NAMS Announcement

Dear NAMS subscriber.

We thank you for subscribing to our weekly blogs that many of our NAMS leaders have contributed to over the years. Because of the declining numbers of people who actually read the blog and the challenge of many other competing social media and channels, we have decided to discontinue our weekly teaching blog.

However, we will replace it with more occasional stories and testimonies relevant to the work God has called NAMS to do around the world, which we will continue to send to you (no action required if you wish to stay on our list of subscribers).

Our prayer is that you will continue not only to be inspired to be missionary disciple-making disciple of Jesus wherever he sends you and have placed you in, but that you may also continue to pray, give and support us in the call God has given NAMS. We need more and more partners because the work of reaching all peoples is urgent. Please keep praying for and supporting us.

May I in closing commend to you two blogs that we hope will inspire you. The first is the personal blog of our NAMS leader and Servant General, Canon Revd Dr Jon Shuler. You can find it here:

https://joncshuler.wordpress.com

You might also like to check out the regular writing from on of our NAMS Companion, Bishop Josep Rossello, currently leading a church in Exmouth, England. You can find his blog here:

https://joseprossello.blogspot.com

Stay tuned next week for a story from our NAMS work in Cairo, Egypt!

Expounding the 12 Principles #4: (by ​​Jon Shuler​)

4) The Principle of Discipling

New believers must be formed quickly in the patterns of a healthy and practical way of Christian life, if they are to become life long followers of the Lord Jesus.  They must learn to be disciple-making disciples. Too long a delay, and they will become immature followers for a lifetime, at best, or unfruitful branches at worst. A new believer must hear and obey the call to be a disciple who can help another disciple to be formed.

Making this principle foundational is not accomplished by a program or a temporary training course. It has to be lived. It must become a pattern of behavior that shapes the DNA of the believer. The tree will be known by its fruit, and the fruit of a believer is another believing disciple. But how does this reproduction become normal? At least three things must be true for this to happen.

First, existing followers of Jesus must become convinced that living as a disciple-making disciple is for them, and they must pray for it to be so. When the Lord first sent out his disciples, they were told to “pray to the Lord of the Harvest to raise up laborers to go into that harvest.” Even as they went, they were to pray to be multiplied. Whatever their particular gift or ministry, they were to help others join them. Prayer to be faithful in helping to spread the kingdom, and doing so, was part of daily life as a follower of Jesus. Disciple-making was not an option.

Second, a follower of Jesus must first be discipled by another in order to learn the essential pattern of discipling for themselves. Walking alongside a faithful follower teaches them how to do the same. Within days of first following Jesus, those first disciples spent hours, every day, with their Master. They discovered that discipling is a relational, time consuming, and intentional lifestyle. They learned it from the Lord so they could  pass it on. Reproduction is the goal of discipling. To accomplish it requires intentionality. We learn to be disciples by walking with other disciples.

Thus it is that third, a discipled disciple – a made disciple – comes to have confidence to build discipling relationships for themselves. They begin to invite others to walk with them. They make time for meeting with those who want to learn. They develop a loving and open lifestyle, with enough margin always to help make a new disciple as the Lord leads. It is then only a matter of time until such a lifestyle becomes like breathing for them. If the Lord has need of them they will answer his summons.

When the principle of discipling is being lived there will be no day to busy to help disciple another. There will be no schedule too packed to prevent them from helping someone the Lord sends to walk the road of Christ with them. They will never refuse “to go”  to the one ready to follow. Discipling will be central to their life.

Next Week:  5) The Principle of Serving.

Used with permission, https://joncshuler.wordpress.com/

What’s in a Word?

‘Disciple’ is the word most commonly used for a follower and believer in the risen Jesus in the book of Acts.[1] Jesus instructed us in his final command of Matthew 28:18-20 to ‘make disciples’ as the overarching focus and mission of his post-resurrection church, as told to his appointed pioneers of that universal church. And we know from Acts and the rapid spread of the Gospel in the Roman world in the first few centuries that this was certainly their practice.

Yet, being a disciple today may mean something entirely different. How often it is in churches around the world as I’ve traveled, that I have found discipleship to be reduced and redacted to something less than it should be. It is often seen only as a short-term follow-up course or program for new believers or a description for adult Sunday school classed or bible studies for serious believers. At worse, it is seen as synonymous with other popular words like mentoring and coaching. John Ortberg, Christian pastor and teacher comments thus:

“Words pick up baggage, so disciple, a great New Testament word, has come to mean a time-limited process that you can finish. Growing up, I’d hear people say, “I’m discipling him.” They meant, we’ll meet for a while and then we’ll finish and he’ll be discipled. That usually involved getting together at Denny’s at 6:30 in the morning and working through some kind of curriculum. The New Testament never uses disciple in that way. To be a disciple of Jesus was something all followers did in community, and did their whole lives long.”[2]

He is of course right – Discipleship that is not life-long and reproducing is neither biblical nor Jesus-pleasing. God has taught us at NAMS that we must call the Church of Jesus Christ back to an understanding of discipleship as Jesus and his apostles taught and lived it.

The good news is that we are living in days when the word ‘disciple’ and the work of ‘disciple-making’ is being recovered and reclaimed through the sovereign work of God’s Spirit around the world by missionaries, pastors and leaders as never before.

There is a greater realization today that being and making disciples is a fundamental call and work for all obedient followers of Jesus. We live in days when disciple-making movements around the world are paving the way for new church-planting and Gospel transformation in previously unreached people groups.

In the same vein, NAMS as a missionary society was founded in 1994 to model, train and call the church and all Christians to obedience to Jesus’ final command to make disciples of all peoples. We do this by making disciples who make disciples, raising disciple-making leaders and seeking to plant disciple-making churches.

In this new year, it is our prayer and hope that together, we can be growing and reproducing disciples of Jesus, so that his Kingdom may come on earth and His Gospel reach the ends of the earth.

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[1] See for example Acts 6:1-2, Acts 6:1-2,6:7; Acts 9:1, Acts 9:1,9:10, Acts 9:10,9:19, Acts 9:19, 9:26, Acts 9:26, 9:38; Acts 11:26, Acts 11:26. Butler, Trent C. Editor. From entry for ‘Disciples’. Holman Bible Dictionary. Accessed at http://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hbd/d/disciples.html. 1991.

[2] John Ortberg in ‘Holy Tension’ – interview with Leadership Magazine. Accessed at http://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2004/winter/1.22.html

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If you would like to learn how to be a disciple-making disciple, you can find the following resources on our website that can help you be obedient to Jesus’ final command:

www.namsnetwork.com/assets/dmdsteps.pdf  An e-book clearly outlining a 7-step process to become a disciple who makes disciples by Canon Revd Dr Jon Shuler, NAMS Servant General.

Praxis is a 4-week small group training course on how to be a disciple-making disciple. The workbook for this course can be found at:
www.namsnetwork.com/assets/praxi-course-workbook_v2.pdf
with a facilitators/leaders guide at:
www.namsnetwork.com/assets/praxi-course-leader-guide.pdf

You can also watch our 7-part YouTube video series on being and making disciples: go to www.youtube.com and type ‘NAMS Disciple Making Discipleship Course’ in the search bar.

This resource is an offering to the Church universal to begin to apprentice, learn and practice the ‘family business’ that is the vocation and inheritance of all true Christians.

Merry Christmas from the NAMS Team!

A Harvest Amidst Difficulties (By Rev. Andres Casanueva)

Last year in September, just before I was due to board my flight to Cuba on a visit to the brothers there, the airline suddenly cancelled its flight. Hurricane Irma was due to hit the island. It eventually destroyed much of the island’s fragile infrastructure. The very next month, I was finally able to visit the country. It was an important visit.

At the end of 2017, we had planned to hold a NAMS Latin America-wide retreat in Chile. We invited 9 church-planters and leaders to attend from Cuba, but encountered great difficulty in securing visas for them to travel. However, once more, the Lord intervened, in answer to our prayers. Only 4 days before the Retreat, everyone was granted visas to travel!

After they begged us to come over to help them, we planned a follow-up retreat in Cuba for 2018. However, 3 times, we had to change our planned dates because of various difficulties. Finally, I traveled alone to the island in October to make a final attempt to coordinate one, which will now take take place in December of this year.

During this trip, I was able to visit our NAMS connections in Havana – and to meet many new brothers and sisters there for the first time. I also connected with the leaders we knew in Cienfuegos.

And although we still face many difficulties (lack of resources, visa requirements, lack of places to meet, etc.), we believe that with our brothers and sisters, a new pioneering community has been birthed under NAMS in Cuba for the glory of God.

All this reminds me of the longing of the apostle Paul, writing his letter to the Romans 1:13, where Paul expresses his strong desire to see them soon. Paul planned his trips, but there were difficulties that were beyond his control. And still, the work went on. And finally Paul managed to visit them and encourage them in their faith.

Twenty centuries later, we also continue to trust that the many difficulties we face will not stop the work of God, and we can be sure that our plans will be fulfilled in the perfect time. We have no doubt that the Lord will provide the visas for the 3 brothers on the NAMS team travelling from Chile, as well as every dollar that is required for transportation, lodging and food for the Cuban brothers to host us and others.

We believe this retreat will greatly strengthen the faith of our Cuban brothers and that we will receive into full communion with us, the community gathered in Ciefuegos. Please pray and partner with us in this great adventure of faith into Cuba in the midst of a great challenges.

 

Revd. Andrés Cananueva is our NAMS Regional Team Leader for Latin America. He leads our NAMS Base Community in Temuco, Chile.

Disciple-Fu (by Pastor Clay Hamrick)

For several years as a teenager and as a young adult I studied traditional Kung-Fu. Like the funny panda in the martial arts cartoon movie, I love Kung-Fu! It started on Sunday afternoon when we got home from church. About four o’clock, black belt theater came on. From that point on I was hooked. No one in our city taught Kung-Fu. There was karate and other forms, but no Kung-Fu. It had to be Kung-Fu. Then one day, a new school opened. Could it be? Yes! Boom! I could be living the dream!

In two years I became a black belt in shaolin Kung-Fu. You could come as often as you desired, and I did. We trained hard every day. Over time, I picked up the pedagogy of the Sifu (teacher). He modeled it. I imitated him. He corrected. Then he would show me what each technique meant. Later he would match us up for live boxing. Each practice made us sharper. Each practice moved us from jerky reaction to calm response, even in the heat of battle.

It has been thirty years since that time. I still remember the techniques and training. I still love Kung-Fu! You might be asking, what does this have to do with discipleship? It has reinforced the idea of apprenticeship pedagogy into how I disciple others. In the last few months, I’ve begun to practice with some old buddies. We are also starting discipleship. I’m calling it Disciple-Fu. We train to be followers of Christ and fishers of men, then we train in Kung-Fu.

This training pedagogy was taught by Jesus through a pattern of Model, Assist, Watch and Launch (lead). Jesus used the common life of people to develop them into the people he intended them to be. They learned together. Practiced together. Jesus corrected and explained to them why things didn’t work and the meaning behind the teachings. He made sure that they had the confidence and competence to do the work. It takes practice. It takes seeing it done successfully and in failure.

Training in this manner, we learn to pass on quickly what we have learned. In turn we become better because we are still learning and growing. While I still love kung-fu, I love being a disciple of Jesus more. It is great to see God work in people’s lives and they embrace the disciple making lifestyle.

Go Train – Make Disciples.

 

— Pastor Clay Hamrick
Mosaic International Church,
Jacksonville FL

Easter greetings from the NAMS Team!

Come and Join Us In 2018? (By Revd Jon Shuler, NAMS Servant General)

Why wouldn’t you want to join the community of NAMS in 2018? Seriously?

I find myself asking this question after experiencing the most wonderful retreat earlier
this month with eight of our global society who live in North America. We met in the
beauty of holiness at the Christian Retreat Center known as The Close, nestled in the
midst of the Daniel Boone National Forest in the state of Kentucky. Of all that we did,
just being together again as friends and fellow Companions of Jesus was central. We
laughed and sang, we worshipped and wept for joy, we ate and drank, we prayed
together and in silence, we brainstormed and planned for the New Year, but most of all we listened for the “still small voice” of the Lord together. And then we all headed
back to the “place of our assignment” to serve the Lord and his church.

The relational connection that comes to us in this community of gospel servants is a gift from God. So too is the encouragement and support we find as men and women who are obeying the command of the Lord Jesus to “make disciples of all nations.” Also a gift from God is the accountability that it places in our lives, to the Lord and his Word, and to the covenanted life we have promised to pursue together.

I for one would not know how to carry on without this band of brothers and sisters in
Christ that he has given me in the global family of NAMS. We are serving on every
continent. We are a hidden “clan” within the wider church of Jesus, bound together to
“work, pray, and give for the spread of the kingdom of God” in the particular calling of new church planting. It is a wonderful gift to belong to such a religious order.

Would it possibly be true that you who are reading this may be called to join us in some concrete way in 2018? Would you pray about this and seek the Lord for his will in the matter?

How can you join us? There are many ways, but here are five, in ascending order of
commitment:

1) Join us as regular contributing NAMS Partner. Even a starting gift of $25 per
month will help the gospel go to the nations. Go to ‘www.namsnetwork.com/be-involved.html’ to begin doing so.

2) Become a dedicated praying NAMS Intercessor. Set you phone to remind you
to pray for us at 10:02 am each day. Ask the Lord of the Harvest to raise up laborers to go into the harvest, as Jesus commanded in Luke 10:2.
Contact Mary Garrison at ‘mary.garrison@namsnetwork.com’, our NAMS Global Prayer/Intercessor Co-ordinator, to become a prayer partner with us

3) Become a NAMS Centurion. Be one of the men and women who are taking up
the call to help spread the gospel right where you live, in covenanted partnership with
NAMS. Sign up to be a NAMS Centurion. Go to ‘www.NAMScenturion.com’.

4) Volunteer to be a NAMS Global Apprentice. Give a year or two to the Lord to
serve in the mission field of his choosing for you. In North America, Nepal, or Norway. Wherever he needs you. Go to ‘www.namsgap.com’ for more information.

5) Decide to become a NAMS Companion. Begin the journey of discovery that
leads to a life under rule in our global missionary society. Write to us today at
info@namsnetwork.com.

Will you join us this coming year?

— Jon Shuler

Servant General (NAMS)

Merry Christmas!

A Taste of Heaven! NAMS in North and Latin America (By Rev. Manik Corea, NAMS GE).

One of the privileges of my role as Global Executive of NAMS is to visit NAMS Companions around the world. I get to see and hear first hand what God is doing through them; to be part of retreats and meetings with Companions, and to lead and share at NAMS training events (often with other Companions) as we seek to teach and envision our friends, partners and other Christians in the places we have work in, to join in the mission of Jesus to redeem a lost world.

In the last three weeks, I have been first to USA and then to Chile, two of our most representative Mission Regions. It was a joy to see and hear what God is doing in both these continents.

The NAMS USA gathering was at a picturesque Christian centre called The Close near Lexington, Kentucky. From Thursday 30 November to Saturday 2 December, 10 of us (pictured below left), including NAMS Servant General Jon Shuler, gathered for retreat. Companions of NAMS commit to take personal days of retreat every quarter year as part of our Rule of Life, and once a year together as part of our region.

We shared meals, Scriptures and stories, prayed Morning and Evening Prayer together in the ‘Chapel of the Broken Vessel’, had quiet times of reflection, as well as discussed, prayed and planned together for the work God is giving us to pursue in North America.

We all felt encouraged and strengthened afresh to press on with the vision to make disciple-making disciples, raise up disciple-making leaders and plant disciple-making communities. We agreed on new ways to support each other and to become more interconnected and intentional in our work of reaching the lost in the mission field that is North America today.

Soon after, I journeyed to Temuco, Chile, where our NAMS base community there (Comunidad Cristiana ALP) is located.

There, the 30 or so people who make up the community, were busy preparing for the NAMS Latin America meetings from Thursday 7 Dec – Sunday 10 December. We soon swelled up to more than 50 in number, including people from 7 nations, including 9 Cuban pastors and leaders. The presence of the Cubans was a miraculous answer to prayer as it was unheard of in Chile to have such a large group of Cubans be given permission to come.

We met at the SIM Koyamentu Retreat center, in a very scenic location in the countryside. In the course of the few days together, we heard amazing testimonies of God’s work across the Latin continent, prayed for each other, fellowshipped over delicious food and sang lustily in Spanish (which NAMS Regional Team Leader Andres says is the ‘language of heaven.’).

I spoke on the NAMS story and aspects of our church-planting work, including the process of making multiplying disciples and how we pioneer new communities of faith. NAMS Companion Clay Hamrick, who lives in Florida, USA, was ‘skyped-in’ for a session of how to share the Gospel with your neighbors, which was very well received.

 

At the end of the meetings, three new NAMS base communities were proposed, including one in Cuba. Many of the participants said they finally understood the vision and work of NAMS, while a working partnership between NAMS in Chile and Campus Crusade Chile to reach university students was agreed upon.

One of the highlights of the Latin America meetings was the marriage proposal of NAMS Companion Felipe Casanueva to his girlfriend Cami after one of the afternoon talks, in front of everyone. Thankfully Cami said ‘yes’! We were also serenaded in the evening by music from Kyrios, probably the premier Christian band in Chile.

Returning across the globe to my family in Thailand chalked up more hours in the air than I had ever spent consecutively on a plane. I write this jet-lagged and tired from the journey but I thank God for the wonderful joy it was to see the vision God gave to us in NAMS coming to fruition in the Americas. Thank you for praying and supporting us to do this. To God be the glory!