A Disciple Making Movement (DMM) is a rapid and exponential increase in disciples making disciples. These movements share a distinct group of priorities which provide the environment for unhindered multiplication.
What are the elements of a disciple making movement approach?
Awareness
There is awareness that only God can start spiritual movements, but disciples can follow biblical principles.
That is, to pray, plant, and water the seeds that can lead to multiplying movements. Just like the one in the book of Acts.
Focus
El enfoque es hacer que cada seguidor de Cristo sea un discípulo reproductor en lugar de simplemente un convertido.
Patterns
Patterns create frequent and regular accountability for both obeying what God says to each person and for them to pass it on to others in a loving environment.
This requires a participative small-group approach.
Equipment
In a Disciple Making Movement, catalysts equip each disciple in comprehensive ways.
DMM equipment includes:
- Interpreting and applying Scripture
- Having a good prayer life
- Functioning as a part of the larger Body of Christ
- Responding well to persecution and suffering
- To be able to minister and partner with others in the Body of Christ in both of these environments
- To not be merely consumers, but as active agents that advance the Kingdom of God
Visión
Catalysts give each disciple a vision for reaching their friends and family.
They also give a vision for extending the Kingdom to the ends of the earth.
Disciples prioritize the darkest places with a “no place left” mentality.
Multiplication
Disciples intentionally form churches that reproduce as a part of the multiplying disciples process.
The main idea in DMM approaches is that disciples, churches, leaders and movements can multiply endlessly.
The power of the Holy Spirit is the only one that can make this happen.
What are the Shared Principles of Disciple Making Movements?
There are common principles and results seen in many disciple making movements around the world.
Furthermore, the resulting disciples and churches have very similar DNA.
These Kingdom movements show similar elements.
Oración
Prayer movements always precede a Disciple Making Movements. Once the DMM starts, extraordinary prayer becomes an important factor. Those coming to Christ are highly aware that only God can birth new disciples and churches. They’re also highly motivated to see God break through the darkness in the lives of their family, friends and neighbors.
Scripture
In DMMs, movement members take the Bible very seriously. As a result, everyone has to be a disciple of Jesus and sharer of the Word.
Obedience
The new churches are devoted to listening to God’s Word. They obey it individually and corporately. Obedience is expected and everyone is held accountable for it.
Indigenous Churches
The outsider looks for the persons of peace and the households of peace that God has prepared within a society. When these people and groups come to faith, they are immediately equipped to reach others. Since the insiders are the disciple-makers, the newly planted churches can grow in ways that are based on Scripture and adapted to the culture.
Holistic Churches
Believers focus on obedience to Scripture. This is why they’re compelled and eager to show God’s love to people. The disciples in these movements love those around them, take care of widows and orphans, fight oppression, etc.
Churches that Multiply
Just like the early church in Acts, these modern day movements multiply rapidly. Every disciple and church is equipped to reproduce. They’re also taught to rely on the Holy Spirit to empower them. The average church in a movement takes less than a year to reproduce another church. This leads to more than doubling the number of disciples and churches every year.
The Rise of Disciple Making Movement Efforts
For 30 years, there’s been a growing awareness and involvement in efforts to reach the world’s unreached people. Yet, the amount of people without access to the gospel has grown – 1.8 billion with no access in the mid-80s to 2.2 billion today.
In the late 1980s, catalytic teams launched new projects to reach Unreached People Groups.
In these evangelism efforts, some early catalysts accepted a God-sized vision: to see an entire people group follow Jesus.
This concept came from the Great Commission where Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of every ethne.
Due to the the great size of discipling people groups with millions of people, these early catalytic teams went to God in desperate prayer.
They were willing learners as God led them to put aside tradition and use strategies that were based on the New Testament.
God began to start “Book of Acts-like movements” with these men and women who were willing to do whatever God asked them to do.
In the beginning we called them Church Planting Movements. But after giving it some thought, practitioners used the term disciple making movements.
The logic being,
where you have disciples you always get churches, but where you have churches, you don’t always get disciples.
The resulting disciple making movements are the only complete approach that exceeds population growth and which begins to transform these communities as the new Body of Christ lives out kingdom values.
The Sailboat Analogy
Some steps and methods cannot “guarantee” a movement. One way some movement practitioners explain this is the “Sailboat Analogy”.
If you are in a sailboat and have your sails up and ready, unless there is a wind you will not move very far.
In the same way, unless the wind of the Holy Spirit moves, there will be no church planting movement.
On the other hand, if you don’t get your sails up, even in a strong wind you will not move very far.
We have found through study of Scripture and learning from what the Holy Spirit is doing around the world that there are ways we can be ready for multiplication (sails up) and other ways we can hinder multiplication (sails down).
We have found through study of Scripture and learning from what the Holy Spirit is doing around the world that there are ways we can be ready for multiplication (sails up) and other ways we can hinder multiplication (sails down).
To go sailing, we don’t control the wind of the Holy Spirit, but we can control if we are ready to go as far and fast as possible when He moves!
If you want to be a part of a these world changing movements, make sure you take a look at our Discipleship Training Course.
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