Making new believers your evangelists and church planters

More quotes from Organic Church by Neil Cole …

I think we are guilty of protecting new believers from depending on God. It we were to follow Christ’s example and deploy new believers immediately in ministry, we would see how quickly they are forced to pray, trust in God, listen to the Holy Spirit, and find answers. This would solidify their commitment on a much deeper level. They would have an unbreakable bond to the Head of the body: Jesus Christ. They also would learn to suffer for Christ’s sake, which is part of the important pattern that Jesus and Paul set for us (Phil. 1:27-29 … We also want the person who did the evangelizing to do the baptizing. A saying we often repeat is, ‘The Bible doesn’t really command us to be baptized, but to be baptizers!’ (132)

For most of us, the rest of our lives are spent learning what it is we already have been given the moment we began the salvation process. How much more quickly we can set new believers on this journey if we also assume they have received all they need to live godly life in Christ Jesus (2 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 1:3).
The Holy Spirit is a better teacher than we are. The Spirit of God is a better strengthener (or comforter) than we are. The Holy Spirit is a better evangelist and trainer in evangelism than we are. Best of all, the Holy Spirit is a constant presence, which we cannot be.
When we allow, or even demand, that new converts wait and receive instruction and training before they can become workers, we are effectively granting them permission to be passive, inactive, selfish, and stagnant. This is exactly where many of our churches are. We have taught people to be consumers rather than workers. We have separated the workers from the harvest. (150)

One of the driving convictions of our movement is summarised in the statement that a church is only as good as her disciples. Healthy disciples make up a healthy church. Reproducing disciples makes a reproducing church. (96)

If we cannot multiply churches, we will never see a movement. If we cannot multiply leaders we will never multiply churches If we cannot multiply disciples, we will never multiply leaders The way to see a true church multiplication movement is to multiply healthy disciples, then leaders, then churches, arid finally movements – in that order.
As passionate as I am about church planting, I found it per­plexing that the Bible never instructs us to start churches There is not a single command in all of the Bible to initiate churches. The reason is quite clear: we are not to start churches, but instead to make disciples who make disciples. That is actually the way churches are started, at least in the New Testament. Jesus gave us instruction that is on the molecular level of Kingdom life, for a very good rea­son: it works. Trying to multiply large, highly complex organisms without multiplying on the micro level is impossible. (98)