The Four Fields Model Your Guide

 

      Hello everybody, my name is Dean Davis, and this is “Multiply,” the podcast that provides a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.  

Have you ever asked a great musician, “How do you do that?”  If you have asked this question, you may have heard the musician respond with a question of his own. “How do I do what?’ Then you ask more clearly, “How do you know what notes to play, what rhythm to follow? How do you know how to make such beautiful music with that instrument? Some musicians will say, “I don’t know, I just watched others play and then I got an instrument, and I began to practice and now I just play the instrument.” 

Their way is a good one for people who are naturally gifted musicians, but it won’t work for most people. Most people will need to be taught in a rather systematic way if they are going to be good at playing a musical instrument. 

It’s the same with church planters. There are some great church planters who just started reaching out and gathering others for worship. They had watched pastors do their work, and they seemed to know what to do to start new churches without getting much instruction. But that kind of church planter is rare, and they generally don’t know how to teach others to plant churches. But just like most musicians need to be taught how to play an instrument, most church planters need instruction on how to plant a church. 

The Four Fields Model is the basic instruction ordinary Christians need in order to plant and multiply churches. It’s a great model because it is simple, easy to understand, and repeatable. All of us who want to plant churches would be strengthened if we consulted the Four Fields Model more often.  That is why it is printed on the back cover of new Village Church Planting student books every term. It’s meant to be consulted, and it’s meant to be shared with our disciples. 

The Four Fields Model answers the question. “How do I start?” You start with prayer for God to help you find persons of peace in a village where no church exists. You start by prayer walking. This means you walk around, with your eyes open and your mind alert, through a village that needs a church. You pray for persons of peace, people who are receptive, hospitable, and hungry to know God. 

The Four Fields Model tells you what you do when you find a person of peace: Help him trust Christ as his Savior. Teach him to invite family and friends to hear the Good News of Jesus. Help this group learn to obey all that Jesus commanded.  Finally, the Four Fields Model tells you to train leaders for your new church and release them to go to other villages, villages without churches, to start the cycle all over again by praying and looking for new persons of peace. 

So, the Four Fields Model is a practical guide.  But it is also a prayer guide. We must pray for the Holy Spirit to work in each of the four fields. We need God’s help to find persons of peace. We need his help to clearly and powerfully share the Good News. We need wisdom from on high to make disciples and start worshipping groups. And we certainly need God’s help to equip and release leaders to work in our new church and to plant churches in other villages. 

As you move forward with church planting, let the Four Fields Model guide you. You may not feel gifted, but God will help you as you trust him to apply the Four Fields Model with great love for lost people. 

This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters, and I’m Dean Davis asking, “Who will you share this encouraging word with today?” 

#EncouragementforVillageChurchPlanters  #FourFieldsModel