LESSON 1: EXTRAORDINARY PRAYER
Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscles of omnipotence. — John MacArthur
Introduction
Prayer (ideally have the group kneel)
DMM Definition
Extraordinary Prayer (and Fasting)
Discovery Bible Study (DBS)
The "111" Challenge This Week
Other helpful resources.
- Note to the leader. Pay attention to the directives that are for you and those you read to the participants. Read their material slowly and word for word (some places you'll be prompted to read a statement twice). This assures good comprehension and downline uniformity.
- Ask a few people briefly introduce themselves & share why they’ve come to the training.
- This is a training that has been used since the late 1990s, but you’ll see that the ideas have been around since the New Testament.
- This training isn’t theory. It’s the basic principles of movements that are exploding all over the world. It should make us ask the question—Could God do it here? Can we be a part of something like that? More than seeing one person, but whole families, entire neighborhoods, complete work places and friendship groups come to Jesus.
- You’ll receive the notes after each lesson. You can take notes, but everything said will be handed out or emailed to you. Anyone could lead this. You could do this.
- This training is for anyone who wants to be obedient to Jesus’ teaching of being a disciple maker. Whether you right now have a passion to reach your whole neighborhood or a single friend or family member—this training will be incredibly helpful.
Prayer (ideally have the group kneel)
- Pray that we would hear from God through this training.
- Pray that we would become more effective disciple-makers & church planters.
- Pray that we would be a part of reaching our entire people group.
- Ask two people read this out loud (ideally in 2 different translations).
- Ask, "What should the church strive to accomplish? What is the end goal? What does this say about the role and purpose of the church?"
- The end goal is that we see as many people as possible from every nation, tribe, people and language worshiping God with us in heaven one day.
- We need a movement of God in order to see this happen.
- Without exaggeration we can say that Church Planting Movements are the most effective means in the world today for drawing lost millions into saving, disciple-building relationships with Jesus Christ. That may appear to be an ambitious claim, but it is an accurate one, and an honest description of how God is winning a lost world. -- Dr. David Garrison (from his book Church Planting Movements)
- We don’t want to be satisfied with just a few people from every group; we want to see MANY from every group worshipping before the throne.
- Ask one person to pray that God would use us to be a part of this.
- The following are the words on a poster that greets many missionaries as they commence Church Planting Movement training. It has become something of a mantra that renowned CPM trainers, Bill Smith and Neill Mims, have used to jolt frustrated missionaries out of their fruitless patterns and into new ways of looking at their community and ministry: "If You Keep Doing What You’ve Been Doing, You’ll Keep Getting What You’ve Been Getting." (State this twice)
- Breakout #1 [Option to break into groups. Small groups ~4. Have them answer: What is something you heard that stood out to you? Give them about 5 minutes in small group.]
DMM Definition
- Obedience-based disciple making that sees disciples reproducing disciples, leaders reproducing leaders, churches reproducing churches and movements reproducing movements. (State this twice)
- There are over 1,300 documented Church Planting Movements in the world. Church Planting Movements (CPMs) are consistent 4th generation reproduction of churches in multiple streams among lost people in a relatively short period of time.
- 4th generation doesn’t mean you’ve started 4 churches, it means your church has started a church which started a church which started a church. Think about it like great-grandparents →grandparents → parents → children.
- The average movement has close to 100,000 believers. That makes even the average movement larger than the largest American church. In the January 2019 report by Beyond researcher Justin Long, there were only 2 reported movements in all of North America.
- There are 73.4 million believers in all these movements combined and most of these are among unreached people groups in the last 25 years.
- Each CPM is unique, but also shares common principles which is what this DMM training is based on. This DMM training is being used by God to start CPMs around the world.
- We received a recent update (Nov 2020) of a team of 3 that implemented this training & they’ve now seen 70,000 churches planted and ~500,000 baptized in the past 8 years.
- Disciple making movement (DMM) leads to church planting (CPM). Often in the American church, we start churches hoping to get disciples, but many times it doesn’t happen.
- In this training, you should reproduce everything we are doing as you train others.
- Breakout #2 [Option to break into groups. Small groups ~4. Have them answer: What is something you heard that is different from what you are currently doing? Give them about 5 minutes in small group.]
Extraordinary Prayer (and Fasting)
- One of the universal principles in every CPM is “extraordinary prayer.” All movements are founded in extraordinary prayer (See David Garrison’s book referenced above for all of the universal principles).
- One thing is for certain – prayer and fasting is foundational to movements because at the end of the day it’s the Holy Spirit who starts movements.
- We pray because our vision exceeds our abilities. Prayer is the soul’s deepest cry of rebellion against the way things are. It’s seeing the lost of this world and crying out, “This does not glorify God, and so, by God’s grace, it must change.” --Dr. David Garrison (in the book referenced above) (Say this twice)
- In movements around the world, the average believer prays 2 hours/day (devotional life: includes Bible reading, etc.) and it's common for their churches to host weekly or monthly all night prayer meetings (see Miraculous Movements by Jerry Trousdale for more info).
Discovery Bible Study (DBS)
- We discover from Scripture, what God wants us to know. It’s not a teaching method as much as a learning through questions and facilitation methods. We let the Holy Spirit be our teacher. We’ll lead you through the process next.
- DBS - Mark 11:20-25 Have 2 people read this out loud (ideally in 2 different translations)
- Ask each person in the group (a few, if the group is large) to repeat it in their own words (the group can help and correct).
- What does this passage teach us about God?
- What does this passage teach us about people?
- What should you do this week in response to this passage to increase extraordinary prayer in your life and ministry? (Use “I will…”)
- Who should you share with this week?
- Breakout #3. [Option to break into groups. Small groups ~4. Ask them to share the answers to Questions 3 and 4. Give them about 5 minutes in small group.]
- Encourage them to write the answers down to the application questions they answered and be prepared to share at the next training how they did.
The "111" Challenge This Week
- Spend 1 hour each day with the Lord (Bible reading, prayer, journaling, etc.)
- Spend 1 hour this week going out among the lost; prayer walking, praying for people in stores, etc.
- Spend 1 hour this week in corporate prayer; either start a prayer time as a group or invite them to an existing prayer group.
- Stay around afterwards for questions.
Other helpful resources.
- Read: Multiply Extraordinary Prayer
- Watch: How to Pray Like a Disciple Maker - Prayer Calendar (1:32)
- Watch: Extraordinary Prayer in Movements (9:24)
- Watch: Prayer Calendars (21:18)
- Watch: A 23 Year History of Prayer (48:15)
- Watch: Building A Culture of Prayer (35:55)
- What do the following passages say about prayer? Acts 1:14 resulting in Acts 2:41; Acts 3:1 resulting in Acts 4:4; Acts 4:29 resulting in Acts 4:31; Acts 6:3-4 resulting in Acts 6:7; Acts 7:59-60 resulting in Acts 8:1-4; Acts 9:13 resulting in Acts 9:18; Acts 10:9 resulting in Acts 10:47-48; Acts 16:25 resulting in Acts 16:33. Source: David Platt