What’s It Going To Take? (kopy)
By David Broodryk (Part 2)
Photo by Tim-Oliver Metz on Unsplash
David Brookryk has been on a long journey of seeking to see cities impacted by and for Jesus. This journey has taken him through Africa and Eurasia. He and his team now serve teams and leaders in many cities in the world. We recently spent some extended time with him and over a series of blog posts I will be sharing some key highlights and reflections.
…the only way they were going to see people that were outside the walls of the church come to Jesus was to move towards them.
David’s dream for cities began as a spark one day as he was preaching before his congregation. In that school hall somewhere in South Africa, he had the strangest experience of having his mind float out the building while he was still talking to the 100 or so people seated before him.
In his imagination, he was looking down at the building and did not stop ascending till he found himself looking down at the whole suburb and then the whole city. At that time, this city, where Johannesburg and Pretoria merged, was about 10 million strong.
There, in that moment, while still preaching the sermon, David asked himself a question that he had never asked before. “What would it actually take to reach my city?” Although his ministry had already planted 5 churches by that time, he had never asked that question.
Up until then, as a good pastor, he had asked God, “How do I grow my church?”, “How do I grow my ministry?”, “How can I get people to know who we are?” But that Sunday, for the first time, he was asking, “How do I reach my city?” Was there something that he could that did not merely grow his church from 100 to 200 to 300 to 500 before he retired and went back to the Lord? His heart was beginning to beat with the question of whether there was something he could do in his lifetime that had the potential to impact the lives of 10 million people who did not know Jesus.
The crisis in his mind grew into a dissatisfaction. All the good things they were doing thus far would never be able to impact 10 million people. The largest church in town at that time boasted just 30,000. But there was 10 million. How did you reach all the people there who would never, ever walk through the doors of the church? No matter how good the advertising brochures, no matter how good the worship, no matter how many smoke machines there were, no matter how good the lights or how good the preaching was, these people would never walk through the doors of the church. “How do we reach them?” This mind-blowing question burned on David’s mind and consciousness.
Consumed by this problem, he packed his family into his car and drove to a town eight hours away. He had to deal with the growing weight of this crisis. At the town where they had stopped, he walked down one street after another to clear his head.
“What would it take? What’s it going to take?” Finally, walking down the third street, a thought dawned upon him – what it would take to reach the millions might not be something that he was prepared to do. What it would take would be a very bold step. And that bold step was something that friends, seminary classmates, relatives, even his parents would not understand. David told God honestly that he wasn’t sure that he wanted to go down that path. Nevertheless, all the arguments he had in his head just fell to the ground as he talked to the Lord.
A year later, he and his wife stepped out of that church with no income, no salary, no job. And they began to pursue this thing with absolutely no idea of what to do. The one thing they did have was a revelation that the only way they were going to see people that were outside the walls of the church come to Jesus was to move towards them.
When he began to move, David found himself at pubs, places where people would get very drunk, places where people would do drugs. There were like-minded believers who joined him in this move that might have been questionable to others. And the gossip did start spreading though not enough to keep the movement from growing wider and to another city and another city and then another country…
Slowly, like very slowly …
They began to make disciples of people who used to be far from Jesus. These people were beginning to discover who Jesus was together. They were getting baptised. New churches and faith communities were being started. Five years later, David and his team were learning how these groups could multiply.
A more amazing discovery accompanied this explosion (read this in the next blog post) - the pastor need not always have to be the one responsible for starting the groups.
Getting Practical
Which part of David’s journey strikes you the most? Why?
What is your usual response to a call of God that seems impossible or uncomfortable?
What has the Holy Spirit been stirring in your heart in your personal discipleship journey? Is there something in your existing mindset that He could be aligning?
Discipling the Urban Harvest provides practical insights and encouragement to walk with God in multiplying discipleship in an increasingly urban world - growing as children of the Father, serving the communities He has called us to, and discipling those hungry to know Him.