Churchplanting Movements
                                                                                        -David Garrison

Reference: Garrison, D. (2004). What does the Bible Say? Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World. Midlothian, VA, WIGTake Resources: 199-219.

IT'S GREAT TO know that so many people are coming to Christ and that new churches are springing up around the world. That reason alone may be enough for us to embrace Church Planting Movements. But as a people of the Book we are committed to filtering our understanding of the world through the lens of God's word.

As we do this, we follow the tradition of the first century Christians such as those in Berea who searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so.¹⁴⁵ So what does God's word say about Church Planting Movements? Let's the Berean dialogue begin!

You can search your exhaustive concordance exhaustively and you won't find a single entry for "Church Planting Movements." At the same time, the first century world was swirling with new converts and multiplying indigenous churches planting churches-in short, Church Planting Movements.

The origins of Church Planting Movements can be traced to the life and teachings of Jesus himself. The same Christ who mentored a small group of followers, moved from place to place across the Palestinian countryside, modeled prayer and fidelity to Scripture, worshiped in homes and hillsides, performed signs and wonders, and commissioned his disciples as the first missionaries, is the Christ of Church Planting Movements.

St. Luke, traveling companion of the apostle Paul and author of the largest portion of our New Testament, clearly linked Jesus' earthly ministry with the Church Planting Movements that followed.

In his second volume, the Book of Acts, Luke writes to Theophilus "In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach"¹⁴⁶ The implication is unavoidable, if volume one, the Gospel of Luke, covers all that Jesus began to do and teach then its sequel, the Book of Acts, will describe what Jesus continues to do and teach through his Body, the church. So it should not surprise us that the characteristics that mark Church Planting Movements today can be traced back through the New Testament church to the very life and teachings of Jesus.

Let's look at some of these characteristics.

Vision Driven
Church Planting Movement practitioners often speak of their vision or end vision. This describes where they hope to see when God's vision for their people or city is fulfilled. One brother put it this way, "If you can't see it before you see it, you're never going to see it."

Jesus filled his disciples with great expectations and a vision of the end fulfilled. He taught them to pray for the vision's realization, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven".¹⁴⁷

After the 72 missionaries returned from their mission, Jesus seemed to shout for joy: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,"¹⁴⁸ he said.

In Revelation 12, the apostle John viewed the same image, "For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down,"¹⁴⁹

Jesus clearly initiated the overthrow of the prince of this world; it continued through the early church and through Church Planting Movements this divine subversion continues even to this day.¹⁵⁰

Jesus prepared his disciples to expect even greater miracles than he himself performed. He also set a standard of harvest that far exceeded normal expectations. In his parable of the ten minas, Jesus taught his disciples that God expects an exponential return from his investment.¹⁵¹ This expectation of great harvest enabled a motley crew of 120 followers to emerge from the upper room to tackle an entire world for Christ.

After walking with Jesus for three years and then seeing his death, burial, and resurrection, the disciples were ready to receive the Great Commission mandate to be his witnesses... to the ends of the earth.¹⁵² Jesus filled his followers with a vision and an anticipation of the Church Planting Movements that followed. What other characteristics of Church Planting Movements can we find in the early church and teachings of Jesus?

Prayer

Prayer, the hallmark of Church Planting Movements, has deep roots in the New Testament Church that wend their way back to the lifestyle that Jesus modeled for his disciples. "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed,"¹⁵³ "This kind," he taught them, "can come out only by prayer.'"¹⁵⁴ His final meal with them was orchestrated around prayers that they were to rehearse until his return.¹⁵⁵ And then in the garden, "He said to them, 'Pray that you will not fall into temptation.' He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed.^"156 And in keeping with his life's pattern, Jesus' final words on earth were a series of prayerful appeals to his Father.¹⁵⁷

Following their Lord the early church was born in upper room prayer.¹⁵⁸ They frequented the temple for prayers,¹⁵⁹ dedicated their leaders to prayer and the ministry of the word,¹⁶⁰ and met daily in their homes for the breaking of bread and prayers.¹⁶¹

So it is no surprise that today's Church Planting Movements are steeped in prayer as they live out the legacy that Christ instilled in the foundations of the church some two thousand years ago.

Abundant Evangelism

Jesus infused the early church with a passion for evangelism that flowed naturally from the One who began his ministry "proclaiming the good news of God.^"162 At the midpoint of Christ's ministry he sent 72 of his followers "two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go," instructing them to "heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.'"¹⁶³

Before issuing his final Great Commission to preach the gospel to the whole world, Jesus even linked his return to the fulfillment of this evangelistic mandate. "This gospel of the kingdom," he said, "will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."¹⁶⁴

The early church obeyed these words with a passion. From Pentecost to Revelation, the church is taking the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth in anticipation of the return of Christ. Paul typified the ethos of the early church attitude toward abundant evangelism in his letter to the Corinthians when he reminded them, "Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.^"165

The newly converted Paul ventured south into Arabia; north to Syrian Damascus,¹⁶⁶ and then on to the frontiers of Scythian Asia. What is surprising is how often he found that the gospel had already preceded him. Christianity was well established in Rome before Paul ever ventured there. The great Christian center of Alexandria produced the likes of Apollos even though there is no record of how or when the gospel arrived. Paul commissioned Titus to appoint elders in every town of Crete - a relatively remote island off the coast of Libya. God only knows how the gospel came to permeate this distant outpost.¹⁶⁷

During the half century in which the New Testament was written, the gospel swept from Golgotha to Gibraltar. The Pentecost miracle sprayed the message and its messengers eastward into the Persian Empire, west to Libyan North Africa, north across the Greco-Roman world, and south through Egypt to Ethiopia. Early church traditions from the Malabar Coast of south India attest to a first century missionary zeal that carried the gospel to the very ends of the known world.

This same zeal to abundantly sow the gospel flows through the life veins of modem Church Planting Movements. Today's missionaries develop creative ways to enter restricted countries, work through mass media, and through itinerant church planters. Like Paul, these 21st century apostles of the faith have "become all things to all men so that by all possible means (they) might save some"¹⁶⁸

Scriptural Authority
Church Planting Movements are built on the authority of God's word. This is a vein that runs deep through the life of Jesus and the early Church. The Gospel writers all portray Jesus' life as a fulfillment of Scripture, and Jesus himself reminded his followers that "not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."¹⁶⁹ He then warned his disciples, "Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven"¹⁷⁰

Jesus modeled scriptural fidelity even at his moments of deepest trial. He answered Satan's temptations with verses from the Bible¹⁷¹ and uttered a cry from Psalm 22 as he writhed in agony on the cross.¹⁷² But even after his death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus returned his followers to Scripture to explain what had happened and what was to come: "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." "Then," the Bible says, "he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures."¹⁷³

Following this model of intimate commitment to Scripture, prompted Jesus' disciples to begin their own preaching with exposition of Scripture,¹⁷⁴ and face their eventual martyrdom - as in the case of Stephen - with echoes from the words of Jesus: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."¹⁷⁵

They reminded the church of the divine source of all scriptural authority insisting that "all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."¹⁷⁶ And to leave no doubt, explained that "no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."¹⁷⁷

When modem day practitioners of Church Planting Movements refuse to counsel their converts with words of wisdom or time honored doctrines, but instead direct them to God's word, they are living out the New Testament model initiated by Jesus and transmitted through the apostles.

Models for Multiplication
Jesus and the early church practiced multiplication increase. In Luke chapter 5, Jesus chose 12 disciples. In Luke 9, he sent them out, and though it does not say it in this passage, we learn later that his pattern was to send them out 2-by-2. In the next chapter, Luke 10, Jesus sent out 72 disciples. Where did these 72 come from? If we understand the principle of multiplication, it is easy to imagine that the original 6 pairs of disciples did just what their Master had modeled: they discipled 12 others, resulting in 72 disciples (6 x 12 = 72).

If multiplication was truly at the core of Jesus' discipleship model, then we might expect these 72 disciples to have multiplied themselves as well. If they closely followed Jesus' example, then the 72 (comprising 36 pairs of disciples) would have produced 444 disciples (36 x 12 = 444). Adding these 444 to their 72 mentors would produce an early church of more than 500 disciples of Jesus.

Was this the pattern that the early church followed? In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul described the community that they greeted Jesus after his resurrection, "he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time.^"178

Did the multiplication pattern continue after Jesus' ascension? Let's see. If those same 500 brothers formed 2-by-2 teams and imitated Jesus' model of discipling 12 converts each, they would produce 3,000 disciples (250 pairs x 12 = 3,000). In Peter's Pentecost message of Acts 2:41, we read that 3,000 received the message and were baptized in a single day. Some may question whether Jesus had a precise formula for multiplying in groups of 12, but it is clear that Jesus intended for his followers to multiply, and multiply they did!

Preparation for Persecution
Missionaries engaged in Church Planting Movements understand that persecution will be the lot of those who renounce this world and follow Jesus Christ, so they prepare the new believers for this test. Modem day preparation for persecution extends a long shadow that stretches back to the cross of Christ.

Jesus warned his disciples, "A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master."¹⁷⁹ Jesus could see that the prospect of "all men (hating) you because of Me"¹⁸⁰ would serve as a powerful deterrent to false or even timid faith.

Paul exhibited the same kind of fearlessness in persecution that marks those who have led and endured the cost of a Church Planting Movement. He tells the Corinthians, "I have... been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again."¹⁸¹

Suffering and persecution were so closely associated with the spread of the gospel that the Greek word for witness (martyria) became synonymous with death. Jesus knew this would happen so he boldly challenged, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."¹⁸²

For Paul, as for the early church, suffering was such an integral part of his life in Christ that he could say, "I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church."¹⁸³ Likewise James, the brother of our Lord, exclaimed, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds."¹⁸⁴ And the author of Hebrews challenged the church to imitate "Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross."¹⁸⁵

The early church response to persecution could be summed up in a single word, boldness. The word occurs eight times in the Book of Acts, each time associated with persecution or opposition to the gospel.

Peter set the tenor when he prayed, "Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."¹⁸⁶

And Paul revealed the deep roots of the church's boldness when he wrote, "Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold."¹⁸⁷

By the end of Luke's early history of the Church, the pattern of bold witness in the face of certain death has become a recurrent theme for the entire book, so that he can conclude the Book of Acts with the declaration, "Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ."¹⁸⁸

In today's Church Planting Movements, church members are refined by persecution and defined by their boldness. The tremendous price they pay to follow Christ ensures the purity of the movement against false motives and nominal conversions. And it links them personally to the life and path of Christ and the early church.

All in the Family
Unlike today's Western patterns of individual conversions, Church Planting Movements typically explode through a people group by moving through family relationships. How about the New Testament? What were its transmission patterns?

While it's true that the New Testament records plenty of dramatic individual conversions, the people of that era were much more communal in their decision making. This made it natural for the gospel to spread through family lines. You can see this in the interchange between Jesus' mother, Mary, and her relative Elizabeth who would soon give birth to John the Baptist.¹⁸⁹ Jesus later drew on this relationship as he built his ministry on the advance work of his baptizing cousin.¹⁹⁰ Along the way, Jesus' own brothers appear in his ministry even as his mother, Mary, is found in the company of his followers.¹⁹¹

 
When Jesus called his disciples there were family connections as Andrew drew his brother Peter^l92 and the sons of Zebedee, James and John followed Christ together.¹⁹³ In the broader circle of followers, we see other family connections such as the Bethany siblings, Mary, Martha and Lazarus.¹⁹⁴

After Christ's resurrection and ascension, the gospel expansion continued to move through a natural web of family relationships. Peter preached to and baptized Cornelius and his house- hold.¹⁹⁵ Paul did the same for the Philippian jailer,¹⁹⁶ and when he met Lydia, the Thyatiran dealer in purple, she "and the members of her household were (all) baptized."¹⁹⁷

From Jesus to the early church to contemporary Church Planting Movements, the gospel continues to flow through the channels of family households and relationships.

Divine Power in Evangelism and Ministry
As with today's Church Planting Movements, New Testament gospel proclamation went hand-in-hand with divine demonstrations of God's power through healings, exorcisms, and miraculous signs. Jesus commanded the 72 to "preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons."¹⁹⁸ And they returned with reports of the miraculous things God had done through them.¹⁹⁹

As was his custom, Jesus first practiced all of these things before he commanded his disciples to do them. The Gospels use the word "healed" 39 times, and each occurrence is associated with the work of Jesus. The post-resurrection church carried on the same practice. They healed the sick, cast out demons, and even raised the dead. as they proclaimed the Good News of God's salvation.

These practices which have become alien to so many of our contemporary Christian churches, were a central part of the ministry of Jesus and the expansion of the New Testament Church. And they are well represented in today's Church Planting Movements.

Person of Peace
Several of the Church Planting Movements we've examined attest to the missionary method of sending church planters into villages in search of God's "person of peace," that individual already chosen by God to receive the gospel message. Their motivation is to adhere to the model established by Jesus. When Jesus first dispatched his disciples as missionaries, he sent them out two-by-two and commanded them to enter every village in search of the "man of peace" who would welcome them and their message.²⁰⁰

Jesus foreshadowed this approach in his redemptive dialogue with the Samaritan woman, a dialogue which prompted him to stay in the town for two days and gather a harvest of "many more believers.^"201

Later, Jesus seems to have taken the same path in relation to Mary, Martha and Lazarus: "As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.^"202 The invitation led to a life changing relationship for Martha and her family.

Was this an isolated methodology that Jesus employed or did he intend for it to be a method for the early church to imitate? The two-by-two model of missionary deployment seems to have inspired Paul to always travel with a companion, whether it was Barnabas or Silas or Luke or Titus, whenever he ventured forth on a missionary journey. Though we cannot know about every missionary's practice, it does characterize Paul's pattern.

But did Paul also follow Christ's instructions to look for a "man of peace?" In Acts 16, Paul tells of a vision in which a Macedonian man calls for him to come and share the gospel. When Paul arrives in Macedonia, he discovers that God's man of peace is actually a woman named Lydia.²⁰³

Peter evidenced the same mindset when he followed God's leading to Cornelius, a Gentile man of peace, living in the coastal town of Caesarea. As with Lydia, Cornelius had already been chosen by God to welcome the Good News that the apostle was bringing.

Finding God's receptive person of peace was more than a pragmatic way of avoiding persecution; it was a demonstration of obedience to the teachings and patterns modeled by Jesus. This same motivation of obedience has reintroduced the quest for the man of peace in today's Church Planting Movements.

A House Church Movement
Today's Church Planting Movements grow large by focusing on small groups meeting in homes. The earliest model for this is the intimate circle of Jesus and his twelve disciples. Though Jesus did teach and perform miracles in large settings, he seemed to reserve his most precious teachings for the quiet time alone with his inner circle. Jesus appears to have had no home of his own, but he was comfortable teaching, evangelizing, healing, and discipling in the homes of others wherever he was invited. Whether it was the wedding feast of Cana,²⁰⁵ the Capernaum home where he healed the paralytic,²⁰⁶ the home of Zaccheus, or that of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus,²⁰⁷ Jesus brought Christianity into the home.

The persecution of the early church prevented the believers from creating large sanctuaries or cathedrals. Meeting in homes instilled intimacy and reinforced small group accountability within the Church. The New Testament is filled with references to churches meeting in homes: Acts 5:42 (... from house to house....); Acts 8:3 (Saul began to destroy the Church. Going from house to house....); Acts 12:12 (...the house of Mary...where many people had gathered....); Romans 16:5 (Greet also the church that meets at their house); 1 Corinthians 16:19 (... the church that meets at their house); Colossians 4:15 (... the church in her house.); Philemon 2 (....the church that meets in your home).

By the time the church grew strong enough to build its own cathedrals and basilicas, perhaps as late as the third or fourth century, it was also employing professional clergy. When the church left the home it left something vital behind: intimate contact with every facet of daily life. Today's Church Planting Movements are reintroducing this lost dimension by bringing the church back home.

Rapid Conversion
Rapid response and large-scale conversions have characterized each of the Church Planting Movements we've observed. Is this biblical? Once again the trail leads to Jesus who called forth disciples who "at once left their nets and followed him."²⁰⁸

Whether it was a blind man healed or a tax collector convicted, Jesus called for sinners to repent and expected an immediate response. This emboldened the apostles to take the same approach. They called for repentance and thousands responded.

Donald McGavran has highlighted the rapid response that characterized the people group movements of the New Testament Church:

"It started with a large group - about a hundred and twenty adults not counting their children and dependents. Pentecost swept in about three thousand more. Within a short time the number of men Christians had risen to five thousand. After that, it is recorded that, 'More than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.' (Acts 5:14) A chapter later we read that 'the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests (Levites) were obedient to the faith.'²⁰⁹

Today's Western Christians who have seen only individual commitments to Christ may have trouble understanding this spontaneous and sweeping response to the gospel, but it was common in the New Testament world. And it is common in today's Church Planting Movements.

Multiple Lay Leaders
Church Planting Movements are led by laypersons. Jesus pioneered this lay movement when he bypassed the Pharisees and Sadducees to call common men, fishermen, tax collectors, and political rebels. Out of this rabble he forged a community of disciples that changed the world.

This pattern of lay leadership continued in the years following Christ's resurrection. This effectiveness by laypersons astounded the Jewish Sanhedrin. "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus."²¹⁰

In the early Church, being with Jesus was always more important than academic credentials. In choosing a replacement for Judas Iscariot, the only requirement stated was that the candidate must have been with Jesus from his baptism to his ascension.²¹¹ Paul, who might have had reason to boast in his training and credentials, treated them as worthless in contrast to simply knowing Christ.²¹² In his first letter to the Corinthians, he urged his readers to take this same attitude: "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth."²¹³

Rather than seeing this "lack of nobility" as an impediment to serving the Lord, Paul saw it as an opportunity for God to reveal his power. "But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.... so that no-one may boast before him."²¹⁴

In Church Planting Movements, the laity not only lead the churches, they share responsibility widely with other lay-members. In the New Testament, Paul describes this same phenomenon in his language of the "body of Christ." In his letter to the Ephesians Paul catalogued this broad lay leadership: "He... gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up."²¹⁵

Paul's first letter to the Corinthians describes a church bustling with a diverse and energized membership:

"To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.^"216

The New Testament has a place for church office roles such as deacons, bishops, elders, and pastors, but also includes dynamic functions for apostles, evangelists, and prophets. In the New Testament church there was a place for all types of involvement. Paul had to exhort the churches to provide funds for the church leaders with the Old Testament admonition: "Do not muzzle an ox," and "the worker deserves his wages."²¹⁷ But he himself preferred to labor as a tentmaker to support his ministry and followed a Lord who was suspicious of "the hired hand"²¹⁸ and he himself had "nowhere to lay his head."²¹⁹

All too soon the church abandoned its lay-powered engine and turned to a professional clergy to guide it. History has judged that these professionals guided the church into the Dark Ages. In modem Church Planting Movements the power of the unleashed laity is rediscovered, and with it New Testament church life is rekindled.

But Were They Church Planting Movements?
The world of the first century had much in common with the 21st. First century Pax Romana parallels 21st century Pax Americana, even as the famous Roman roads mirror our own Internet highways - both ideally suited for transmitting trade, ideas, and gospel.

The first century was keenly aware of people groups and a wide assortment of competing religions and cultures. It would be difficult to find a modem heresy or philosophical persuasion that wasn't already being circulated in the first century. Each of these competing faiths persecuted converts from their ranks who joined the newly emerging body of Christ.

The cold war that has so shaped modern civilization had its parallel in the stalemate between the Roman and Persian empires of the first century. Just as Christianity has spread throughout both the Soviet and Western worlds, so too did it penetrate those first century giants.

So it is not surprising that contemporary Church Planting Movement practitioners find all that they need for their guidance in the New Testament. To those who are propagating the gospel and multiplying communities of faith in the midst of persecution, the New Testament reads like an indispensable road map.

But was the New Testament a running record of a first century Church Planting Movement? More likely, the pages of the New Testament reveal multiple Church Planting Movements sweeping across the known world. In an early letter to the Thessalonians Paul rejoices that "the Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia - your faith in God has become known everywhere."²²⁰

In the final years of his ministry Paul could say,

From Jerusalem all the way round to Illyricum (modern day Albania), I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. Rather, as it is written: 'Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.' This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you. But now that there is no place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to see you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain."²²¹

Why was Paul off to Spain? Because first century Church Planting Movements had already established the gospel throughout the eastern half of the Mediterranean world with hundreds of indigenous reproducing churches in their wake.

Yes, it is true that the term Church Planting Movement doesn't appear in the Bible. But having reviewed the biblical evidence, it is clear that rivers of Church Planting Movements flow through the New Testament and these rivers issue from the very life and ministry of Christ. Once you recognize this it is difficult to ever see your own church life in the same way again.

Today's Evangelicals want to believe that their church is patterned after a New Testament model. Certainly there is some truth to this aspiration. However, there are so many discrepancies between the world of modem Western Evangelicalism and that of the New Testament.

Today, the church of the New Testament world is only vaguely familiar to us. We look at it as we might stare at a photograph taken of us in our childhood. The resemblance is there, but so much has changed. When we visit Church Planting Movements, though, we are reminded of what the church was like in its youth - vulnerable, passionate, faithful, and explosive. For hundreds of thousands who are experiencing Church Planting Movements around the world today, it is the first century once again.

Endnotes:

145 Acts 17:11
146 Acts 1:1
147 Matthew 6:10
148 Luke 10:18
149 Revelation 12:10
150 John 12:31; 16:11; 14:30; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2
151 Luke 19: 11-27
152 Acts 1:8
153 Mark 1 :35
154 Mark 9:29
155 1 Corinthians 11 :23-26
156 Luke 22:40-41
157 Matthew 27:45-50
158 Acts 1 & 2
159 Acts 3:1
160 Acts 6:4
161 Acts 2:40
162 Mark 1:14
163 Luke 10:1,9
164 Matthew 28: 19-20 and Matthew 24: 14
165 2 Corinthians 9:6
166 Galatians .1: 17
167 Titus 1:5
168 1 Corinthians 9:22
169 Matthew 5:18
170 Matthew 5: 19
171 Matthew 4:6-10
172 Matthew 27:46 (quoting Psalm 22:1)
173 Luke 24:44-45
174 Acts 2:17-21; 25-28: 34-35
175 Acts 7:60
176 2 Timothy 3:16-17
177 2 Peter 1:20-21
178 1 Corinthians 15:6
179 Matthew 10:24
180 Matthew 10:22
181 2 Corinthians 11 :23-25
182 Mark 8:34
183 Colossians 1:24
184 James 1:2
185 Hebrews 12:2
186 Acts 4:29-30
187 2 Corinthians 3:12
188 Acts 28:31
189 Luke 1 :36
190 Luke 7:20-29
191 Matthew 13:55; Luke 8:20
192 Matthew 4:18
193 Matthew 4:21-22
194 John 12:1-10
195 Acts 10:24 & 48
196 Acts 16:31
197 Acts 16: 15
198 Matthew 10:7-8
199 Luke 10: 17
200 Matthew 10:1-16; Luke 10:1-7
201 John 4:1-42
202 Luke 10:38
203 Acts 16: 9-14
204 Acts 10: 1-31
205 John 2
206 Mark 2
207 Luke 10:38-42
208 Matthew 4:20-21
209 Donald McGavran, The Bridges of God (New York: Friendship Press, 1955), pp. 18-19.
210 Acts 4: 13
211 Acts 1:21-22
212 Philippians 3:8-11
213 1 Corinthians 1 :26
214 1 Corinthians 1:27,29
215  Ephesians 4:11-12
216 1 Corinthians 12:8-10
217 1 Corinthians 9:9 and 1 Timothy 5:18
218 John 10: 12
219 Matthew 8:20
220 1 Thessalonians 1:8
221 Romans 15:19-24