How to Waha: the Local Church

Welcome to “How to Waha!” In this series, we’re going to take a closer look at the many use-cases of Waha and break down some of our best tips and tricks from actual users like yourself who have been seeing God move through reproducible small group disciple-making.

Did you know that there are nearly 45,000 different Christian denominations, all with their own way of doing church? Luckily for us, almost all of those expressions of church can be broken down into one of three categories:

• Micro churches
• Local churches
• Mega churches

Most Christians around the world today are meeting in micro—or house—churches (due to the need for discretion in highly populated countries where persecution often occurs in Asia or Africa) and megachurches are a fairly modern phenomenon, but if you are a follower of Jesus with the internet connection needed to read this, you are probably most familiar with the local church model.

A local church is an amazing place to start a movement of disciple making that transforms entire communities because they are full of passionate followers of Jesus just waiting to be mobilized. To do this, we recommend starting with the Disciple Making Course to empower normal, every day believers to make disciples that multiply.

Case Study: Nathanial and Peter (The Philippines)

Nathanial and Peter are Filipino pastors whose days were filled with sermon preparations, caring for the needs of their congregation, and maintaining their small church building. But they longed for something more. They wanted to see God reach the unreached in their communities and bring revival to the Philippines.

We always talk about discipleship, but we never do discipleship!

Nathanial and Peter read books about evangelism, discipleship, and church planting, but no matter what they tried, they just couldn’t seem to get their congregation to engage with the vision. One day a visiting friend introduced them to the Waha Disciple Making Course.

“After watching the first three videos of the Disciple Making Course, we were amazed by the simplicity and the clarity of this course,” Nathanial said.

They went to work right away translating the material into Cebuano, their heart language. They rolled out the material first to their leaders, and then to the rest of the church. Since their church members were already organized into about 30 Bible study groups, it was easy to get them started with Waha.

After faithfully working to implement what they learned in the Disciple Making Course, they were amazed to see what God was doing… In just 50 days, the 30 groups had multiplied into 90! People from their village and many of the surrounding areas were being reached for the first time with the gospel.

How it works

In order to implement the Waha Disciple Making Course in a local church setting, there are a few important things to keep in mind…

1. The power of prayer: In conjunction with the Disciple Making Course, Nathanial and Peter launched an initiative in their church that they called, “50 Days of Faith” in which the entire church rallied together to pray for their communities. In a local church context, be sure to encourage times to private and corporate prayer in order to stir up faith and prepare a way for the Lord to move.
2. Small groups: Many local churches already have cell groups or life groups in place. But it bears mentioning, because the Disciple Making Course is a group-focused tool designed to be used by smaller groups. The first two videos are longer videos that can be shown during a Sunday service, but take note that they do have discussion breaks built in. If your church does not already have a small group ministry, we recommend doing the Course as a big group, but have them split up into smaller tables. These tables can then because a Disciple Making Community when the course has finished!
3. Empowering everyone: One of the challenges about doing the Disciple Making Course in the setting of a local church is that it only works when everyone is engaged. Many congregations may struggle to implement the materials because they’re not used to this level of challenge. Nathanial and Peter overcame this obstacle by doing the entire course with their small group leaders first, and then rolling it out to the rest of the church. This way, everyone in the church had a personal connection with someone who had been through the video and could encourage them.
4. Make it the prime focus of the church: Another thing that will help your church be successful is to create a culture of disciple making around the course. This is best done by shifting your church’s entire focus toward making disciples for at least a few months. Don’t try to make the Disciple Making Course be a side project that goes on in your small groups while you finish up your sermon series on healthy marriages. Instead, take the time you need to finish up the marriage series and then shift the focus to the Disciple Making Course. At Nathanial and Peter’s church, disciple making was the constant theme of the sermons, and they even chose a verse from the Disciple Making Course every week to memorize together.

Conclusion

If you are a pastor or leader of a local church, Waha can be revolutionary to your ministry. Not only because it will help your congregation impact its community, but also because it could create more sustainable and healthy work structures for you! There’s no question that pastoring a church can be one of the most stressful jobs in the world. However, many church leaders feel a weight lifted off their shoulders when their members are trained and empowered to share in the work of the ministry.

Check out the Disciple Making Course today, by clicking here.

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