EMQ » April–June 2019 » Volume 55 Issue 3
By The Walker family
Over the past few years, together with national partners, WE have been involved in a movement in South Asia. The first time we collected data on the work was in December 2012. At that time there were 55 outreach Discovery Bible Groups, all consisting of lost people.
- By December 2013 there were 250 groups (churches and Discovery groups).
- By December 2014 there were 700 churches, and an estimated 2,500 baptized.
- By December 2015 there were 2,000 churches, and an estimated 9,000 baptized
- By December 2016 there were 6,500 churches, and an estimated 25,000 baptized.
The movement has consistently reached 4th generation in many places. In a few locations, it has reached 18th generation. This is not just one movement, but multiple movements, in more than four geographical regions, multiple languages, and multiple religious backgrounds.
Through these few years, we have learned many vital lessons.[i] One lesson our national partner has spoken of in many ways is the importance of Discovery Bible Studies (DBS). These studies are effective for both proclaiming the gospel to the lost and for enabling believers to mature in Christ. In our context, we also found it extremely helpful to use rechargeable inexpensive speakers with story sets on memory cards. Using these speakers empowered illiterate and semi-literate people to plant churches through listening to Scripture. Roughly half the 6,500 churches have been planted through using these speakers.
We asked our national partner to share some ways he has found the Discovery Study approach to be fruitful. He said, “I’ve written down twenty-two. But to keep it short, I’ll tell you just the top six.” Here is what he told us.
Blessings of DBS
The first blessing is that when a family starts the Discovery Study process, they are free from the problems that come with relying on just one teacher. The family can invite anyone to join them, whether they’re followers of Christ or not, or from some other religion. Any neighbor can come to their house, and if they’re interested in what they’re hearing, they’ll stick around. If not, they won’t. They can easily discover who else from the neighborhood is interested in the stories.
The second blessing is sometimes we meet a person of peace and want to establish a relationship with that person’s family, but we don’t have time. Or they are illiterate. In cases like these we can give them a speaker with memory chip. We tell them, “There are stories on this speaker. If you’d like to learn about life (or wisdom or whatever), then please listen to these stories when you have time. After listening, stay seated with each other and discuss the stories. Discussion together is necessary.”
We don’t need to tell them to accept Jesus immediately (which we used to feel pressured to do when we relied on preaching as the only method). We just tell them, “If you listen to the stories, you will be blessed.” So they can study God’s Word without us being present. It also gives us time to develop a relationship with them because we don’t demand instant acceptance of Jesus. We just tell them we have a request: if they want to be blessed, they should listen to the stories on the speaker, even without us being there.
Third, many people truly do not have time to come to a service in a church building. The one church building that might exist in their whole county is very far away. They don’t own a bicycle, much less a motorcycle or car. Walking takes hours, and can even be dangerous. They are poor farmers who work by hand. Who will tend their fields if they take a day off? Discovery Bible Study is fruitful among people like these. They have jobs working near their home. They have crops to tend and cows and goats to care for. But they can gather in a home, all sit down together, hit play on the speaker, listen to a story, and then discuss it together.
While they are discussing the story with each other, other families in the village can watch and listen in. (If people went far away to a traditional service, their neighbors would miss this witness). The neighbors wonder to themselves, “What are these people doing?” This is a blessing because no outsider or expert is the “face” of the gospel message. It is all a work of God. When the neighbors hear the family discussing, “What does this passage teach us?” it becomes a chance for them to also listen and learn.
In this way a first generation church easily develops a second generation church, even without waiting for someone with specialized training. So Discovery Study is a great way for the gospel to spread – even among those who are geographically isolated or illiterate.
Fourth, DBS allows us to enter a family’s home as friends with something interesting rather than as an enemy bringing something suspicious. People love stories, so stories are a great way to catch people’s attention and hold their attention while conveying God’s truth.
The fifth blessing is actually the most important. By using the Discovery Bible Study method, families can very easily listen to and learn, not just one story (like they would if they had to wait for a visiting pastor). They can continually learn from so many stories without waiting for an outsider to visit again. The memory chip in each player contains creation to Christ stories, the Proverbs, Psalms, the book of Matthew, and Acts. In less than six months, new families can listen to, discuss, and apply stories from all these books! Through learning stories from so much of the Bible, strong house churches are established in a short amount of time. People get baptized quickly and grow in a healthy way: rooted and established in Christ and His word.
Finally, Discovery Study helps people to wrestle personally with the Word. They discuss the questions with each other and have to listen to each other’s observations. If an outsider or a pastor came and spoke to them forcefully, they’d get angry and not listen. But since the truths in God’s word come out during their discussion, they aren’t offended by the message. Also, when they leave that discussion and share the story with others, the others quickly accept what the person says. He or she is not preaching at them, but sharing out of his or her own experience of wrestling with the passage and applying it. The neighbors see that this person isn’t a “Christian” as they define that term – a Westernized person with strange customs. This is simply a person they know who is now doing good things and saying good things, so this story must be good. In this way, new disciples are being made very easily and quickly without having to wait for outside leaders.
These are my main reasons for preferring Discovery Study over traditional preaching for spreading the gospel. The good news can advance so much more quickly and widely, and so many more people can be rooted and established in Christ. Here are some illustrations of ways God is using DBS to advance his kingdom. (Note: this should not be read as simply a promotion for DBS or as advocating a too-heavily focus on DBS while missing the big picture. The goal is not making DBS groups; the goal is a CPM/DMM.)
DBS in Action
The main leader in one area of our country, “Abeer,” has consistently reported that the Discovery Study approach is a great tool for growing people’s faith quickly. Abeer has many generations of disciples that have been reproduced from his ministry. One of the fifth generation leaders, “Kanah,” is 19 years old. One day, this young man went to G. Village, and was surprised to discover that a family there said they were followers of Jesus! Kanah visited the seven members of the family, including the 47-year-old mother, “Rajee.” During their conversation, Rajee said, “Yes, we know about Jesus, but we have no idea how we will ever grow in our faith because pastors do not come here.”
Kanah felt great sympathy for this family because his testimony was the same. When he first gave his allegiance to Christ, there had been no pastor to teach him in the ways of his new faith. Pastors would come to his village occasionally, just as one had visited this family, but the pastors would only come to preach for a while, collect an offering, and then leave. They had never committed themselves to regular visits or actual disciple-making of any kind. They had only been taught to preach, so that is what they had done.
After listening to Rajee, Kanah said to her, “Auntie, I tell you truthfully, my story is just like yours. But one day, after I had been alone in my faith for a long time, I met a team who told me that while it was so good I had given my allegiance to Christ, I hadn’t been told the whole story. Not only are we to follow Jesus and be His disciple, but we are also called to make other disciples.” He continued, “The team told me that Jesus has given all of us, His followers, this command that we’re to go and make disciples of all nations.” In this simple way, Kanah spoke with the mother in the house, even though she was his elder. He finished with, “This is what the Bible says.”
Rajee said, “We don’t have a Bible and we don’t know how to read. Some of our children are able to read some words, but none of us here is truly literate.”
Kanah said, “Yes, I understand. In my village there are also many people who cannot read, but this team gave me a speaker with Bible stories on it, including wise sayings (the Proverbs), and holy songs (Psalms). If you listen to this speaker, you’ll hear God’s word and learn it, and there are also good questions on this speaker. As you discuss the questions after listening to each story, the truths will go deeper into your heart and life.”
Rajee asked if she could have such a speaker. Kanah said that on that particular day, he didn’t have one, but the next time he came, he’d be sure to bring one for her. Two days later, he returned to that village and gave the family a speaker. He explained: “After listening to these stories, it’s very important to discuss the five questions so you can grow in your faith without depending on someone to come from far away and teach you. Listening to Bible stories and discussing them as a family will give you the opportunity to grow that you’ve been longing for.”
Kanah has already started Discovery Groups in three different villages. In each village, the original group he started has started a new group. Although they are new in the faith, these believers are growing the work of disciple making. They are sharing the stories with others and multiplying disciples. Abeer, the main leader for that area, now plans to share with Kanah verses about the Lord’s Supper and baptism, so Kanah can take those verses to the groups. We look forward to seeing the groups continue to grow and multiply.
Rajee’s family had waited a whole year for a pastor to return and teach them, but no one ever came. Then this young 19-year-old simply visited one day and gave them the tools they needed to grow in their faith. In ways like this, the Holy Spirit is working and this movement is growing. Kanah isn’t a pastor; he’s not had any Bible training. He’s not even a member of a big church. He’s just a simple guy from a village. And because he himself has followed this pattern for learning and growing in faith, he is able to share it with others. We praise God that even simple people are functioning as a royal priesthood – serving God and bringing His salvation to others.
In another case, a woman named Diya lives in “K. Village,” far from any town. Residents there cannot travel or leave their village often because it is so remote. No traffic reaches their area for them to hitch a ride and they own no means of transport themselves. This isolation really bothered them. Once, they heard a man talk about Jesus; that He is great and able to do miracles. Without a vehicle or anything more than a footpath out of their village, they wondered if they would ever hear more about Him.
One day several disciple makers met in the home of a church leader who lives in that general area. The leader put this question to the disciple makers: “What do we do about people with whom we’ve been able to share a little bit about Jesus, but they need to know more? How can we follow up with people who live so far away that it’s hard for us to reach them?” This question touched JP, one of the disciple makers.
He thought, “I have a bicycle. I could go visit with people who live in remote villages.” This is how JP ended up in Diya’s village. He met with her and her whole family and they talked about Jesus. He told them about Matthew 28, that we who are His disciples are commanded to go and make other disciples. He told her how she and her family could also obey Jesus’ commands and that as they applied Jesus’ instructions to their lives, their faith would grow. Diya and her whole family were so happy that someone from the “outside” had come all the way to their village to meet with them to talk about Jesus!
JP had a speaker with Bible stories on it. He pulled it out of his bag and gave it to her, saying, “Sister, here is a simple way you can worship Jesus together in your home. I, too, am illiterate. I am not wise. I was never trained in an official pastor training program. But I have this speaker here with many Bible stories on it.” JP told Diya how she and her family could use the speaker to study God’s Word. He left it with her, and worship to Jesus began in that village for the first time.
One day, a neighbor family came to Diya’s house to join them in their Bible study. However, as soon as Diya hit “play” on the speaker and they heard the voice start to narrate the Scripture, the 19-year-old daughter in the neighbor’s family began to cry out – truly wailing. Priya had a demon in her, and everyone was very afraid.
What would happen? None of them were pastors. What were they supposed to do? What would the demon do? No one knew. So they all just kept listening to the story. The narration went on while Priya kept wailing and everyone else present was secretly, silently asking God to please do a miracle. Finally, the story ended, and the voice on the speaker asked the first question to facilitate the group discussion. Finally, someone was brave enough to say, “Let’s pray!” So they all prayed for Priya and she was freed of the demon! And that’s not all. She also had been ill for a long time, and during that meeting, God not only freed her of the demon but also healed her illness. After witnessing these two miracles, both families declared that they wanted to be followers of Jesus! Priya’s family has now also started hosting a Bible study group in their own home.
Diya and Priya have since visited 14 different villages for the purpose of spreading Jesus’ story! In those 14 villages, 28 Discovery Bible studies are taking place regularly. These groups are not yet spiritually mature. They are infants in the Lord, but the ladies have faith that many disciples will be made in those places. The main church leader in the area who hosted the meeting that JP attended, has visited these groups himself. He has talked to them about growing mature in Christ, and also about the Lord’s Supper and baptism.
This is the power of God’s Word and His Spirit, working where there are no seminaries or paid clergy. Just people hearing God’s words and putting them into practice like the “wise man” Jesus described in Matthew 7. Jesus said that anyone who hears His words and obeys is like a wise man who built his house on rock so that nothing moved it, not rain or even floods. How precious and wonderful to be taught this lesson by people who can’t even read!
How sad if all the world’s unreached people had to wait for an ordained pastor or someone with a seminary education to bring them the good news of salvation. We praise God that Discovery Bible Studies are enabling disciples to make disciples even to the ends of the earth!
The Walker family (pseudonym) began cross-cultural work in 2001, joined Beyond (www.beyond.org) in 2006, and started applying CPM principles in 2011. They are the authors (under a different name) of the book Dear Mom & Dad: An Adventure in Obedience.
[i] These are summarized in “God is Sweeping through South Asia” by the Walkers and Phoebe, a sub-title in “God is Using Movements to Reach the Unreached”: Mission Frontiers, Jan/Feb 2018.
