Church Planting Movements (CPM)

Meet Paul and David Watson, two of this generation's leading Church Planting Movement gurus and American Airline's best customers. ;) They travel the world both separately and together to train trainers in person as well as through their blogs/websites. At our Pioneers CPM training, a lot of the stuff was actually from them.

Check out their material online:
CPM Training Resources
David Watson's Blog
Reaching the Online Generation

We were very privileged to be able to have dinner with both of them while they were in San Jose for a week's training at CityTeam Ministries in San Jose at the end of May.

We've been learning a lot from them ever since we first heard about their work about 18 months ago. It was a very new, refreshing approach to church planting for us and the first time we heard David Watson's seminar, I was in constant shock! In fact, David Watson's blog was our vacation reading during our first ever family vacation last September, the week after we resigned from Youth ministry.

We tried to implement their 3-Column Bible Study at church but it was hard. Pastors, teachers, and students weren't comfortable with this new method because it was so different to what they're used to. What? No teacher's guide? What? No answer sheet?

I've been attending Bible studies since I was about 5 and when I tried this method for the first time, I really struggled. Actually, I still do. It's a completely different way of reading, understanding, and obeying the Bible. Most people are having the Bible spoon-fed to them and not having to really think about what the passage is saying, what God is trying to say to me personally through this passage, and how I'm going to be different through obedience of the Scripture. Most Bible studies not only give the Bible passage in the booklet (completely eliminating the need to even open a Bible) and the lessons that are supposed to be learned, they also give you application points too so you don't have to think a whole lot about what you've just read and how it applies to you personally.

The other thing I really liked about their training is that they encourage summarizing Scripture so that it can be retold by you, the reader, to someone else, which is a must, not an option. Again, something that we know we're supposed to be doing but not holding ourselves accountable to, and sometimes, not even sure how to go about doing it.

There are many more aspects to it and there's more that I don't know that I do know about their way of CPM-ing(?), but it was very interesting discussing the possible hurdles that we may face in Japan using this method and how other missionaries in other cultures have overcome the obstacles that they faced.

It's always fun, enlightening, and encouraging spending time with such awesome men of God who share their experiences and teachings so freely and enthusiastically. =)