(CPM refers to David Garrison’s use of the term in his book Church Planting Movements and provides this definition “a rapid multiplication of indigenous churches planting churches that sweeps through a people group or population segment.” DMM refers to Disciple Making Movements which is my preferred westernization of CPM. CPM might be thought of as the effect and DMM as the cause.
How do movements start, by finding persons of peace. A concept found in Luke 10 and Matthew 10. Someone who is spiritually receptive, has a network of relationships and is willing to give you access to these networks.
From that access the Scripture is placed in an context (person of peace’s network) and atmosphere of discovery (learner driven discussion rather than teacher/lecture oriented environment) where people read and respond to God’s truth.
The end game of this group is obedience, (see this video) responding to God speaking and sharing it with their family. So each group ends with two vital actions, identifying a measurable response to what God has said and a commitment to share what God is doing on one’s life with someone. Both of which are discussed at the beginning of the next week’s group establishing a context of accountability.
TULIP which every young Calvinist cuts their teeth frames a world view. Several of these points are the basis of disciple-making movements theology.
- Total Depravity, all of a human and all of humanity in need of a Redeemer relationship with the Creator God. THEREFORE
- Unconditional election, God must bring the dead to life, working in their hearts calling them to himself which is what the Person of Peace concept asserts. God is out their working and we awakening people and we need to join him.
The person of peace concept, coupled with II Corinthians 5:16-21 which declares that God is in the world reconciling it (the world) to himself, should provide ample motivation for the the Calvinist to be about his Father’s business. It is not enough to know a Sovereign God, we are called to obey him.
There are people out there that God has chosen to work thru and our job is simply to get out there and allow God to reveal them to us. As we do that we involve ourselves not only in the ends that our Sovereign God has ordained but we join Him in the means that He has ordained as well.
Hi Roy… Here are some comments from Calvin that might help people who are looking at DMM from a Reformed framework. Especially the work of the Spirit illuminating God’s word.
” … the way to the Kingdom of God is open only to him whose mind has been made new by the illumination of the Holy Spirit.”
Institutes 1.2.20
“… faith is the principal work of the Holy Spirit … Contrasting God with flesh and blood, [John] declares it to be a supernatural gift that those who would otherwise remain in unbelief receive Christ by faith. … Paul shows the Spirit to be the inner teacher by whose effort the promise of salvation penetrates our minds, a promise that would otherwise only strike the air or beat upon our ears …
Consequently, he may rightly be called the key that unlocks for us the treasures of the Kingdom of Heaven [cf. Rev. 3.7]; an his illumination, the keeness of our insight. Paul so highly commends the ‘ministry of the Spirit’ [2 Cor. 3.6] for the reason that teachers would shout to no effect if Christ himself, inner Schoolmaster, did not by his Spirit draw to himself those given to him by the Father [cf. John 6.44; 12.32; 17.6]. We have said that perfect salvation is found in the person of Christ. Accordingly, that we may become partakers of it “he baptises us in the Holy Spirit and fire” [Luke 3.16], bringing us into the light of faith in his gospel and so regenerating us that we become new creatures [cf. 2 Cor. 5.17]; and he consecrates us, purged of worldly uncleanness, as temps holy to God [cf. 1 Cor 3.16-17; 6.19; 2 Cor. 6.16; Eph. 2.21]”
Institutes of Christian Religion 3.1.4
“No one can come to me”, he says “unless the Father who sent me draws him.” [John 6.44] “Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes.” [John 6.45] Not that anyone has ever seen the Father but him who was sent by God [John 1.18 and 5.37]. Therefore, as we cannot come to Christ unless we be drawn by the Spirit of God, so when we are drawn we are lifted up in mind and heart above our understanding. For the soul, illumined by him, takes on a new keenness, as it were, to contemplate the heavenly mysteries, whose splendour had previously blinded it. And man’s understanding, thus beamed by the light of the Holy Spirit, then at last truly begins to taste those things which belong to the Kingdom of God, having formerly been quite foolish and dull in tasting them … Indeed the Word of God is like the sun, shining upon all those to whom it is proclaimed, but with no effect among the blind. Now, all of us are blind by nature in this respect. Accordingly, it cannot penetrate into our minds unless the Spirit, as the inner teacher, through his illumination makes entry for it.
Institutes 3.2.34
I would suggest you get a copy of either Hybrid Church or Spent Matches both authored by Roy Moran.
I have just heard for the first time a teaching on dmm. I am interested in knowing how an already established church can make a reset to make right the dmm cycle