The first time I went to Africa I did three training sessions. In the first one, I trained about 50 or 60 pastors, elders, and bishops in something called disciple-making movements (DMM). I was invited to a city called Webuye in northwest Kenya. 

The man who was the translator, turning my English into the local Swahili dialect of that region, was named Samuel. At the time, Samuel was not part of the group that had invited me. He was just a local pastor and seminary teacher who had very good English skills.  Samuel stood next to me for three days and translated this training for eight hours a day. Then, after the training was over, I lost track of Samuel and didn’t know if I’d ever see him again.

You see, Samuel was tired. He tells people that before he learned about DMM he felt like Peter after working hard all night and catching nothing. Samuel felt this way because he had been a pastor of a local congregation for 35 years. He had been preaching his heart out week, after week, after week for decades. And after those 35 years he only had 50 people in his church and the only thing they did to grow their church was to invite people to attend their meetings. And that was not working.

After the training Samuel realized that he had not been doing Jesus’ work Jesus’ way and therefore was not experiencing Jesus results. He went and met with his elders and he shared with them what he had learned. He showed them the scriptures and everything he had learned over that weekend. His elders saw what he was showing them and miraculously, all of his elders decided to join him in making a change. 

Then they did something that I find utterly amazing. Samuel and his elders went before the congregation and they repented. They told the congregation they had been doing Jesus’ work according to the traditions of men, not according to the ways of Jesus or according to the pattern that we see in the New Testament church. Samuel and the elders told the congregation  that they wanted to train them to be disciples who make disciples. They could no longer be satisfied making passive spectator Christian church members. And, amazingly, the congregation was also receptive to this message. They were receptive to the idea of becoming what Jesus requires them to become and not being satisfied at a lower level than the level of Jesus.

Now, I knew nothing about what was happening. But ten months later I was back in Africa in the neighboring country of Uganda and Samuel traveled over about 8 hours to spend some time with me. And I have to be honest, when I saw Samuel he seemed like he was ten years younger. He was a man who had a new lease on life and he was very excited. He said, “brother, I have to tell you what happened. I replied and said, “I didn’t know you were doing anything with what you learned. Tell me, what has the lord done.” He shared with me the story that I just shared with you and then he said this.  “Brother, we have gone from 50 church members in one location to more than 2500 obedient multiplying disciples in more than 100 locations across northwest Kenya in less than a year! I don’t just pastor at church anymore, now I oversee a movement.” Glory to God!

Today, Samuel is one of the leaders in our network of disciples that is multiplying in East Africa and around the world. And if you feel that the Lord would like you to help support Samuel in his work just click on this link and it will take you to the place where you can support him. Believe it or not, Samuel only needs $500 a month to be fully supported. That covers his food, clothing, housing and his transportation to go and conduct other discipleship trainings in Africa and beyond.Samuel is committed to making disciples and to expanding the Kingdom of God to the ends of the earth until the return of Christ! So please prayerfully consider supporting him.

And if you want to go through this DMM training and learn what Samuel learned that changed his whole life and turned his ministry upside down, reach out to Go Multiply and set up a training so that we can see obedient disciples of Jesus multiply in your location as we’re seeing them multiply around the world!

God Bless you.