Reports

It is no surprise to many that missions work is associated with colonialism, imperialism, and a paternalistic view of the “heathen.” Christianity provided a convenient excuse for especially European colonialization, from Britain, France, Spain, and other countries. Christianity and “civilization” have gone hand in hand for a long time. College students at many secular universities may take it as a given that the two are always intertwined, and that missionaries always look down on the local indigenous culture and try to replace it with their own. 

But people have pushed against that mindset for a long time, too. In the 50’s, workers were criticizing and working against the imperialistic attitudes and approaches of their colleagues. One wrote, “We should learn to live Christianity before we shove it down someone’s throat.” This perspective has grown and spread so that the imperialistic approach of the past is clearly and widely seen as damaging. 

On our podcast here at Zúme, Josiah, a software engineer at Renew World Outreach, spoke passionately about this topic. “I think that God is changing the hearts of missionaries and mission organizations all over the world to come in as servants, not as people trying to mandate what it has to look like and mandate their own programs and processes, but actually step beneath the people who are the Apostle Pauls of the modern missions movement, who are really planting the church.” 

We strive at Zúme to empower each simple church to become self-sufficient and self-multiplying, not constantly relying on the intervention of outsiders to spread God’s Word. “We’re willing to come in low and serve and we want to see movement leaders be more productive in the ministry that they’re doing,” says Josiah. When we provide resources like Zúme and tools like those produced by Renew, that can be a way to come alongside leaders in their own cultures and support them to do well in the work that God has set before them. 

Find more stories of how Zúme is used around the world on our podcast, and start our training yourself for free online. You don’t need any experience or training to lead a group—just load up the slides and click next!

When R first signed up for a Zúme on Zoom online course, I asked him what he hoped to gain from the course. He said he heard it was a powerful disciple-making tool and after he took it, he wanted to teach it to his whole nation (in East Africa). Since taking it, he has led at least 2 dozen people to the Lord, trained 30 people in Zume and started 2 Simple Churches. Then he gathered 50 other pastors in his county and encouraged each of them to go through discipleship training, take the Zume course and teach it to everyone in their churches. Most recently he has gotten approval from 20 local secondary schools to have pastors come in and share the gospel to the entire school weekly. He has gathered 4 other pastors who work together to cover teaching all these students. They hope to make many teenage disciples.

T is one of the most humble, gentle people I know but he has a passionate burning in his heart for spreading the gospel. He has gathered a group of leaders who have been doing street preaching and training in Zúme and other disciple making training. He recently started a WhatsApp group of 25 leaders who receive daily encouragement in disciple-making. One of the other leaders in this group gives a content-rich Bible lesson and customized prayer for each day and challenges everyone in the group to lead someone to the Lord EVERY DAY! Three of these leaders are taking my current Zúme on Zoom training course and thriving.

One of our Zúme coaches just shared an exciting update from his recent trip to South Sudan. Over 900 people have given their lives to Jesus in the last six months. There are now 72 simple churches and 60 more leaders ready to be trained. Praise God, may He continue to receive all of the glory as the Good News goes forth in the midst of very hard circumstances.

While the Salvation Poem Project continues to distribute their gospel poem, the ministry has expanded to include new resources. The president of the Salvation Poem Project calls the group, “a team of filmmakers, game developers, and multimedia storytellers whose goal is to share Jesus with the world through song and story.” Two of those stories are the Light of the World animated film and the Clayfire interactive video game. 

The Light of the World film is based on the story of the disciple John. The story begins when John is a young teenager who meets Jesus and embarks on a journey that looks nothing like what he’d expect. Trent Redmann, head of ministry partnerships at the Salvation Poem Project, compares the film to a well-known show: “Instead of quoting verse by verse from Scripture, we’re creating a story that’s biblical, probably even more connected to the story of the Bible than The Chosen.” The film releases in the summer of 2025. 

Trent describes the Clayfire video game as playing off “some of the light and darkness themes that are found in the Gospel of John.” The all-ages fantasy parable will bring players into a whimsical world in which they will bring light back to the darkness. “Our team tells me it’s a game in the spirit of Narnia,” Trent shares. “That kind of a heartfelt story.” The team is working hard to bring Clayfire to gaming platforms in 2026. 

Part of being in the community of God is supporting each other in our work for the Kingdom, so Zúme loves to feature groups like the Salvation Poem Project on our podcast. If you want to learn more about resources and organizations like Zúme, subscribe to our Multiplying Disciples podcast and hear more stories like this one. 

Zúme loves to feature creative resources from likeminded organizations! Look for two of those resources soon to come from the Salvation Poem Project: an animation of the Gospel of John and a biblical parable in the form of an interactive video game. 

When Richard Ford was 78 years old, he found Zúme’s discipleship training. The course provided a helpful guide on making disciples who make disciples, but what would he do with it? Richard had been wheelchair-bound for more than 40 years, and he couldn’t move across the world to spread the gospel. 

So, Richard did what we recommend in the second session of our course—he looked to his personal network. Tim Ahlen, Richard’s Zúme coach, shares that, “In 2021, Richard was really beginning to feel some health issues coming on, but he [invited] all of the neighbors in his neighborhood association . . . to a meeting out at a local country club.” He paid for the lunch and shared with them about “this amazing disciple-making process called Zúme.” When he was done, he offered his guests a few options: they could be part of a community prayer network, they could join a Zúme training, or they could decline to be involved at all. Most of them chose to sign up. 

You may feel like there’s not much you can do to spread the gospel in your life. You may be hesitant or dubious that you can make much of a difference. Many of us feel that fear, but examples like Richard’s show us that we can always make an impact. God puts people in our orbit whom we can influence for His plan, and we only have to say, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isa. 6:8). 

Try inviting your friends or neighbors for our free online training. You can get together in a 10-day intensive or once a week for 10 weeks—either way, you’ll have taken the first step to join the community. 

This is not a picture of believers in Ghana.

In 1727, a Moravian community in Saxony began 24-hour prayers. 48 men and women enlisted to each pray for an hour of the day—within months, the small, fractured community began to grow. The community continued the prayer watch for over a hundred years, in which they spread the Gospel around the world. 

Today, Christian communities in Ghana are implementing a similar method for powerful prayer. “Right now,” Ghanaian leader Isaac shares, “prayer is going on 24 hours a day—women praying, men praying, children praying—and it all started with this prayer wheel.” 

It may seem intimidating to spend an hour in prayer—Where do you start? How do you stay focused? Zúme’s Prayer Cycle offers a helpful framework based on 12 ways the Bible teaches us to pray. Each part becomes a 5-minute segment: praise, waiting, confession, reading, petition, intercession, praying the Word, thanksgiving, singing, meditating, and listening. By the end of the process, you have avoided the common trap of staying stuck in petitionary prayer. One of Isaac’s ministry partners, Terry, says, “If people learn to listen in prayer instead of always making requests, then God will speak to us.” We need to learn to listen and pray like the Bible teaches, like the church in Ghana. 

The community there took the prayer wheel and multiplied it, having a member commit to praying for an hour of the day and find others to join them. Sometimes, they even use the prayer cycle for overnight prayer meetings, praying each segment of the wheel for each hour of the night. “One of the common denominators in all disciple making movements around the world is prayer,” says Terry. Why? Prayer fills believers with the breath of God and keeps us rooted in the True Vine (John 15:1–10, Heb. 4:16, 1 Thess. 5:17). 

To learn more tools like the Prayer Cycle, sign up for our free course. “These tools in Zúme are very simple,” Isaac says, and “simple things multiply. And the simple things grow.” 

Photo by Luis Quintero on Pexels

You may be familiar with Zúme as an online resource, offering YouVersion Bible plans, a Live Chat feature, and online training. You might even know about our downloadable guidebook and other offline resources. But did you know that Christians in Ghana are bringing Zúme to illiterate rural communities? 

Americans Terry and Amy and Ghanaian Isaac recently joined us to share how they have brought Zúme’s discipleship tools to the rural Ghanaian countryside. After Terry, Amy, and Isaac got the vision to pray for Gonja land, in the north of Ghana, they went through a weeks-long training with Curtis Sergeant in Burkina Faso in 2015. “Those ideas of disciple making movements really took hold,” says Amy, “and the guys really captured a vision for reaching all of Gonja land, and then beyond.” They divided Gonja land into 12 segments, visiting “almost all the villages” in an area the size of a U.S. county in a year and a half. They each took an apprentice that first year—in the second year, each apprentice took their own apprentice. In the same way, “they have branched out into eight or nine other West African countries.” 

In poor communities without internet, smartphones, computers, or literacy, the teams share the Gospel orally as the story of God’s deliverance, and they share Zúme’s tools the same way. “We take the tools, we learn them together with the people, they practice several times, and they get it. . . . they want to share them with others,” Isaac says. They rely on the MAWL method—model, assist, watch, and leave—to equip and enable more Ghanaian believers to spread the Word. 

Learn more about the many ways Zúme tools are used around the world on our podcast, and learn those tools for yourself with our free training. 

Photo by Seyiram Kweku on Pexels

Ezekiel had brought about 7 young men into our Zume class. They did a variation of the “list of 100” by creating a list among the 7 of them totaling 100 and went out and talked to all 100 people. This got conversations going in the area and Ezekiel decided to hold an evangelism meeting. He preached (3 hours per night) for 11 out of 14 nights and 100 people decided to give their lives to Jesus and are registered for baptism. Since then, the number has grown to 150 people. Baptisms, especially in large numbers, are difficult in this area.

Because of recent wars and famine, there is no water being pumped into the city. Furthermore, standing water for baptisms can’t be done because of highly contagious diseases such as hepatitis and infectious skin diseases. There needs to be flowing water, not standing water. The nearest river is 18 miles away and no one has a car. Vans are extremely expensive to rent. We are working on possible solutions.

— Zúme trainer in North America shares about a trainee he is coaching in Africa

Photo by Philipp Schwarz on Pexels

Restoration Church, located in Denver, is just one fellowship using a hybrid approach to implement a disciple-making movement in their community. What can that look like, and how is it working at Restoration? 

In newcomers’ first interactions with the church on the website, their focus on discipleship multiplication is evident, and the Sunday services integrate the language and ideas of DMM. This fellowship equips their congregation to share Christ through many Zúme resources and tools. For example, “how we preach is kind of similar to doing a SOAPS, or even a 3/3 experience in a simple church,” Ron explains. “The weekend experience becomes the funnel, moving people into the movement.”

Restoration also moves people to movement through their connecting events. They have communities for youth, young married couples, families, “those in the prime of life (40+),” and young professionals. Participants “can build relationships that hopefully lead to conversations that hopefully lead to discipling. . . . and eventually to simple church involvement.”

“We’re up to 800 simple churches,” Ron shares, with baptisms “in bathtubs and hot tubs and swimming pools.” Immigrant congregants host Christmas parties and bring friends to Christ, while the young professionals’ connecting events continue to bring in many non-Christians. “The wind of the Spirit’s blowing,” says Ron. “We just happened to be at the right place at the right time. . . the people at Zúme . . . are the ones that taught us the sails to raise.” 

We encourage you to consider this and other ways to become more than a passive consumer. Can you gather 3–12 of your friends to take Zúme’s free training? Can you share Ron’s story and those of others around the world? Take your next step with the Spirit, raising your sails so he can move you forward. 

When Molly and her husband started The Brook, it stayed mostly online. Young professionals in the Denver area could connect with the couple through their ministry Instagram, and Molly would spend all day video calling with them. As The Brook has grown, they have expanded from the digital realm to the physical. “With The Brook,” Molly explains, “we use digital outreach, and then also in-person events to raise up leaders and start simple churches.” The ministry reaches out to people on Instagram and online, then connects them to simple churches and guides them through Zúme’s ten-session training.

One way that The Brook connects the community offline is through once-a-month Community Nights—the next step for people who have heard about the ministry to get connected. Every month, during the hour before the Community Night, The Brook’s leaders get together for dinner and continued training that they use to develop their simple churches. Participants get a refresher on helpful tools, like the cheat sheet from Zúme, as well as encouragement from other leaders. Every meeting includes an Everyday Disciple Spotlight, where a member of the community shares how they are applying the tools in their workplace and life. At the end of the hour, the leaders are encouraged to share and utilize the tools they’ve learned during the rest of the night: a social time for the wider community of young professionals.

Through empowering events like the Community Nights, Molly has seen the pace of multiplication increase. One leader caught the vision from the training and decided to start a simple church in her workplace, despite a work culture that seemed closed to the things of the Lord. In no time, 15 people had signed up and she was ready to start.

“I’m seeing people step up in their boldness,” says Molly. “I’m seeing young professionals realize that they have more to live for than what everyone else is living for, like the fun and the partying on the weekends. I’m seeing young professionals really take steps of faith and living as missionaries in their own city here in Denver.”

Molly says that the training offered by Zúme has changed the trajectory of The Brook and helped them manage their growth well. They continue to return to the resources, using them to strengthen their leaders and multiply disciples, bringing God’s community to the lonely, transient city of Denver.