Brother X – Transforming a Large Church Planting Network
Top leaders in East Asia are leading true revival in their churches.
Our East Asian team leader recently shared this testimony from a top leader in the East Asian church.
Brother X is a member of the top leadership team of a large regional church movement in East Asia. He joined our four-month training program at the risk of losing all of his ministry positions at home. Growing up in an extremely dysfunctional family, the violence and abuse at home affected Brother X in a profound way as a child and adult. His relational life on every front has been one of great pain – with his parents, wife, children, church co-workers, and especially with authorities above him. Driven by legalism and a deep need to prove himself, he was very harsh on himself and others. Extremely lonely and deeply tired, he was quite burned out when he came. Yet this experience has been a journey of deep life transformation, rekindling of passion, renewal of calling, strengthening of leadership capacity and great hope for the future, both for his own life and the life of the church movement!
Many times during our daily devotional time, Brother X encountered God in major ways! One time the Presence of God was so intense, so real and tangible to him, he sweated all over and his clothes were all wet as if dipped in water. He couldn’t utter a single word except for pouring out tears before God! He was so lost in His Presence that he didn’t hear any of us singing or praying for a whole hour. God spoke to him very personally and brought very deep healing in his life. As he shared with the cohort what he experienced, the Presence of God filled our whole room!
The secure relational environment we have created, the honesty and transparency of other brothers and sisters, the gracious attitude for each other among us, the unconditional love and acceptance in our midst, the sincere appreciation and affirmation of each other, have melted and healed Brother X’s wounded heart beyond our imagination! He began to minister all of this to his wife and children at home, his co-workers and leaders, and started a wave of relational healing at home.
With a sensitive and tender heart, Brother X felt deeply convicted by the Holy Spirit during the teaching about healthy leadership. With a bitter cry, he confessed to the cohort that he and the leadership team at his home church movement have been serving God purely out of position, not out of faith, love, passion and vision. In repentant tears he invited all of us to pray for him and his team, that God would restore them to simplicity, faith and love. We did. And that moment God did a deep work in each of our hearts, to always keep Him as the center – nothing else!
That day, God also spoke to Brother X that He is going to use him to usher in a new revival to his local church, his church movement and to the whole region. We all kept that word in our hearts and have been watching what will happen. Over and over again God confirmed this word to Brother X before our eyes.
THE TOP LEADER TRANSFORMED
At the very end of the program, we held a three-day national consultation. X’s top leader, Uncle C, came. Every day of the three days, this leader repeatedly exclaimed that X had changed, that their church movement needs to change, that they need X to start the work of building healthy leaders immediately, that he and others would wholeheartedly support X’s work! Most of all, he said with tears, “God is truly here! I have met HIM!”
Little did we know then how profoundly he was impacted by this time and what cost he was willing to pay for the vision of healthy church through healthy leaders to become true in his church movement.
CORE TOP LEADERSHIP TEAM TRANSFORMED
Without wasting one single day, X’s top leader Uncle C and X began to carry out their strategy for action. At great security risk, they put together a three-day spiritual retreat for their top leadership team, as preparation to kick off the leader development work – the vision God had put in both their hearts. The goal for this retreat was for personal restoration, healing and restoration of relationships among the team, and casting vision for healthy church through healthy leaders.
Our staff F assisted X in designing and leading it. Forty strategic core leaders in all of their different regions within their church movement attended. God moved in such a deep and beautiful way that every single one of the leaders, from the oldest and most respected ones to the least, voluntarily repented with tears in public, confessing their sins and forsaking of first love of God, their offenses toward fellow co-workers, taking responsibility for conflicts and difficult relationships. Everybody felt as if the veil that had been on their eyes was removed. They began to see each other with new eyes, recognizing that all along the problem had been with themselves, not with others. And then together they embraced the vision of healthy church with such unity, joy and excitement!
It was such a deep and beautiful time – a historical moment for them as a church movement! Uncle C, the top leader, was weeping throughout the three days, seeing all of this happening. Not until afterwards did we learn that for several months, every single one of their special gatherings had been busted by the police. Sometimes even their normal Sunday meeting had been busted. With all the top leaders gathered together for three days, it would have been really risky – they could all have been arrested. Still, Uncle C was determined to do it. He said, “As long as we can do this, I am willing to be sent to prison!” Wow! Such conviction, such boldness!!
BROADER LEADERSHIP TEAM TRANSFORMED
After this retreat time, with all the top leaders of all the regions beautifully aligned to, and on fire for, the vision of healthy church through healthy leaders, Brother X was invited to each of their nine big regional church networks to do a shorter version of the spiritual retreat they had just done with the top leaders – personal spiritual life restoration, restoration of relationships among co-workers, and casting vision for healthy church through healthy leaders. In his text message to our staff, he said,
“I am overwhelmed by God! I am experiencing intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit every day like never before! Every day at 4 a.m. God woke me to pray, and gave me revelations and designs for the training I would do that day! God was amazingly present everywhere I went. People just responded in tears and repentance, in reconciliation with each other, and in full agreement with the vision of becoming a healthy church body through building healthy leaders.”
CORE STRATEGY OF BUILDING LEADERS
In the process of the above work among leaders of all levels, God has beautifully made preparation for the core strategy of building the next-generation leaders.
All the nine church regions are fully supportive of this leader development work now, and are eager to send their best young leaders to the new training program Brother X planned to start – those who are the potential successors to the existing top leader.
In January, Brother X started his one-year ConneXions Intensive training program for high capacity young leaders. The whole top leadership team, intercessors, pastoral mentors and host families were present at the opening ceremony. The Holy Spirit moved in a powerful way – lots of tears, laughter, prayers, hopes, anticipations and excitement for the future. It was such a strategically significant event for the church movement. It was so powerful that many young leaders signed up for the next year’s training program!
After the very first week’s training, Brother X sent us life transformation stories from participants in his program. A young man who had suffered years of severe depression experienced deliverance in the program. He was liberated so much that he was willing to write down and share his dark secrets and transformation with young people across the whole church movement. Many young people were impacted by his story.
The waiting list to join their next year’s program is growing very long now!
REVIVAL AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE
One of the great breakthroughs and major learnings for Brother X himself was the ability to design each training and ministry using the ConneXions Model.
As a strategy to impact the large group of young people in his church movement, he took his cohort to different church regions on the weekend to share their life transformation stories. Everywhere they went, young people were inspired and revitalized. Many came back to the Lord; many rejoined the church.
In two of the church regions, they had lost so many young people previously that they had completely stopped the youth ministry. Through the impact of Brother X’s cohort, many young people returned and they restarted the youth ministry. Brother X sent the young leaders in his program to support them. His plan is that they will provide direct support only for two months, while in the process building the local leaders and equipping them on how to design. After that, support will be through coaching and mentoring from a distance.
REVIVAL AMONG THE CHURCH PEOPLE
Early this morning (April 4, 2019), with great joy, Brother X shared with me some messages between him and some people in his church movement. I was once again amazed at the fulfillment of God’s promise of revival and so honored to witness it happening day by day!
Out of the blue, Brother X received a text message from someone he didn’t even know, exclaiming that she had been touched by God and revitalized by the teaching of God, and she was thanking Brother X for it!
Brother X asked her what had happened. It turned out that one of Brother X’s participants conducted a training for small group leaders in a local church. He designed the training using the 4Ds. The teaching was on “healthy and unhealthy thinking,” what he had learned in the program that week. He shared his personal story in relating to the teaching, gave the participants practical ways to obey the teaching, and practiced affirmation among the participants. On the spot, a married couple was willing to confess their trouble caused by unhealthy thinking and their willingness to make a change. Then a small group leader who had been backslidden for many years, through tears confessed her weakness and willingness to change and be a blessing again. She was the one who sent Brother X the text message.
In her message to Brother X, she said,
“Teacher X, I experienced tremendous revelation and transformation recently. It is so amazing! I can’t stop praising God now. Thank you for sending your participants to train us! If even as a housewife who has been cold for so many years, I can be enlightened and revived by God, I believe many more people can be revived. Our God is so great and amazing! He is sending His revival to us indeed. I am so grateful that He revived ME! A voice has been strongly urging me to rise up again and serve the Lord with all my heart. I can’t stop praising God all day long!”
Brother X said he didn’t even know his participant had done this. But transformation is happening all around him and is happening every day! He said God is doing new things every day! What an amazing work of God!
RESTORATION AND REVIVAL AMONG THE GENERATIONS
Brother X came to our three-day healthy church training last week. He has totally changed into another person. So full of joy, confidence and passion!
As soon as we met, with deep joy and excitement he began to share with me a learning experience he designed and led his cohort through.
He led the cohort out of the classroom and trained them on the road for five days. He designed a route with five historical churches with special stories within their movement along the way. The route is around 200 kilometers. They all got on bicycles and cycled for five days, in good weather and on cold, stormy days.
The purpose was to experience what their spiritual fathers did in the early years. That’s how they traveled – on foot, or on bicycle. On good days and also on bad days.
Along the way, they visited those five churches. They were received by the leaders and senior people in the church, and listened to their stories of faith and suffering, their prayers and hopes for the church, and received their prayers and blessings. Then they moved on to the next church.
As they did this, every church they visited, the older people and the leaders were blessed so much. They were so moved by the godly life of the young people and so encouraged to see the hope of the future, they wanted to give everything they had to bless the next generation. The young people were so blessed and overwhelmed by the deep stories of their forefathers, overwhelmed by their spiritual inheritance, loved and blessed by rich prayers. Such deep connection was made between multiple generations! It brought great joy and great hope into everyone’s heart!
Seeing all this incredible fruit and impact within a few months, the top leadership team has made building healthy leaders the top priority and most cherished ministry for Brother X’s entire church movement. Uncle C, the top leader, said to Brother X, “Be very bold in what you do. Don’t be afraid of anything. If anything goes wrong, the blame is mine. If it goes well, the credit is yours. I am fully behind you!”
God is fulfilling His promise to Brother X: true revival is breaking out in every direction! First it was X’s life in the program. Every time X shared what God was doing in his life, it always brought huge inspiration and encouragement to the whole cohort; then, after he returned to his home church, it began to happen in his family, his team, his own local church, then the whole top leadership team, then the larger regional church, then multiple generations. We fully believe, just as God said to him, it will bring revival to the whole region, province and East Asia!
