Lessons from Coaching on the Sidelines
By the time Joe arrived in northern Iraq he understood how movements work. He’d spent two years in north India learning the essentials. Through training and coaching local leaders, movements had launched among the Bhojpuri and Magahi peoples. The progress attracted the attention of the authorities and he had to leave India.
Joe served among Syrian refugees and Iraqi Kurds. The locals he trained, planted churches in the refugee camps. Outside the Kurdish region of norther Iraq, ISIS was still in control.
During this time he met Diar, a disciple who fled across the border from Iran. Jesus had appeared to him in a dream dressed in white. He’d left Iran in search people who could tell him more about this Jesus. He found some house church leaders and they baptized him and taught him.
Diar crossed back into Iran and later returned to Iraq with friends he led to Christ. He wanted them taught and baptized.
That’s when Joe and Diar met. Diar was already winning his friends and family, but no-one had trained him to make disciples. No-one had cast vision for reaching Iran.
In northern India Joe had learned some simple, biblical, reproducing skills and tools for entering unreached communities, sharing the gospel, making disciples, forming churches and multiplying workers. He passed these on to Diar and his friends.
Diar brought some more friends across the border to be trained and sent back into Iran to reach their “oikos”. Which they did. Iranians have suffered under Islamic rule since 1979. They are hungry for the gospel.
Eventually Joe said, “We’re not baptizing any more of your people from across the border. We’ll train you to go back and baptize your own people, train disciples and form healthy churches that multiply.”
That’s how the movement started and spread to multiple provinces in Iran. It began in Tehran and jumped over to Ilam, Azerbaijan then in the Golestan region and Mazandaran. All through networks of relationships — both Kurds and Persians.
Evangelism, baptism and discipleship now took place in Iran. Joe and Diar still intentionally brought leaders across the border for training. They took them through Titus and Timothy on the characteristics of a godly leader. They covered the priesthood of every believer, releasing authority to baptize. They cast vision to engage new locations, new people groups, new provinces.
Joe had learnt to do this in India with local leaders.
Joe laid the list of unreached places and peoples before the emerging Iranian leaders and they asked God for what they should do.
They read Revelation 7, 9–10 together and cast vision for every tribe, every people, every language to have an opportunity to hear the gospel.
Joe reminded them, they have the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. They’ve experienced the oppression of Islam throughout their whole lives. Now they are free and called set others free. They have the command of Christ to make disciples and the promise of his presence as they go.
Diar and his people risked their safety and freedom to bring the gospel to every province. They have healthy churches in twenty-six of Iran’s thirty-one provinces.
Ruhosh is a professional who travels to different provinces for her work and to visit family. After she was trained she went home and shared with family and friends from her university days. She also shared with the people she met through her work.
When she came back across the border Joe mapped the friends and family who were now following Christ. It was sixty nine people meeting in thirteen groups across three provinces.
They went over the characteristics of a healthy church (Acts 2:36-47) and asked Ruhosh, what’s next? She answered, “We need to get them all baptized.” That was her assignment. It was done within a week. They used bathrooms and kiddie pools.
When the churches meet they follow the pattern of Acts 2:36-47. They pray for one another, they worship, they share their highs and lows. They celebrate the Lord’s Supper. They give.
They get into the Word asking:
What does this passage tell us about God and his character?
What does this tell us about man and his character?
Are there sins I need to avoid or confess?
And how can we obey what we’ve learned this week?”
They pray and commission one another to follow Christ and make disciples.
They map their network of relationships and identify who they will share with next. They identify unreached locations and where they will go next.
For security, the majority of the churches are just four to seven people. We have twenty-nine multiplying streams of churches. Their are leaders over those streams who function as elder-pastors. Some function as apostolic leaders who train and coach so that they open up new unreached fields.
Individual churches know the church that started them and the churches they help get started. But it’s not safe for them to be in contact with the other churches in the streams.
People have been arrested and interrogated. One has been killed. The less they know the better.
At the same time, they don’t live in fear. They learn they go out as sheep among wolves and need to be as wise as serpents (Luke 10).
Joe says, “We see the leaders we train for such a small amount of time when they come across the border. It’s essential to teach them to abide in Christ. That’s where the fruit comes from. They want to share the Jesus they have met. The Lord is moving. He is multiplying his disciples and churches in Iran.”
