The Grace of Unfruitfulness
One morning Jared woke with a compelling question on his mind, “If I believe that eternity is true, and I'm going to spend endless days with Jesus, how should I live my life?”
Every morning for weeks he woke to the same question.
Finally, he answered, “Alright, If it’s true, I want to give the rest of my life to making disciples.” He just didn’t know how.
So Jared sought out training and discovered the world of movements that multiply disciples and churches. In the process, he met, fell in love and married Elle.
As a young couple, they delayed moving overseas for two years while they sharpened their skills making disciples in Austin, Texas.
Finally, they were ready to join a team in South Asia. The fulfillment of their calling.
Fast forward eighteen months and Jared has been applying everything he’d been trained in. He was doing the right things based on strong Biblical foundations and best practices. No fruit. No one was coming to faith. No one they trained was implementing. As his anxiety levels rose, it became the worst eighteen months of Jared’s life.
On a lone fourteen-hour drive Jared wept and poured out his heart to God. “Lord I gave up everything to obey your call. Why is nothing happening!”
As he drove and prayed heard God say, “Jared are you doing this for yourself, or are you doing this for me? I’m not going to share my glory with you.” He said, "Jared, you have never and will never save anyone."
God said, “Jared, why are you doing this? Are you doing this for me?”
God showed Jared his heart. God removed the idols of success and pride. He learned God is the only one that can start a movement.
Jared says, “Man, I repented on that car ride!”
“I had such an approval idol in my life that a lot of my actions and thoughts were coming out of wanting to be approved by other people that I looked up to. I had to realize that the ultimate approval I'm looking for is just from the Lord.”
I learned a lot about contentment, that contentment comes from the Lord, not from the state of the ministry or the progress as we perceive it, but staying content in the Lord. As we faced these challenges together it grew our affections not only for the Lord, but for each other. Our love and desire for one another grew.
One week after the fourteen-hour car trip we met our first guy who broke through to multiply. The next week we met the second guy. A month later we met Lydia who led fifteen people to Christ in her first week as a disciple and now has multiplied disciples and churches to the fourth generation.
In the last four years, the movement has seen over 50,000 baptisms.
Part 1: 334-The first five years.
Part 2: 335-The Last Five Years
