Church Planters Spread the Gospel through Multiplication

Hello my brother, hello my sister, my name is Dean Davis and this is Multiply, a podcast that gives a word of encouragement to village church planters.

Good News is for sharing.  Jesus entrusted the Good News of salvation to eleven of his followers just before he ascended into heaven.  He commanded them to proclaim the Gospel to all creation and to every person.  What an impossible task!  How were 11 Jewish men from Palestine going to spread the Good News to two or three hundred million people all over the world?

But in the very instructions Jesus gave to his 11 apostles, he provided the secret to spreading the Good News of salvation to all people everywhere.  He told his disciples to make disciples.  And Jesus told his disciples to teach their disciples to obey everything Jesus had taught them. 

Now, here is the secret to spreading the Good News across the whole globe:  If each generation of disciples of Jesus teaches their disciples to also make disciples, the number of followers of Jesus will multiply exponentially.  That’s right! Disciple makers must teach their disciples to also make disciples.

As a new church planter, you love preaching the Gospel.  You love telling the Good News.  You love preparing new believers for baptism.  You love to minister to people who are hungry to know God.  I am so happy you find such joy in serving the Lord in so many ways.  When I first started planting churches I too delighted in this work. And in fact, I still do.  It's great to help people experience the new birth and begin to follow Jesus!  But if we want to spread the Gospel across Africa, we dare not be content with just this kind of ministry.  We need to move on to empowering disciples to make disciples and churches to plant churches.

This is exactly what the apostle Paul did.  One of Paul’s disciples was named Timothy. It seems likely that Epaphras was a disciple of Timothy.  Listen to what Paul says about Epaphras in Colossians 1:

 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—  the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.  You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Epaphras planted the church in Colossae, which in turn planted the church at Hierapolis.  The Apostle Paul made disciples who could make disciples.  He planted churches that in turn planted churches.  You can too. 

The vision of Village Church Planting is a church in every African village by 2050.  How can we achieve this goal?  Only by making disciples who teach others to follow Jesus.  Only by starting churches that effectively equip and release their members to start more churches in villages without churches.

You love sharing the Good News and preparing new believers for baptism. I hope you love to equip them to share the Gospel and baptize as much as you love doing it yourself.

New disciples will make all kinds of excuses about why they are not ready to pass on the Good News.  Listen respectfully.  But keep encouraging, keep loving, keep believing in your disciples.  Keep empowering them and continue to release them to make disciples and start new churches. That's what the Apostle Paul, the master church planter did.  That is what we should do as well!  You can do it; God is with you.

This has been Multiply, a podcast that provides a word of encouragement for village church planters.

If you have found this message to be helpful, please forward it to fellow church planters and disciple-makers who may need encouragement.  Feel free to share it on What’s App, Facebook, and other platforms you use to connect with others.

Be encouraged, God is with us!  EC-09

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