Reports

The latest Zúme Multiplying Disciples podcast released yesterday. Go to wherever you get your podcasts to hear Tim’s story from Dallas, Texas.

Tim serves as a leader and resource for Christian work throughout the world, with a focus on church planting and growth in North America. He was one of the pioneers of the Zúme-style discipleship in the United States before the Zúme platform really began to grow exponentially. He has seen Zúme do amazing things in the Dallas, Texas area as well as throughout the world.

Tim has focused on influencing church growth since he was very new to Christianity in the early 1980’s. He endorses Zúme as a platform to not only teach, but really mentor young disciples through interactive learning and doing. He shares exciting stories of how God is able to use people from all experience levels to spread the good news as well as establish new house churches and multi-generational growth.

Tim reflects on his own experiences early on for establishing small church plants and house churches and would have liked for the Zúme resources to have been available then because they streamline the discipleship process and target the multiplication of outreach through person to person contact and mentorship.

https://zume.vision/tim-ahlen/

We published the latest episode of the Zúme podcast yesterday.

You can listen to our interview with Marlene. She serves as a leader and provides resources for Christian work in South Africa and many African countries. She was one of the early adopters of Zúme and has seen it create vision and clarity among nationals and expatriates in her organization.

She has seen surprising responses among even administrative personnel from sending home offices, who find that they can be part of disciple making in ways that they did not expect. 

In the early days, she asked teams to just “check out” the training, but she would not do that again. She found that she would approach teams to not come to Zúme in an evaluation mode, but rather with a commitment to do it and experience the fruit of action.

We’re excited to share that the Zúme podcast is now live!

Zúme is a community of practice for those who want to see disciple making movements. Our vision is to saturate the world with multiplying disciples in our generation. This podcast interviews the practitioners of the community around the world.

You can subscribe in all of the various podcast platforms at https://zume.vision/subscribe-to-podcast/.

On Monday, a group launched a Zúme on Zoom training. They cut off registrations at 245 registrants. Some of the 245 registrants are not just individuals, they are sites with multiple people present. One site has 26 people represented. They organized each registrant into subgroups for all of the discussions of the Zúme training sessions. Everyone has a number which indicates their group and their participant number within the group. This also helps with security because the participants are in a sensitive country.

A Zúme training participant recently shared his story. You can read it in his own words:

“After learning on making disciples, the simple process outlined has been very helpful. It is simple to learn and replicate. After learning I moved intentionally and prayed. I believed God to lead me and sent me to a place He intended to visit. Then moved intentionally to a village where I meet a man by the name Thomas. I started talking to him and with intention of working out our relationship. He became a Person of Peace and a great door to enter that community. After one month we started a discovery Bible study with his family. Obedient based discipleship, strictly obeying what you have learned and sharing with your neighbor. This has led to increase in our group and multiplication of groups within the village. Also multiplication of disciples and leaders. Now there is a great need to develop leaders to lead groups and sent others to start in other parts of the village. There is a lot happening. Thanks.”

A recent training in East Asia consisted of 38 participants. Those 38 participants led 138 people to faith during the training! Here are a few comments from the participants:

As the name suggests, “ZUME” is really fermenting fast, thanks to God’s Holy Spirit for writing such a beautiful, simple and effective course through the author. This course has brought a sensation to the church, and will also bring revival. “ZUME” will live up to the author’s hard work, and will go down in the “chronicles” of history as the most powerful spiritual tool to deliver souls to the church.

participant and leader of a group

Thank you Lord for your grace! I was given the opportunity to attend this ZUME study. The total eleven study is coming to an end before I knew it. I always feel unfulfilled with the two-hour class every week and longing for more. I have been a believer for so many years, and since the beginning of my faith, I have had a burden for souls and a willingness to preach the Gospel, but I have never been able to do so. This time, I used the Four Spiritual Laws that my teacher taught me, and then I led people to make a decision to Christ, and it became easier. This method has really helped me. I have since rekindled the message of evangelism and put it into action. Save one and count one. Just keep doing this and there will be fruit. If every Christian obeys the teacher’s teaching in this way, they are obeying the Lord’s teaching and practicing the Great Commission, which will speed up evangelism and bring more people to know the Lord earlier. That’s what the Lord wants. This is such a great tool. The SOAPS Bible Study method in ZUME, Prayer Walk, duckling ? leading discipleship with ducklings ?, prayer circles, these are all great tools for evangelism. I will continue to use these tools and keep working on them, and depending on the Lord. Thank you Lord for your grace!

participant

I pray every day that God will help me and guide me to do his kingdom work; He answered my prayer by sending me to [this] Zume training. SOAPS solidifies my daily walk in seeking first God‘s righteousness and His kingdom. “Duckling discipleship” prompts me to lead and serve whenever I can and always point others to God. I am applying “3-in-1 group meeting” with members in my Bible study group, and pray that with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will be fruitful in making disciples.

participant

When I went through Zume Training in 2018, I had been very, very stuck.  My wife and I had seen God do amazing things when we lived in China before 2010, but nothing I had tried seemed to be effective after we returned to California.  A friend invited me to Discovery Bible Study training, and this was excellent.  But I was still stuck in being unable to find seekers who would be interested in DBS.  

Finally, after finding Zume, I could tell that it had the full range of disciple-making tools that could help me get unstuck. I plucked up my courage and asked for a coach and had the privilege to talk with one over Zoom.  He was very patient to listen to my wife and me.  He even met me in my hotel room when I had a business trip to the city where he was living. 

He encouraged me to modify the tools and make them my own—for example, to flex the 5 minute timing in the prayer cycle and to abbreviate the list of accountability questions.  From there, I was able to coach and train individuals in the principles and tools without relying on the videos, while at the same time encouraging others to do the training as it is.  Thank God for my coach’s kindness at such a time in my life.

A Zume practitioner shared that he has spent the past 10 months training over 75 Christians in Pakistan, India, and Nepal through Zoom using the Zume training course found at https://zume.training. He meets weekly with each trainee for 90 minutes and includes weekly accountability. Out of all these Christians who he trained, about 6 of them became true implementers, meaning they actively and regularly use the tools they learned to reached unreached people groups.

The coaches and trainers in the Zúme community always rejoice when we hear about how the training impacts lives. When stories are shared with us like the one below, we don’t boast in some cool program we are a part of. Instead, like the Apostle Paul, we declare, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world…” (Galatians 6:14)

Join us in boasting in the cross of Christ as you read this story of transformation from a recent Zúme training finisher in her own words:

Can I just take a sec to give Him all the Glory!! 802 days ago He transformed me from the biggest tool for the devil, wrecking lives and homes dealing drugs, slinging booze. Heck I even took care of everyone’s kids inside the drug-house and called it “serving.” Fast forward to today 802 days delivered, redeemed and impacting His Heavenly Economy. Blows me Away. Awestruck Wonder. We have over 30 men and women from the new community corrections work release center walking miles to our church every Sunday, (we’ve offered van rides but the freedom and time in the air is desired more) because I used the tools given me here [in Zume training].

One of my persons of peace, heard God knocking and he came running. 17 individuals wanted to be baptized in the river today but only one was granted freedom from His ankle bracelet today. 14 have given their lives to Christ that we know. More beautiful some have invited their families to meet them at church and they’re coming to Jesus together 

2 more of my Wednesday night kids were baptized today as well. Me the former “trap-mom” getting to be Jesus to these young men. AND getting to work and see the Harvest. I cant even!!! GLORY!!!!
I’m forever grateful for this (ZUME) course. Molding me into a Disciple worth following. A Disciple who makes Disciples. Get this!! Today in Taco Bell a random acquaintance stopped me to tell me that they hear so much about me as a Disciple and my heart to disciple newcomers. Like Wow!!!! Blown Away!!!!
Yes! Yes! And Yes Lord!!!! I see the evidence of your goodness all over my life. Thank you for pursuing me even though I ran so hard. Thank you for sending me! Kingdom work is humbling, miraculous, beautiful and just all the things. May I always walk in alignment with you and the promise you so perfectly attached to my name.

sister in Christ who completed the Zúme Training this past year

A Zúme coach and practitioner in the U.S. shared that 18 months ago he was a part of a small church that had 10-15 people in attendance. Now, that church has multiplied into 6 churches with the same number of people in each. Elders are being appointed and the bodies are being equipped for good works. 

At the same time, God is using this coach abroad. He is coaching believers in other countries through the internet. He led 8-10 sessions of the Zúme training each week for the past 7 months. Some of those trainings have been with small groups and some with individuals but he reports that these trainings are producing fruit. Despite great persecution, many people are coming to Christ. 313 baptisms happened within a two-week time span. In other places 10-20 are being baptized at a time. 

He acknowledges that he longs to see more. He says, “I’m praying for movements, but I realize it begins with a little addition at first then multiplication.” May God hear the prayer of our brother.