CO2 and making disciples (4)

The fourth reason that a CO2 is an excellent tool for making disciples is that it is so simple. In this way, it's like baseball.

Baseball is both simple and profound. It is simple enough that five year olds can enjoy playing T-ball on their first day. Yet, it is so profound that grown men (and women) can devote their entire lives to mastering its subtleties.

A CO2 is very simple and easy to explain.

CO2 = 2 people + SASHET + VIRKLER + DAILY.

You don't need a workbook or a conference or a twelve week course to get started. Just start. In ten minutes, a person can understand it well enough to begin to practice it successfully. On the other hand, a CO2 can be the starting point for deep and profound transformation.

And, as Neil Cole has said, only that which is simple can multiply rapidly. Think of CO2 as a benevolent Kingdom virus that could spread throughout your whole city.

Who will you "infect" today?

John

CO2 and making disciples (3)

I can still remember my 11th grade Sunday School teacher, Paul Kokulis. It was 45 years ago and I was an awkward, shy teenager. But, Paul (we called him "the golden Greek") treated me as though I was important. I don't remember any of our Sunday School lessons but I sure remember the godly, caring life that he modeled.

This is one of the most powerful ways that God shapes us as disciples - through those godly men and women that he puts in our lives to show us what it looks like to walk with God. Those examples. Those models.

A "church of two" creates an ideal environment where this kind of modeling can naturally take place.

• When I share my SASHET with my partner, he gets to see me when I am happy-excited- tender but also when I am sad-angry-scared. He gets to see a Christian who doesn't have it all together and who is on the journey.
• When my partner shares his SASHET with me, I get to rejoice with him when he is rejoicing and weep with him when he is weeping. We learn to be honest and transparent together before the Lord.
• When I share what I've heard from the Lord (VIRKLER) and what I'm writing in my journal with my partner, he gets to hear what God sounds like to me. I ask him to help me weigh what I'm hearing and to be gently curious about what I've written.
• When my partner shares what he is hearing from the Lord (VIRKLER), I get to join him at the growing edges of his life, the places where God is speaking to him.

So, CO2s are a powerful context for making disciples because they are daily and because they focus on knowing God (not just knowing about Him). They are also powerful because they create an environment where disciples get to see a first hand model of what it means to walk with Jesus in an honest, transparent way.

Paul (not Kokulis): "Whatever you have... seen in me - put it into practice." Phil. 4:9

John

PS. I Googled Paul Kokulis and the picture above is a contemporary one that I found (he had darker hair back in the day!). I haven't talked to him in years but maybe I'll send him a link to this post.

CO2 and making disciples (2)

Over the years, I've been in (and led) dozens of classes on disciplemaking. Almost all were designed to teach people to know about God.

• Here's your Discipleship Notebook...
• Read these passages of Scripture
• Memorize these verses
• Fill in the blanks
• Complete these assignments
• Pray this prayer

A "church of two" is different.

It's designed to teach people to know God. To have an intimate, conversational relationship with Him. It's very simple really. Day in and day out it goes like this... "Here's what the Lord is saying to me today. What's He saying to you?" Disciples of Jesus learn to listen by listening (and obeying) ... day after day. Everything else flows from that... study... worship... family... mission... everything.

As disciples, this (listening) is what we do. And, when we disciple someone else, this is what we teach them to do.

Jesus: "My sheep are continually listening (present tense) to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." -John 10:27

What have you learned about listening to His voice in your CO2?

John

CO2s and disciple making (1)

Roger Bullard is involved with planting churches and making disciples in eastern Europe. We were recently emailing about CO2s and I shared with him why a "church of two" is the best context I've ever found for making disciples.

Here's the first reason... a CO2 is daily (or as close to daily as possible).

This may seem insignificant but it's actually extremely important and generally overlooked today. Most approaches to making disciples focus on meeting together weekly. However, there is a depth that develops when you walk together on a daily basis. You get below the surface to the deep places where God wants to work in our lives.

Here's what we learn from Scripture about the daily nature of making disciples...

1. It's the way Jesus did it. Jesus was with his disciples every day for three years. If we are going to do it the way the Master did it, we have to think "daily".

2. It's the way the early church did it. "Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts and they broke bread in their homes..." Acts 2:46.

3. It's what we are commanded to do. "Encourage one another daily..." Heb. 3:13.

What have you discovered about the value of connecting daily?

John

CO2: Ten Pairs

Noah Cremisino leads a house church of mostly young adults in Denver, CO. Here's how he introduced CO2s to his church. Notice how they used listening to find out who to pair with.

"This week, as a house church, I challenged everyone to "CO2" with someone for 2 weeks. We spent time in silence praying and asking God who we should pair with and each person got someone (not a single overlap either - amazing!!) that they are going to pray and share with daily. So far it looks like we have around 10 pairs.

After the two weeks we're going to talk about how it went and hopefully make it part of our daily experience in life.Pray for us as we go - that we'd really find deep fusion in the small clusters - that they would be transformational on the deepest level.

Also - as I was explaining it, we got into a discussion about the principle of pairs. Almost everything in the universe is built on pairs from sub-atomic structure to galactic bodies... if you dig into it you'll always find that a pair of something is essential for it's stability. You disassemble the pairs (split an atom for example) and often the entire unit destructs. Chromosomes - the body deconstructs. Protons/Neutrons - the atom becomes unstable. Male/Female - no procreation / families deconstruct. Etc. etc. -- Just some thoughts...

Anyway - I'll let you know how it all goes."

Thanks, Noah! Looking forward to hearing about the "experiment".

John

Digging Deeper into SASHET - Part 3

SASHET is not just sharing about our emotions.

It's also about listening well to others as they share. It's about creating a safe place where people can talk about what they are really feeling.

This means we have to learn not to give advice during SASHET. Tod Brown explains more about this in a short video. Scroll down to "Digging Deeper into SASHET - Part 3. http://www.lk10resources.com/practice-2.html

What have you learned about doing SASHET well?

John

BTW - I had a great picture for this but the upload wasn't working!

CO2: The Heart of Organic

I love the growing number of stories about people in our CO2 Community sharing with others what God is doing. Here's one from Sherry Reinbold in Michigan...

"Lori (Sherry's CO2 partner) and I’ve shared what we’ve been doing and what God’s teaching us to our Organic Greenhouse – a once a month meeting of organic church leaders in our area, and they want to hear more and would like us to teach them more about this at our next meeting in November.

This is what we were told by the guy who facilitates the meeting : “Was thinking about inserting the stuff from LK 10 because I see it as so foundational and practical. It is the heart of organic.” He hadn’t heard of LK10 before or about this experiment and was very excited. He has been a church planter (organic style) for over 15 years and particularly in the Ukraine."

Sherry and Lori - looking forward to hearing how your teaching goes at the meeting in November!

Everyone else - tell us about the opportunities God is giving you to share. Also, for those who decide to try out CO2, encourage them to sign up on our website. (Or, you can sign them up with their permission.) That allows them to receive these posts and to contribute to the CO2 Community.

http://storiesfromtherevolution.blogspot.com/ All you have to do is enter the email address in the box in the right hand column.

John

CO2: Miss me?

Turns out that our free Feedblitz account ended after a month (which I didn't realize). Feedblitz are (is?) the folks that send my posts out to you as an email.

As a result, some of our most recent posts have shown up on the blog site but may not have been sent out to each of you. My apologies! (I'm still learning about this blogging business.)

I've upgraded our Feedblitz account and future posts should show up in your email box.

Go to our blog site to check out my most recent post which is a very exciting story about the CO2 "virus" spreading to South Asia.

http://storiesfromtherevolution.blogspot.com/

I'm more convinced than ever that Jesus' principle of pairs (CO2s) has the potential to literally change the culture of today's church around the world. Of course, pairs are only the context or container. The power comes from learning to hear God's voice and learning to live from the hearts Jesus gave us.

Your stories of what God is doing are key to all of this. Keep'em coming!

John

CO2 "virus" spreads to South Asia

We continue to see the amazing capacity of CO2s to spread in a viral manner. Recently, a Campus Crusade Regional Director from South Asia (name and location withheld for security) spent a week here in Denver with one of my CO2 partners, Hugh Brandt.

Here's Hugh's report...

"We introduced our friend to many Christians here in Denver and visited several house churches where he was impressed with the level of honesty and depth. We also introduced him to the "church of two" concept. He said that this was perfect timing because he had recently realized that the once-a-week meetings with the students they were disciplining was not adequate. He saw immediately that daily CO2s were the answer for effective disciplemaking. As a result, he decided that he would teach this to his staff so that they could then teach it to the students. As a first step, he and I have begun doing a CO2 via Skype. God is at work - between Denver and South Asia!"

Hugh's story highlights one of the important lessons we've learned so far. That is, that actually doing a CO2 with someone (even for just a week) is more effective than just giving them the CO2 Flyer to read. Hugh - we're looking forward to hearing what you are learning as you do a CO2 via Skype with someone on the other side of the world!

Your comments?

John

Why Share our Emotions?

Connecting with our emotions, and with our heart, is a skill that allows us to connect with others.   As we learn to connect with our own hearts and the hearts of others, we are also - at the same time - developing our ability to connect with God.  Another way of saying this is that as we work on the skill of tuning into the "frequency" of our emotions, we are also fine tuning our ability to connect with the ongoing frequency of God which is always on and always available if we will plug into our receiver.

In this new video, John White and Kent Smith address the question, "Why Share our Emotions?"  You can check it out by going to the LK10 Resources website and scrolling to the bottom of the page. 

What do you think about the importance of connecting to your own heart and emotions?  What have you learned as you have practiced this discipline of paying attention to the emotions that show up in your heart and in the heart of your C02 partner?  Share your thoughts in the Comments, below.

Digging Deeper into SASHET - Part 2

Tod Brown shares more about the power of using the tool - SASHET - to connect with our own heart and with others.

Here's a quote from the brief video:  "When we're listening deeply to each other - because Jesus is present - He is communicating something to us, He is authoring something, He is doing something...and we're able to listen and pay attention and recognize that Jesus is doing something."

Check out this new video at the LK10 Resources Website, then scroll to the bottom of the page.

What are your thoughts about SASHET as a tool?  Share them below in the Comments.