About a year and a half ago, I was invited to a meeting of local Kingdom workers from all around our country representing 15 organizations. As we went around the table sharing a little bit about ourselves and our ministry plans for the year, it became clear to me that I wasn’t the only one frustrated with the lack not just of fruit but of momentum. Person after person shared the same thing, “It is a major struggle to find spiritually-seeking people.” That was followed up with a short explanation of their strategies. Out of the whole group, only one shared something new that he was trying, and he admitted that it was only out of sheer frustration and a total implosion of his previous strategy, that he had even stepped out into something new.
As I processed through some of the thoughts from that meeting, I was even more convinced that something was missing. Nobody said it would be easy, but where was the joy in suffering?
I know that most of us would gladly suffer if it were bearing fruit. But suffering for no fruit or very little?
We had tried all sorts of different things, and we had found some people that were interested in the gospel message, but the time, effort and cost (to my supporters, my team, my family and myself) to find those few was great. And I don’t want to minimize those few. They are the lost sheep brought home, but I couldn’t help but look out the window and watch as hundreds and thousands of sheep walked by, wondering if they even knew that they were lost.
Our team had previously tried two different times over the past five years to use media as a filter to find spiritually-seeking people. Each time we were overwhelmed with the response, and as a result, things fell through the cracks and it eventually fell apart. We suffered with lack of focused vision and structure. But what needed to change?
There wasn’t really a model for us to use to even know where to start. Enter Kingdom.Training.
Suddenly, the parts that were missing became clear, and we prayed hard and worked hard only to see God pull all the various parts and people together. For sure in the beginning, it all seemed a bit overwhelming, but taking the steps as laid out, one at a time, made the whole seem so much more obtainable. One of the most encouraging parts of building this strategy was seeing supporters and other like-minded people realize the value in this approach and get excited along with us about pouring in their valuable time and resources. As we gathered resources and built our platform, we could point these new potential partners to Kingdom.Training. It helped build their confidence that M2DMM is not a fad but solid. It has and will produce good fruit for this new generation.
By May, we were ready to soft launch our media strategy to see what was working and what still needed work. We created 30 days of content (videos, pictures, scripture, etc.) and for the month of Ramadan, we targeted our capitol city with a population of 250,000 looking for people who had experienced dreams and visions.
Here is what we are excited about: In almost ten years on the field, our team has found and discipled into the kingdom 8 new believers. Country-wide, we know of maybe 8 more that have come in the same amount of time from other teams.
In less than three weeks after launching our media strategy, we engaged in deep spiritual conversation with 27 different individuals online, sent out 10 requested Bibles and met 3 people face-to-face.
We celebrate 10 years and 16 more lives in eternity, and we celebrate 3 weeks and the potential for 40 more. We are thanking God for the opportunity given to us to accelerate finding these people.
It’s no longer knocking on one door at a time asking for spiritual seekers. We now have a megaphone that has the potential to reach into the most hidden areas of our country, calling for those seeking to come and find. This early fruit has turned the heads of other workers around us to consider joining in this new paradigm and has opened up unity amongst us in unprecedented ways. We pray, that this is truly the beginning.
– Submitted by a M2DMMer in Eastern Europe
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Phenomenal post! Love that quote related to learning from history or you will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Everything evolves over time. Glad Kingdom.Training is helping equip teams with new skills for bearing fruit!
Our church has a Go Group, committed to going to the lost in our area. We have all studied DMM books and videos, and have been to a David Watson seminar. We are all dropping crumbs of truth wherever we are, and are having interesting conversations, and meeting needy, needy people. But after two years we have not had a single person we could remotely call a person of peace. After watching the first video, our prayer levels need to rise to reach the extraordinary level required. I have been thinking about Facebook for a while, but I’m excited to discover this training and hope it will enable me to be more on target with my media.
It’s going to be helpful to have a basic roadmap of training.