Conversations as you Go Dave Lawton

We hear from Mike Hey again who is introduced to us by one of our leaders Jerry, who along with his wife Katie and their family, are pioneering DMM in South Australia. They are connecting with local leaders like Mike from OM who shares with us what disciple making looks like for him in Adelaide.







Sailing boats blown by the wind of the Spirit  







Mike starts by encouraging us with a picture: We are all building teams of disciple-makers and seeking to see them sail as small boats, catching the wind of the Spirit.







‘Jungle Bible College’







Mike and Ann were trained in what Mike calls an Indian ‘Jungle Bible College’ through sacrificial prayer and key people like Victor John since the 1970s. After leaving and starting to hear of movements happening back in India, they have sought to catalyse work amongst the unreached ever since. 







Adelaide, the city of the church







Mike describes that church as ‘ekklesia’, with all kinds of expressions, is at the heart of DMM. He has learnt how gathering disciples of Jesus is what brings a ‘disciple making momentum’ towards a disciple making movement. Disciples are people who learn to ‘go, gather and grow’ as they engage in prayer, the Word and being led by the Spirit.







‘Beautiful Feet’ in Adelaide’s north







“We were making disciples but not multiplying disciple makers.”







After returning to Adelaide, Mike shares how he and Ann started to pray and engage with others for Adelaide’s multicultural northern suburbs. They joined a church planting team and began to ask questions about building relational connections and pointing people to Jesus. And so began what Mike describes as a ‘Beautiful Feet’ initiative to see God’s people  activated in witness as they walk together to make disciples who will make disciples. He describes it as something that is gathering ‘disciple making momentum not yet movement’.







Mike says how those who are part of this initiative are followers of Jesus from lots of churches who are seeking to simply…









Walk with Jesus. 







Walk with a friend. 







And walk alongside others as they make disciples who will make disciples. 









Mike’s paradigm shifts and lessons learned









From outreach to ‘in-reach’: Seeing disciples made through an insider movement is key.







From addition (get them into the church) to multiplication 







From gathering to grow to gathering to grow, go and scatter







Take your fishing rod (fish for people around you) but remember the Holy Spirit is weaving and casting a larger net, not us (each of us are a strand on this net). 







Keep walking, the river will rise. 







Stay in the mud until it clears. (Don’t jump out when it gets tough.)







Grassroots prayer leads to green shoots of life. Prayer onsite brings insight. 







Its all about relationship - keep gathering to scatter (multiply). 









Taking church to the park







Mike shares how once a quarter, he takes an established local church into their local park to do a DBS. He then helps this church to invite everyone in their neighbourhood to a community BBQ gathering. This is where a smaller group of Christians search for People of Peace. More regular DBS and BBQs can then happen.  







Mike prays for our cities and challenges us







“We pray for green shoots of authentic worship to rise in every neighbourhood across our cities”

In this episode, we continue on from last week’s conversation with Dave Coles, hearing about his exciting new book release, ‘Cabbages in the Desert’, the story of Aila Tasse. A story of a young Muslim being called by Jesus to see movements birthed across East Africa. Today we continue to draw out from Dave the DMM principles of how we are going to see movements in the West. 















Cabbages in the Desert is available here.















“Baheesi have you become a pastor!?”







Dave shares the stories of Baheesi and Ruth that demonstrate how simple obedience by seemingly ‘insignificant’ men and women can lead to seeing movements launched. These African leaders have impressed Dave with their calm confidence and a Holy Spirit led creativity and flexibility in making disciples in tough Muslim contexts. Because movements are indigenous, the stories of these leaders show us how they start somewhere and shepherd something that God is doing.







Levels of leadership in movements







Aila’s paradigm of a so called ‘leadership pyramid’, demonstrates a humble empowerment of others to form teams, hubs and networks that aren’t dependant on one leader or organisation. This ordered leadership process is not an oppressive structure. But instead it identifies where people are at and so allows various types of leaders to develop their gifts and grow. 







Training through apprenticing 







DMM training in Africa is highly relational and hands on. Doing life together through an apprenticeship type training model. 







The lifestyle of a movement leader is summarised by one leader, Albert in the book: 







“You can only make disciples if you too are a disciple. That means you are a person of prayer. You’re obedient to the Word of the Lord. You're passionate and committed to making disciples and you have patience with them through the process. And you remember that the Lord Jesus was patient with the disciples. He took time to explain the parables. To even allow them to make mistakes. Similarly you are not afraid to release your groups to go on and form their own groups.” 







What’s next for Dave Coles the author? 







Through his upcoming books and literature, Dave seeks to continue to show us how God is working globally in creative ways amongst different people. This will include a book of another African leader working amongst Muslims in similar yet different ways. A second book (‘Leadership Breakthrough’) with Victor John will give a much needed Asian voice on leadership. These as well as a number of smaller accounts of various movement leaders from across the world. 







Dave’s prayer for the West







“That we would maximise everything we have been given to be like Christ and to be and spread his fragrance among all peoples.”







Dave’s final encouragement







“We are privileged to hear how God is using our brothers and sisters in other contexts. But it is not just for them. There are principles that are relevant that we can also apply in our context. These stories are encouraging to our hearts but are also insightfully wise for developing strategy. It’s wonderful for us to follow Jesus and follow in the footsteps of those he is using powerfully to touch the ends of the earth.”















This is the continuation of the amazing stories of movements that are being catalysed that we’ve been hearing out of East Africa from other leaders like Justin and Wilson







You can listen to our previous podcasts with these leaders by selecting a link to the Podcast episode below: 

In this episode we are talking to Dave Coles, hearing about his exciting new book release, ‘Cabbages in the Desert: How God transformed a devout Muslim and Catalyzed Disciple Making Movements among Unreached Peoples'. This is the story of Aila Tasse from East Africa who we have been hearing from in recent podcasts (see Aila's list of podcasts at the bottom of these show notes).















Cabbages in the Desert is now available in both a hard or soft copy here.















Dave Coles also returns to speak with us after sharing back in episode 16 about his other great book, ‘The Bhojpuri Breakthrough: A Movement that Keeps Multiplying'.







Why another book?







Dave Coles shares how ‘The Bhojpuri Breakthrough’ is a movement case study specific to just one movement that is happening amongst Hindus in India. More in depth stories of what is really happening amongst other movements, particularly amongst Muslims is needed. 







Movement is never one size fits all. 'Cabbages in the Desert' shares how God is involved in movements across many different contexts but with the same DNA principles of DMM. 







Aila’s story is also powerful and unique since it describes a movement amongst Muslims with some identity and clarity to it. A timely case study for those who are perhaps suspicious as to whether movement is really happening amongst Muslims today.







“I don’t want to be made into a Christian”







We can see a difference in the roles of an 'inside' compared to an 'outside' leader in DMM:







When Aila first heard the Gospel, his response was, “I don’t want to be made into a Christian”. However, his powerful testimony describes a slow transition to follow Jesus as a devout Muslim searching for forgiveness. In fact he initially made fun of his Christian teacher. Yet this faithful teacher was still used by God as an ‘outsider’ to impact Aila as a spiritually zealous young Muslim.







From decision making to disciple making







Aila vulnerably models obedience to God’s call from his story:







Despite his existing fruitful ministry and initially criticising DMM, God encountered Aila in the back of a plane saying, “You need to listen” (to a DMM training from David Watson). Aila humbled himself and obeyed God’s clear call as God gave him the vision of seeing ‘Cabbages in the Desert’. Aila realised that God was calling him to something bigger than what he could do with his current ministry models. For example, one of the paradigm shifts Aila needed to make was from decision making to disciple making.







“Sometimes they meet under a tree”







When describing the evolution of his own thinking of church, Aila mentions:







“Some people call them 'house churches' but in our context sometimes they meet under a tree. These are still real churches since they fit a biblical criteria of what it means to be church." Along with his co-workers, Aila describes church as “Where the people of God are gathering”. They point to Acts 2 (vs 42-47) that describes the things the church did. These days we see a variety of models of biblical ecclesiology coming out of a variety of these East African contexts and movements.  







Dave Coles also illustrates the clear difference between our western culture and models of individualistic evangelism, discipleship and fellowship and the more collective culture and approach to discipleship amongst these African movements.







Word of encouragement from Dave Coles







Dave wants us to be encouraged that God is doing amazing things amongst Muslims and that movement...

In this episode we conclude our series from our Launch 24 program with an awesome word from Pastor Graham Wilson, one of our Praxeis board members. Graham speaks into our sense of 'ordinariness' and feelings of disqualification compared to the greatness of Jesus and his great commission. 







“When we look back on our lives, God has been relentless about his purposes being worked out in our lives despite our own sense of ordinariness.”







Prophetic words from Launch 24







“Worship me by stepping into what I’ve called you to, even if it’s messy and uncomfortable.” 







“I love you and have chosen you. You might feel inadequate and that it’s impossible. But know that I love you and there’s nothing too difficult for me.” 







“Be still and know that I am fighting for you.” 







Fireside restoration







Graham leads us into Peter’s encounter with Jesus including his great failure when he denies Jesus around a fire. In John 21, Jesus recreates the fire of Peter’s failure when he meets him beside the same lake where he first called him. It’s in this context where Jesus reinstates and also calls Peter to once again “Follow me”. 







Graham asks us three questions (from John 21:15, 20-22): 







Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Then feed my lambs.”







Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them…he asked, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”









What if Jesus is asking you, “Do you love me more than these?”. I wonder what the ‘these’ would be for you?. 







Jesus follows this question saying “Then…”. What is his ‘then’ for you?’







What do you need to stop looking at in other peoples lives so you can be enabled to simply follow Jesus?

















Why not listen to this word from Graham a couple of times, allowing it to feed your heart? Then think about the times when you needed Jesus to bring you around his fire of restoration. To not just be forgiven but called by him. Allow him to bring purpose, hope and destiny to your life again as his follower. 















Graham's recommended resources:







‘Receive’ song by Cyndi Ruakere: listen via Spotify here







'Lectio 365' daily prayer & devotion







Praying like Monks, living like Fools (Tyler Staton)

We continue our series from the Launch program with Dave sharing this episode on the power of prayer in seeing breakthrough for our cities. Be inspired to prioritise prayer afresh as Dave calls us to be part of the ‘Pray for 8’ vision God has for our cities as we gather this Pentecost weekend (17-19 May). 







Building an alter of prayer







Drawing from his past frustrations and experience, Dave paints the somber picture of the spiritually dry landscape of Australia (and the west). The current reality of the continuing decline of the church in Australia should deeply disturb us as Jesus’ disciples. Our response as one fiery Indian pastor once prophesied to Dave is to 'build an alter of prayer’.  







Vision of the invasion of God’s Spirit







While sitting in his lounge room during a season of prayer and fasting, God showed Dave a doorway and invited him to step through it. So he did and this is what he saw: 







“I saw a picture of the ongoing spiritual battle (fire and raging tempest) in the heavenly realms and above this was the kingdom of God. From the battle a spiral like a tornado (the invasion of the Holy Spirit) connected directly to a small group of believers praying together on earth. There was not just one of these invasions of the Holy Spirit but many. All were connected to believers who were praying right across the globe.” 







Addressing our cities’ strongholds







Dave shares some miraculous stories from the city of Mumbai during his time in India. All from a group of people intentionally surrounding the city in prayer!







“We are praying for Acts 2 to happen. For an outpouring of the Spirit and for Ekklesia to start and multiply. God did this in the book of Acts in city after city through people like Paul who said, ‘From Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel…now there is no place left for me to work in these regions’ (Romans 15:19,23). This was because Paul had established multiplying hubs of discipleship. So let’s do it! Let’s go and pray for the cities. For a multiplying movement to take place.”  







Our response? 







If you want to be part of ‘Pray for 8’ this Pentecost weekend in an Aussie capital city, contact us to find out how you can get involved!

In this episode, we will hear from Brian and Klaus from when they shared at our February Launch gathering. Brian begins by sharing the current picture in Canberra. It feels bleak as they look at the numbers of people attending church. It is an even more despairing picture when they look at the number of people actively engaging almost lost people as disciple-makers. 







But God has given them a vision and has been taking the whole church on a journey, challenging their understanding of how to make disciples. He has been leading them to lay down old ways of doing things to pick up new ways that He is teaching them. 







“We have to unlearn a bunch of things and we don’t even know what we gotta unlearn.”







So what has shifted?









Building focus to field focus (being where the people are)







Charismatic leader focus to ordinary people doing the work







Prayer - making prayer the priority to receive love, faith, guidance and power for the next steps (the harp and the sword)







Moving away from a sermon-focus to interactive accountability to God’s word and Spirit by all people







A greater allegiance to Jesus as King







Moving from information focus to discovery and obedience. 







From a Sunday focus to being a disciple every day of the week







From being a self-serving community to an outward focused community 









As you finish listening to this journey, take a few minutes to ask yourself, what are the things that you and your community need to lay down so that you can pick up the new things that God has for you? What are the bold and courageous steps that God is asking you to take?









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