What’s It Going To Take?
David Broodryk Reflections Part 1
By Lim MY
Photo by Harjinder Cheema on Unsplash
David Broodryk has been on a long journey into discipleship movements and seeking to see cities impacted by and for Jesus. He and his team now serve teams and leaders in cities all over the world. He recently spent time with several Asian city teams as part of the Urban Wheat Project. Over a series of blog posts I will share some key highlights and reflections from our time together.
…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 dissatisfaction in his mind grew into a crisis.
The largest church in town at that time boasted just 30,000 people. The city had a population of 10 million. All the good things their church was doing would never be able to impact their entire city.
How was it possible to 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 question burned on David’s mind and consciousness as he walked the streets in prayer.
“What would it take? What’s it going to take?”
Finally, walking down the third street, the realisation dawned on him that 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 - taking deliberate steps away towards those without Christ.
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.
After a year of preparing the church for leadership transition, he and his wife stepped out of pastoral ministry 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 had was a conviction 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.
As he moved in this direction, David found himself in uncomfortable places - pubs, places where people would get very drunk, places where people would do drugs. Some Christians gossiped and criticised him, but like-minded believers joined him.
They experimented. They failed. They learned. They experimented some more.
Slowly, very slowly, they saw progress. People who were far from Jesus began to discover who He was. They were getting baptised and choosing to follow Him as disciples. They began to see new churches and faith communities started. They saw groups begin to multiply. Their field of service expanded into other cities and countries.
David and the team were struck by the power of a principle they saw again and again -
God worked most powerfully through ordinary followers of Jesus who were helping others discover Him.
Here was the answer to his question! More on this in the next blog post.
Reflection and Response
Which part of David’s journey strikes you the most? Why?
How does your heart respond when you sense God calling you to do something that seems impossible or uncomfortable?
What is God doing in your life in this season? How is He inviting you to join what He is doing in you or in your harvest field?
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.