Indonesia (MNN) — The desperate search for survivors continues in West Java, Indonesia.

China (MNN) —  Persecution in China filled the headlines in recent weeks. Authorities raided several house churches and arrested leaders within China and harassed Chinese believers seeking shelter in Thailand.

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Disciplemaking is not an everyday word. It may be mentioned at church, but even there it can feel foreign to our common experience. To be honest, the word “disciplemaking” is not in the Bible and my auto-correct continues to tell me it’s not a word in any standard dictionary.

There is much to suggest that the church in the west is living in a post-Christian generation. Evangelism has fallen on hard times, and ironically it seems that seminars to help people learn how to share their faith are doing no better.  And yet our denominations, although aware of their continued decrease in numbers, seem largely unmotivated to address the real issue. If ever there was a time to get back to basics, then surely it is now and I would like to suggest that the following 10 keys will give you a platform on which to build a fruitful church that will reach lost people. These 10 keys will help you to take evangelism in your church from being an optional extra to an important priority...

One of the wisest persons in the Bible wrote the following words that have served me well in my life of ministry:

“The righteous choose their friends carefully, But the way of the wicked leads them astray.”
— Proverbs 12:26

So important was this principle for his readers to take to heart, that he repeated it in varying ways through the book of Proverbs. “Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.” Proverbs 13:20...

A more biblical understanding of discipleship is critical to disciple a nation. Planting a church as a signpost of the Kingdom of God to evangelize a community is a good start. However, in a success-driven ministry, many pastors and leaders are simply dreaming of making their churches grow big and bigger. When the world’s criteria for success drives the ministry, discipleship is hurried up without the spiritual depth necessary to impact society. The World Evangelical Alliance’s call to a "Decade of Discipleship" needs radical calibration to grow...

Pastor Chinzorig from Mongolia shared at the fall session of the eighth cohort of pastors in Mongolia on Kingdom Discipleship. It was breathtaking simply sitting in and listening the first few days. He shared how often we get stuck in a simplified gospel paradigm: that we can just be saved at a one-off event in our lives and move on. He walked the cohort through God’s word amplifying an important thread in the bible: what he called 3D Discipleship or the Discipleship Journey. {addthis off}

There is no greater Return on Investment than discipleship and investing in other people.
– Mike Duke (former CEO of Walmart) 

A few weeks ago, Asian Access had a wonderful gathering in Tokyo with marketplace leaders. Edwin Keh, former Senior Vice President at Walmart and Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania joined us utilizing a 4-hour video interview he conducted with Mike Duke, quoted above. They taught on discipleship as an opening topic for the orientation and launch of Asian Access/Business (known as A2.business) for Japan. As Mike’s quote suggests, far more than his investment in...{addthis off}

The Forbes.com’s number 1 Business Book of 2016 was, KEEP IT SIMPLE: Unclutter Your Mind to Uncomplicate Your Life written by Joe Calloway. The book challenges us to resist the temptation to overcomplicate things and to boil things down to the essence of what matters most. It confronts our natural almost unnoticed tendency to drift towards complexity or away from the purpose for which we exist. It takes some continued resolve to keep it simple and focused. Calloway’s advice is to boil things down to three simple rules, like the large national trucking company that reduced things to three simple rules:

1. Pick it up when you said you would.
2. Deliver it when...

Edmund Chan's Message #2

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20 — Pastor Edmund Chan began his second message sharing with our Global Leaders sharing this verse suggesting the Church is losing ground in much of the world today.  Why? He quoted Pastor Joseph Tson who told Adrian Rogers, “The American Church has substituted commitment for surrender!” As Galatians states, we must be crucified. That means our entire...

Edmund Chan's Message #1

"The most important reality we live in is the unseen world. Ultimate reality is the Kingdom of God." – Pastor Edmund Chan

Pastor Edmund Chan encouraged our global leadership community through several profound teachings on discipleship in Malaysia recently. And, he walked with us through meals, discussions, and even an outing to the city. What a beautiful example for us as we seek to live lives more rooted in Christ. His first teaching focused on Entering the Sanctuary from the words of Asaph in Psalm 73...

During our recent graduation week in Myanmar, we were at a special dinner one evening and one of the participants burst out in appreciation for Asian Access. She was so exuberant that you would’ve thought Asian Access was Jesus himself! I asked her, can we have you share on video and she not only said “Yes” enthusiastically but suggested her husband, who I later learned was on the local Myanmar Working Team, should join her. Wow, what a powerful couple and amazing testimony. You won’t want to miss it! It’s five minutes but boy is it worth it. You’ll catch their enthusiasm in this video but I must confess, they are even more crazy powerful in person....

Discipling Is For Everyone

Using the Father-Son metaphor found in Scripture, here are a few brief, but poignant quotes from Dr. Ajith Fernando's challenging message:

• "The most important thing we do in discipling our people is to pray for them."
• "The balanced life is our cross. So where is the time for discipling? Well, we find time for what is important."
• "Discipling is a battle for the souls of people. That's a battle we wage. We do this through prayer, through confrontation, through teaching, through meeting, and...

It was an honor co-convening the Leader Development Consultation last week in Chiang Mai Thailand! Asian Access came alongside of LeaderSource and several other organizations and movements to help “catalyze advances in thinking and practice in leader development around the world.”  We led an all-day intensive called “A Taste of Asian Access” and several of our colleagues led other workshops. In addition, we were an active player in the formal/non-formal theological education dialog where we are trying to find synergy for leader development specifically through theological formation. The highlight for me was...

Living in Japan brings all sorts of new life experiences for me. Stateside I focus mostly on ministry and family but here in Tokyo, Silk and I share house duties more because she is teaching and we live in a world that requires us to do more teamwork when it comes to daily living. Areas where I try to help out are weekly shopping, cleaning the dishes and once in a while laundry. No one trusts me with cooking so this is the best I can offer and all of these things I rarely participate in stateside. It certainly helps me grow as a Christ-like leader. It helps me develop character, one of the biggest challenges in Christian leadership today...

Later on that same evening of the Last Supper, Jesus gave one more statement on the evidence for true discipleship. He was comparing himself to a vine, with the disciples as the branches. His focus was the goal of fruit-bearing. Branches that bear fruit are pruned so that they will bear even more. Only those branches that remain in the vine are capable of bearing fruit. And God is glorified when much fruit is borne. But more than that, abundant fruitfulness is the mark of true discipleship. This is the fourth mark of a disciple [Read John 15:5,8]. A little further on, in verse 16, Jesus says, “I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.” What is fruit? It is what the vine produces when it is healthy and mature. Fruit includes the character qualities of Jesus listed in Galatians 5, where the apostle Paul says...

Jesus' next statement about discipleship is found in John 13, on the night of the Last Supper [Read John 13:34,35]. The third mark of a disciple is love for fellow-disciples. The command to love is not new in itself— back in Leviticus 19:18, God said "Love your neighbor as yourself."  But the measure of that love is new. The standard is no longer the natural self-love that all of us are born with. The measure is the self-sacrificing love that led Jesus to wash the feet of the disciples. It is the love that led him to death on the cross for their redemption. Jesus was calling his disciples to display this love so consistently and openly with one another that even people outside the community of faith would recognize Jesus as the source....

The second mark of the disciple is found in John 8. Here Jesus is talking to Jews who had believed in him. But their belief was very shallow. They were offended by the statement that Jesus existed before Abraham as the eternal God, the one who revealed himself to Moses in the great name "I Am." So Jesus raised the issue of true discipleship [Read 8:31,32]. The second mark of a disciple is faithfulness to God’s Word. Jesus knew that there were those who associated with him, yet who were not really...

One of the most familiar verses in the Bible is Jesus' command in Matthew 28:19 to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” But what did Jesus mean by the word “disciple?” The Greek word translated “disciple” comes from the verb, which means “to learn.”  So the basic meaning is “learner.”  A disciple of Jesus is someone who has come to learn from him. The gospel writers sometimes use the word “disciple” in this broad sense to refer to the crowds who followed Jesus. But other times they are referring only to the Twelve whom Jesus chose to be with him constantly. In the Greek world, the word "disciple" was used...

"If you walkaway, walkaway... I will follow!" If you haven't noticed by now, my favorite band is U2. I've been a fan of theirs since high school and attending my first concert in the mid-80's. I love their unique style, prophetic voice, spiritual awareness and social consciousness! This song "I will follow" often reminds me of the call of Jesus: "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." (Matt. 4:19). I love this about Jesus: He often calls us to question our prevailing assumptions: 1) In order to be first, you must be last, 2) In order to lead, you must...