(Tifa's Theme by Allison Overton on Piano)

Bay Area Recovery Center (BARC):  We have now completed our first month of ministry at the BARC in Dickinson but have just completed our first lesson due to the multitude of questions and dialog with the students.  This is proving to be the most effective class we have taught.  Most all of our towns and cities have these centers to help people with chemical addictions.  There are over forty in Houston!  Nearly all of the men in our class have been baptized as Christians!  But they have not been discipled (until now.)  We have started a process of inviting other church members to accompany us so they can experience the spiritual rush that results from interacting with people who are really hungry for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Dear Christian reader, please get out of your classrooms and take the news that Christ provides to groups of people that are waiting to learn how to be transformed.

Lost Sheep Ministries Nicaragua Mission Trip:  Our first prayer and planning meeting was conducted with the First Baptist Church Missions Team and Women’s Missionary Union for our mission trip to Nicaragua.  This trip is planned during next March’s spring break so students can participate.  Plans are being coordinated through Deacon Clayton Moody in Bluefields for the start of a new church in Pearl Lagoon and a city wide, multi-church evangelistic and discipleship crusade in Bluefields.  Special youth emphasis will be a part of this trip.   

Our next prayer and planning meeting is set for Friday night, December 3^rd in the FBC Dickinson church fellowship hall at 6:30 PM.  If you have any interest in going on or supporting this mission trip, please plan to attend this meeting.

Settling for Conversion

Layo Lieva from San Salvador led in discussions about spiritual transformation.  Layo had been in ministry in El Salvador for over thirty years and has the long view of doing ministry in one country.  He understands the theology of place.  He told us how, when he was a student and his country was a mere 3 to 5 percent professing evangelicals, he and his friends would dream of what their country could be like if just one-third of the people of El Salvador knew Christ. 
    “What if?” grew legs as they began strategizing about how to best reach their country.  Layo had some good news to share with us.  After thirty years of ministry, between 32 percent and 38 percent of El Salvadorans were now believers.  Moreover, every man, woman, and child had (statistically speaking) been evangelized at least three times in the past fifteen years.  Conversions in the country have led to new church-planting efforts, and in El Salvador today there is one evangelical church for every seven hundred El Salvadorans.  (The Saturation Church Planting folks suggest that having at least one culturally relevant and geographically accessible church for every thousand people means that a county is “saturated.”)  In fact, one of the largest churches in the world is locate in this tiny country in Central America.  Elim Church in San Salvador is a cell-based church with an attendance of 147,000 people who meet in cell groups all over the city.  The name Jesus is frequently lifted up in public media.  El Salvador boasts five Christian newspapers, five Christian television stations, and nineteen Christian radio stations.  There is now an association of Christian high schools, and there are four Christian universities.  There are two evangelical hospitals and numerous Christian mayors and government officials.  People even fly in to meet and pray with the country’s president on a weekly basis.  There is annual “Jesus Marches” replete with banners and bands.  Layo noted that there is now “a festival of Christian work.”  As we listened, we sat there smiling at the good news Layo was sharing with us – it was like an answer to his prayers!  But Layo wasn’t smiling.  He concluded his glowing report with these words: “Our country has never been worse off!”  We were shocked.  Worse off, how could that be?

Layo went on to tell us that despite these outward signs of religious growth and the apparent penetration of Christianity into the social institutions of the country, the mental and moral infrastructure of the country had been destroyed.  Nine people a day died violent crimes.  Drug use was out of control.  Thirty-five percent of people were unemployed.  Gangs were prolific and violent.  One study showed that 32 percent of gang members came from evangelical homes.  The most common complaint to the police was “evangelical noise”—preachers who drive through the streets blaring their message from speakers mounted atop their cars.  Why the disconnect? What went wrong?  Layo gave us his personal assessment: “We settled for conversion rather than transformation.  We don’t need to do better; we need to do it different.  I’m not sure we need any more church plants, if they are like the ones we have now.  What we need is a different kind of church.”

Let’s think of El Salvador as a laboratory for ministry methodology.  If we were to get everything we wanted, all that we were working toward right now—saturation evangelism, church planting, Christians elected into office, Christian schools established, and a Christian voice in media—what would happen?  Would our cities truly be transformed?  Places like El Salvador may be converted but not transformed; Evangelizing and planting churches is essential but not adequate for  Kingdom transformation.  They are means to an end—not ends in themselves… Being converted doesn’t automatically entail a complete shift in beliefs…Here is precisely where many missionary efforts have failed.  Too often, their vision ends with numbers of conversions, numbers of churches planted, or the size of church growth.  When this is the case, there is little motivation for discipleship.  There is little or no vision to see these precious new churches operate as engines of Kingdom transformation.  “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded  you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Copied from: To Transform a City

By: Eric Swanson and Sam Williams

Recommended Reading Assignment

To Transform a City by Eric Swanson and Sam Williams provides ways for Missional churches to impact (transform) their cities.  Cooperation between multi-denominational churches, municipal governments, and civic organizations is essential to cultural impact and acceptance of the church by their communities.  The writers are active in city transformation in Boulder, CO and they lecture about how to succeed in transforming small and large cities.  Their book identifies both successful methods for city transformation and pitfalls to avoid.

The Disciple is a monthly publication.  Help us increase distribution of this publication by returning email addresses that you feel would benefit from receiving it.

Contact Us:  The Overton’s at 281-337-2075 or email at dotnjohn@comcast.net or by completing the ‘contact us’ form on www.discipletraining.net

   John and Dot Overton        
Discipleship Teachers
1116 Plantation Drive
                           Dickinson, Texas  77539                          
Home: 281-337-2075
Cell: 713-542-9463

dotnjohn@comcast.net