Church Planting (I)

Pr Michael Koh
16-08-2019

Church planting:

1) The most responsible way of carrying out the Great Commission

2) The most responsible way of raising disciples

3) The partnership and life within the church planting

4) The life of somebody who is involved in doing a new thing

Churches are the only way of discipling people. Christ put the Godness in us. The God that is in us is active. He wants to move in new ways.

The church is the centre of God's work. God calls us to be a family in relation to one another.

For some people, discipleship just means being taught.

Proverbs 22:6 New King James Version (NKJV)
6 Train up a child in the way he should go,
[a]And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Discipleship has to do with training as well. The Word of God is broken down and imparted by someone who has experienced it in him or her. You can't only be discipled by the YouTube video or by the pulpit. The spiritual life is not only imparted but it is also formed.

There are great preachers but when you look at the people, there is full of sin.

There are very few spiritual parents now. We have servant-leaders but the discipleship of people and the quality and DNA of the spiritual life are not dynamic. These things can only happen in small batches.

We need spiritual children who bear spiritual fruit.

Church planting is the most responsible way of discipling people. It is more than just teaching. It is also the practice of it in which we are doing ministry together and raising them up to do it well.

As the church gets bigger, the level of anointing and performance raises and outdistances many people.

But we all can preach to a few people.

As a church grows, we all specialise in different things. We get good at skilled things and the more important spiritual work is lost. Spiritual parenting is just being a Christian.

God has called us to be a part of the new move of God wherever we are.

I began church planting in a very poor situation. Most of us went out without a salary. In Kuantan, I had no money for food. I did not dare to tell my parents. Thank God my mother sent me Maggie mee. It was so hard going as a church planter. I was trying to survive. It took me one whole year to get 50 people. I began soon after college. We started with a small group people. There were only 12 of us. We had negative growth from 12 down to 2. It was so depressing. It took me two days to recover after every Sunday's preaching.

One girl said to me, "We just pray. And listen to what God is saying and we just do it." So we prayed. And we heard God telling us to go to pasar malam. Prayer changes the heart of a person and that person becomes more powerful than what he was before because he was desperate.

But nobody came after we went to the pasar malam.

An Indian man came. I asked, "Is your name Tony?" He said he was Anthony.

I started ministering to him and God healed him. Something had broken in the spiritual atmosphere and people started coming. Never despise small beginnings.

Then one time in Port Dickson, we went to the army flats and we ministered to a Buddhist family. The non-English speaking  mother came. We prayed for her and she broke out in tongues in English. She spoke in an English accent. Every time I drove there, I'd feel very sleepy. There was a lot of spiritual warfare. Every night I would have bad and weird dreams. I would be pressed by some kind of oppressive force and I could not move. We prayed and prayed and we broke through and saw many miracles.

After that I was involved in a church in Kuantan, Kota Bharu and Kuala Terengganu. Then in Setapak, Penang, Melaka and eventually LA.

Acts 16 New King James Version (NKJV)
Timothy Joins Paul and Silas
16 Then he came to Derbe and Lystra. And behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek. 2 He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. 3 Paul wanted to have him go on with him. And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was Greek. 4 And as they went through the cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep, which were determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and increased in number daily.

The Macedonian Call
6 Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in [a]Asia. 7 After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the [b]Spirit did not permit them. 8 So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. 9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Lydia Baptized at Philippi
11 Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis, 12 and from there to Philippi, which is the [c]foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days. 13 And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. 14 Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. 15 And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us.

In planting a church, we begin where people are hungry for God.

God can sharpen our senses to be in tune with the Holy Spirit.

Paul had a sense of people's openness to God.

As we move, the Lord is causing senses in our hearts to be in tune to that flutter that is there.

Paul found Lydia. Find that person of peace.

Acts 16 New King James Version (NKJV)
Paul and Silas Imprisoned
16 Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” 18 And this she did for many days.

But Paul, greatly [d]annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour. 19 But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities.

20 And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; 21 and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.” 22 Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. 23 And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. 24 Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

The sensitivity to the Holy Spirit is the key thing.

There is a war of kingdoms that is taking place. Church planting has to do with entering into the territory of the enemy. To experience a move of God, there is a demonic network that causes magistrates to resist. As we are praying, those powers that are hidden will begin to be exposed. The devil will want to get us out of the territory. There will be some kind of persecution. If you experience opposition, don't worry. God uses it to purify us.

Part of discipleship is developing a feel of the rise of the Holy Spirit. Discipleship is the impartation of shape and substance and through practice, we get into the groove of the Holy Spirit's ways. So much of the discipleship process is having the disciple moving into the flow of the Holy Spirit.

Church planting is when the whole church learns how to do that and move in the Holy Spirit.

In a church, every single one of us could realistically believe that we could be led by the Spirit.

It all starts with the Holy Spirit forming us.

When that happens, healing and salvation will begin to break out.

Once I was asked to rush to the hospital to pray for a lady but she died. I went ahead to pray for her and she rose from the dead. Thereafter she went out and about and shared about what God had done and many came to the Lord. 

Any move of God is preceeded by a certain spiritual battle.

Paul and Silas had literally no space to move. In prison, they began to enter into the infinite presence of God. In the spirit realm, there is plenty of space. There was a breaking in the spiritual realm. God was somehow protecting them. The prisoners saw them as they were going through the adversity. The Lord allows them to see and somehow that became a testimony.

God is doing serious stuff with us. God is in the business of transforming us and He calls us to make disciples. We are on the verge of tremendous things happening and we ask that God unlocks it for us. In Jesus' name. Amen.

RELATED:
Church Planting (II)

Church Planting (III)