A major PRAISE GOD! We have many dozens of churches in our mission now. But today was a major milestone for the mission. A successful intentional church split!
A couple weeks back we had 98 people in attendance in the fellowship that meets in our home; 22 people had to sit outside on planks, motorbikes or the grass and listen in. That prompted immediate action. I discussed the situation with key leaders and we agreed to split the fellowship into three immediately, announcing it the following Sunday and implementing it the next which was today. Done. Well—this report is how it went.
The most disctant disciples from three villages (Kiungani, Toll Station, and Kiminini) met at Sam’s in Kiminini. For this one time I gave Nashon a motobike and he collected the brethren. They had the smallest fellowship of only seven but said it went very perfect.
The second fellowship was in Matunda and included saints from Milele. They had 19 in attendance and said it likewise went excellent. Then the fellowship that meets in our home still had at least 55 to 60 people and was quite awesome.
Now I know for many this all seems foreign to most married to traditional institutional church. Taking a vibrant growing church and instead of encouraging additional growth and simply constructing a building or adding services, we are splitting the church up into manageable “home-sized” chunks and dispersing our gifted leaders among the groups. Yup, organic kingdom expansion is different.
What are the benefits? By so doing, we are setting beacons of light into two additional communities. The Matunda fellowship boasted three visitors whom we will soon teach and add to our numbers who would not have attended had we met in Mwananchi (our home) this week. We are planting the kingdom within communities rather than extracting people from communities to trek to our “church.”
Also, in Mwananchi this week Geoffrey and Ben took a lead role. Patrick in Matunda. They did excellent. These are second tier disciples. You see, under normal circumstances the first tier teachers and leaders facilitate the meetings and provide most of the teaching. By splitting up the gifted leaders it allows the Holy Spirit to go deeper into the discipleship and expand our talent pool. Amazing and encouraging to watch.
Praise the Lord!