lord personally to see what He is saying.

We sometimes invite our personal DMM mentor to meet with Sanjay and John so they can hear from someone who has seen and done more than we have.

We strive to decrease their feelings of dependence upon us. We actively choose to get out of the way as quickly as possible.

We provide tools for discipling leaders (Bible trainings and leadership growth trainings), and tools for discipling churches (Discovery Study).

The Role of Women in the Movement

Female leaders have emerged in disciple making streams facilitated by male leaders. Female leaders have also multiplied and developed other female leaders. In fact, female leaders make up a key component of the work, possibly up to 30-40% of the core leaders of the movements. Women, even young women, lead house churches, plant new churches and baptize other women.

The Role of Key Inside Leaders

Nationals are the ones who do the “real” work. They walk the dusty roads, enter homes, and pray for miracles and deliverance. They are the ones who start Bible studies with simple farmers and their families, staying in their homes and eating their food, even when it’s over 100 degrees (F) and there’s no electricity or water. They do the work and are thrilled about the fruit they are bearing! Their stories fuel the rest of us to keep going.

Key Factors in Progress

Listening prayer. Praying is our job. The Lord has changed and adjusted our approaches many times through prayer. Listening is an important part of prayer. There have been so many changes along the way. So many questions: What’s next? Shall we work with this person? We’ve hit a “roadblock”; what Scriptures shall we use for the next training? Is this a good use of our funding? Is it time to release this brother who’s not applying the model, or shall we give him one more chance? Should we continue training in this city or is this a dead end? We, the entire team, have learned to sit and wait for God’s answer, no matter what the question.

Miracles. The movement has grown primarily along relational lines through miracles. We have seen many healings and deliverances from demons. Miracles not only open doors for a DBS, but news about miracles spreads along familial and relationship lines so that other households open. For instance, a disciple might find an opportunity to pray for a demonized person. When the person is delivered, the word spreads throughout their family, including relatives who live in other villages. Those extended relatives ask the disciple to also come pray for them. When the disciple and newly delivered person go and pray, very often a miracle happens for the relatives, too, and another DBS starts. In this way, simple, uneducated people – including those barely in the Kingdom – are seeing God’s Kingdom grow.

Evaluation. We ask a lot of questions: “How are we doing? Will our current actions get us to where we want to go? If we do _____, can the nationals do it without us? Can they replicate it?”

We are very cautious about the use of funds.

We adapt our material. We are selective about the materials we use. If a new resource we’ve been given doesn’t quite fit, we adjust it. There is no one formula that works for all.

We are centered in Scripture. Any “good teaching” we might give would never be as effective as what the Holy Spirit can impress on people’s hearts through the Word. So every training we conduct has a strong scriptural basis. During trainings, everyone makes observations, asks questions, and digs deep.

Everyone shares with others what he or she learns. No one is a pond; we are all rivers. Disciples are expected to pass down every training they receive to their own discipleship chains.

We praise God for the great work he has done since our team began focusing solely on the command to make disciples of all nations.

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