Catalyzing Movements of God: Houston, Ethiopia and…

By Pastor Don Waybright, Missions Pastor of Sugar Creek Baptist Church and Keystone Project Board Member

Look at the nations and watch—  and be utterly amazed.  For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told (Habakkuk 1:5).

What is a movement of God?  A unique, historical moment when Jesus rapidly expands His kingdom.  A season of time when God is using His church to rapidly multiply disciples and churches. Such moments in history can only be attributed to God’s sovereign power.  Our church is participating in such a time as this!

I just returned from Ethiopia with Dave Grumme where our intent was to verify and document such a movement. In 2004, Sugar Creek partner – Keystone Project, began training over 19 different denominations in missional disciple making principles.  Many if not all of these leaders began to implement change in their lives and ministries to focus on the Great Commission and the intentional  making of disciples.  The results are astounding!  In a recent census there has been over 12 million new converts to Christianity, and over 6.25 million Muslim converts.  The Ethiopian government was forced by the Muslims to research and account for what was taking place.  The government concluded that the training of the Keystone missional disciple making principles, since 2004, are the primary reason for this incredible expansion of Christianity in the country.

In our short 2-week stay it was impossible for us to verify millions of disciples.  Yet, through many interviews with leaders in various parts of the country we could verify 100’s of thousands of new disciples and ten’s of thousands of new churches, most within the past couple of years.

But God had more in store for us than just verify what He is already doing…we were sent to catalyze this movement to reach the unengaged unreached people groups.  During our interviews we recognized a few men that had apostolic gifting and were already penetrating the unengaged, unreached people groups within Ethiopia and surrounding borders with a disciple making movement.  Each of these men had similar qualities; they were branded with the scars of torture, persecution, and suffering for the sake of the Gospel;  they were bold in their faith and love of Jesus Christ, yet humble in their attitude; and each were being used by God in amazing ways leading thousands to Jesus, and Jesus demonstrated signs and wonders through their ministry.  A couple of these men were former Muslims who came to radical faith in Christ after having dreams and visions of Jesus and His blood being poured out for their behalf.

During two separate conferences where we trained hundreds of leaders on the missional disciple making principles, we concluded with a call to sacrifice their lives to join one of these men to make disciples among the unengaged unreached people groups  We identified 5 different unengaged groups that these men were working among.  These are all Muslim groups that are extremely resistant to the Gospel, and the cost for anyone that dares to proclaim the Gospel among  these peoples is suffering, torture, and possibly loss of life.   To our amazement almost 200 people committed to sacrifice everything in order to join with God and these men to reach the least reached people with the Gospel.  We commissioned these apostolic leaders, and they then prayed over the disciples that were joining them. Each of these leaders will be coaching their disciples over the next six months to intentionally make disciples among these 5 unengaged unreached people groups.   I was truly humbled by this moment and the passionate faith I witnessed.

God orchestrated a convergence of several  Sugar Creek partners to join us in this historic moment.  Not only were we with Keystone Project, but Faith Comes By Hearing who are experts on the development of audio bibles, Innovative Missions – expert brokers of resources between churches and missionaries, and Rick Leatherwood – expert on the development of Oral Bibles in heart languages – all these partners joined us.  Rick Leatherwood received confirmation from the Lord and will be moving to the region in four months to begin the development of oral bibles among the unengaged unreached peoples.  Faith Comes By Hearing had been wanting to penetrate two of these groups for years ( The Berta people on the Sudanese border, and the Yuba Somali along the Somalia border).  Now they have the connections to distribute the audio word of God among these people.   The Holy Spirit truly brought this team together for this special kairos moment.

God is using Sugar Creek to catalyze such movements around the world.  We are also part of a movement among the Karen people of Northern Thailand that is realizing a dramatic impact on the culture.    Our compassion ministry to sponsor kids, called Karen Tribal Hope, evolved from this movement.

But God is doing something very special during these days close to home.  Student leaders in our LYF Student ministry have formed campus clubs  for seven high schools in our region.  These clubs, hosted in homes, are designed to build integrity friendships and to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples among the students on their respective campus.  During the past school year we have seen over 700 kids attend these clubs, with an average of 240 kids each week.  There have been 56 salvations and hundreds of stories of changed lives.  The momentum was strong this last semester with an average of over 320 each week attending with a peak of 407 students attending the last week.  The amazing thing is less than 1/3 of these kids are Sugar Creek kids, but Sugar Creek kids are the missional leaders making it happen.

Another movement that is emerging is the Keystone-Houston team of 40+ people that have moved into the apartments in the Sharpstown area among the multi-ethnic peoples and many thousands of refugees to live life with intentionality to make disciples that make disciples.  Sugar Creek is vision partner with this team, coming alongside and  helping them as needed.

Each of these movements have  similar characteristics among the leaders and participants:  The entirety of their lives proclaim the Gospel; they understand and can communicate with simplicity the DNA of the vision and mission; extraordinary prayer flows from within the movement itself; as disciples are made, Kingdom ministry or compassion ministry – meeting the needs of the community- is a natural byproduct; and there is a dependence on the Holy Spirit and not external resources of people or churches.