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TOOLS FOR GROWTH
“SEAN” – The Multiplication Factor
Alfredo Cooper, Santiago, Chile
I fell in love with Archdeacon Tony Barratt’s daughter in the winter of 1976 and thereby
became a very fortunate man on two accounts. First, I have lived happily ever after with
Hilary, and second, I married into the world of SEAN.
1976 was also a year of heart searching and much prayer. A SAMS (South American
Missionary Society) team was just gathering into place in Santiago’s middle-class and
professional residential sector, known as the Barrio Alto. Despite large scale growth among
the Pentecostal churches in the poorer sectors of Chile’s society, here there were no Spanish
speaking non-Catholic churches. Huge iron gates, high walls, unfriendly dogs, seem to want
to protect the well-to-do inhabitants of this economically booming part of the world, if need
be, from the Gospel itself. So the seeking and prayer went up first with a clear goal in
mind: “Lord, how can we so reach this sector that we can plant here MULTIPLYING
churches?” By MULTIPLYING we meant churches that would hold inbuilt, the mechanics
of church growth that continues to grow, spill over and form new growing churches.
Nearly 16 years later there are nearly three churches planted and potentially several
more……to a large degree thanks to the SEAN materials. More exactly, it was through the
principles and tools afforded to us by SEAN that we have been able to build the
MULTIPLICATION factor into the church.
Let “La Trinidad” de Las Condes serve as the case study for this paper.
“La Trinidad” was the second church planted in the Barrio Alto. A site was brought after the
first church, “Providencia”, had taken off successfully in 1978, incorporating several small
house churches started up by missionaries. Three years later the congregation had swelled to
over a hundred adults and twenty or so went off to the new building in Las Condes, a plush
sector of the Barrio Alto, housing over 250,000 inhabitants of this area’s 1,000,000. It was
strategically situated, and if properly laid, ‘the fire’ could now really blaze from this centre
out over the entire Barrio Alto.
Again the territory was virgin, there were no Anglicans around, no evangelical churches
around. This gave us carte blanche to plan the strategy. MULTIPLICATION would
necessarily involve several factors:
1. Evangelism that was effective in bringing people to church and folding them in.
2. Initial discipling that really turned people’s lives around for God and produced
modern day disciples,
3. Training that mobilised the lay folk and turned out effective and committed workers
for Christ, and
4. Pastoral training within the local church context that produced the kind of clergy
that would continue the whole process and multiply it all over again in the new
churches they went out to plant.
Exactly ten years on down the line we have seen the entire cycle completed by the planting of
a third church, “San Andrés” in La Reina, a neighbouring borough to Las Condes. The key
factor that needs here to be mentioned is that “San Andrés” is headed up by a pastor trained
in Las Condes, Pato Browne, who is now incorporating the entire SEAN programme into the
new church. He understands that the multiplication factor must continue to underlay all that
is done in the local church if we are to experience New Testament growth.
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So, thank God, multiplication has occurred. How then are SEAN materials used to build the
“multiplication factor” into churches like “La Trinidad”?
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EVANGELISM THAT IS EFFECTIVE
We always come back to the same biblical truth. Multiplication of believers depends on
person to person witnessing. The spontaneous, in situ sharing of joyful, humble, loving
Christians, is the most powerful factor for the spread of the Gospel anywhere. SEAN
produces a small evangelistic leaflet called “How can I find God?” which we train all our
believers to use. However at the evangelism stage, SEAN’s main role is to help each
believer to be so built up that he or she evangelises naturally as part of a life style of witness.
Discipling is the key here as we shall mention under the next section. Yet the fact that SEAN
does mobilise all believers from their earliest days to witness, often with the use of the
Evangelistic Leaflet, means that we have built seeker friendly churches, where new people
bring new people. (see appendices A and B on pages 9 and 10)
A typically effective seeker friendly tool for us would be “Marriage Encounter Weekends”
(aimed at strengthening marriages) , to which around 45 couples are invited by enthusiastic
new people. These will have such a good time they will want only one thing once they come
out, to invite another couple of their acquaintance to the M.E. weekend.
And so
evangelism is effective in the measure that the “Christian ants” themselves do the work. And
for them to do the work they need to be discipled and mobilised. Here is where SEAN picks
up these new people and disciples them in the Beginner’s Group.
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INITIAL DISCIPLING
In a context where we had no workers apart from missionaries, high on the agenda had to be
making disciples.
Multiplying churches are made up of disciples who love to bring new
people to Christ. Nowhere is it more important to produce this dynamic principle than in the
first year of a new believer’s life as a Christian.
New people win new people so they must
be motivated into a life-style of evangelism from the outset. They are fervent in their “first
love” they still have many non-Christian friends and contacts, and are eager to have a new
Christian life-style taught them. New believers are usually the best witnesses of the new life
and hope within them, but they need to be disciples into HOW to move into constant witness.
As they experience the one another life-style in the church, in the Beginner’s Group, they
receive the dynamic and motivation within them to live the love of Christ in overflow mode,
sharing Christ with their friends and the world around them. Thus mobilised, they become a
veritable movement of growth, a rolling snowball of evangelism.
We base the Beginners’ Group around the “Abundant Life” course. It is important for us that
the Pastor himself tutor the course as the newcomer is so important, and that the course be
“open”, thereby receiving anyone throughout the year at any stage (they can easily stay in
for the following course if they join up too late).
Bearing in mind the needs of a new
believer, we tailor a group to those needs.
There needs to be a regular (weekly at least, though I know the Alliance Church in Peru hold
up to three meetings a week) meeting that becomes as important, or even more important, as
the Sunday service. It literally becomes the new believer’s lifeline.
The atmosphere is informal, warm, welcoming. We like to include in our welcome pack that
is given to newcomers on Sundays, a small chit that says “VALID FOR 1 FREE COFFEE AT
THE BEGINNERS’ GROUP ON WEDNESDAY AT 8 PM”
They come shyly by
themselves and need to be brought in with sensitive kindness and a warm welcome. Soon a
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leader (preferably the Pastor himself – such importance is given to the new people) signals
time to sit down with coffees and introductions or sharing begins. Small groups can allow
all members to say something – who they are – where they come from – why they are here –
from the start participation will be key and we encourage all to get involved in THEIR group.
As the group grows in maturity, each week will start with a check-up time, where members
share how they are putting into practice or not the teaching of the previous week.
We have found that the teaching needs to be life related. The kind of study course that is
needed is one that relates the simplest Bible teaching to life, the application of Bible truths to
the basics of the Christian walk.
SEAN’s Abundant Life, simple and direct, covers just
the essentials needed. When I once asked a senior lecturer in the University of Chile whether
he found the course too simple, he replied firmly: “Pastor, in my field I am an expert, but in
spiritual things I am analphabetic! I need simple things to enable me to grow so that I can
later teach others.”
I never doubted again about using simple teaching with intelligent
people.
Of course the teaching is often in situ. We may be teaching on praise, when someone wants
to know how to forgive their mother-in-law. Fine, we do divert the teaching for a while and
even get the group to pray for the person in this particular need. Often it is this teaching into
the live situation, even if a slight tangent to the main theme, that opens up other people’s real
felt needs. Others share victories in Christ in that area. The dynamic teaching is powerful.
Finally “Any Questions” again seeks to meet the real needs of the group, They get used to
storing up questions during the week to unload them on to the poor leader on Wednesday.
Sometimes the leader may simply throw the question back at the group and let those slightly
older in the group try to answer. Confidence in the doctrine and ministry of Christ is thus
built up.
Every now and then we like to roll out the “Electric Chair”. When someone has a need we
sit him or her on a chair and the whole group prays for the person. When prayer is later
answered people are thrilled that God has answered THEIR and not only the Pastor’s
prayers!
Homework, of course, is to live out the teaching, for there will be a check-up at the
beginning of the next group. If the leader considers they have learned the lesson well enough
and are living it out, they move on to the next lesson. And so they move on through the
teaching, and learn how to pray, to read their Bibles, to be better husbands – wives, raise
kids, handle money, overcome Satan, the world and the flesh, and answers to their questions
related to church life and ministry.
We often call the Beginners’ Group “the Church’s Nursery Wing”
She was new at the church and wanted to know what the famous Beginners’ Group was all
about.
A church member had jokingly said to her, “Ah, once you’re a member of the
Beginners’ Group, you’re fried!”. He was expressing his confidence in the group’s
discipling, but in the process increasing her natural apprehensions as a new girl.
“Think of it like a Nursery Wing, “ I said. “Here we’ll change your nappies for you, we’ll
feed you the bottle, we’ll cuddle you and comfort you, spoil you and treat you etc – all for
ONE YEAR. At the end of it we expect you to be confirmed, and when the Bishop lays his
hands on you, that’s it. You are from then a WORKER in the church of Jesus Christ, and
next year we will put you in a special programme to train you. But don’t worry about that for
the time being because you are now in the nursery wing. Let us spoil you and look after you.”
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And effectively we do just that! For a year using the “Abundant Life” (and also “Abundant
Light”) course, we will seek to build into this group, and every believer in it, the basic
Kingdom life style that will “ruin” them for the kingdom of darkness and for the world
forever. (hence the “You’re fried” quip). We teach them the foundational aspects to the
faith that the Hebrew Christians seemed to be having trouble learning although they were
advanced (Hebrews 6:1-3). We like to see them:
 Born again
 Healed inside and out,
 Freed of all spiritual bondage,
 Filled with the Holy Spirit,
 Learning how to find their way around the Bible and feed daily from it,
 Praying through to God and learning how to get answers from Heaven,
 Praising God in all circumstances,
 Learning to face temptation and kick the devil off,
 Learning how to work in teams and
 To love all kinds of strange Christians and people they would not normally choose to
love.
We hope to produce Christians who won’t always be part of the problem but who will begin
to be part of God’s answer to the world.
I sometimes jokingly say to them, “Look, during this year we’ll heal your memories as
many times as you like. We’ll cast out all your demons again and again. We’ll answer all
your questions a thousand times, BUT ONLY FOR ONE YEAR! Take advantage while you
can.”
What I am obviously implying is that we expect this first year’s discipling to put into the
new believer a firm foundation that can later be built upon, and avoid the attention seeking
older Christian who still needs constant “ministry” sessions as they never got going in
ministering themselves to others ( the best cure for all personal ills!!). There are, of course,
exceptions. People wounded in the battle of ministry, though veterans, get brought back to
the hospital and are tenderly cared for until they recover.
What we are producing,
however, is an expectation that the “pew-filler” is really there to become a new worker for
Jesus. One year in the molly-coddling nursery wing of the church, then Confirmation, the
commissioning of the laity for ministry, and then the Programme of Growth and Ministry
(re-named the “MILITARY SERVICE” in our church) - a lay-training programme that
involves the believers in the task of disciple-making for the rest of their lives on earth.
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TRAINING FOR THE LAITY
After Confirmation our disciples need to become trained workers, For us it is a matter of
survival!
A Chilean bus driver deserves a medal….He drives in over-crowded smoggy traffic
conditions for a start. He is dogged by a very efficient Chilean police force who carry very
large pistols. He is also the bus treasurer, so needs to receive people’s money, returning the
exact change, which he takes out of a box placed beside his steering-wheel. He has to open
the box, put in the money without anyone dipping itchy fingers in whilst he occasionally
watches the road. He has a back door which he must open to let descending passengers out.
He needs to keep looking in a small mirror over his head to know when to open that back
door at the other end of the bus and when to close it to make sure no one gets on who should
not get on. All the while people shout “Come on, get ion with it! Get this cart moving. We
haven’t got all day!” He definitely deserves a medal………..
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The only other person who can muster up in me such sympathy is a Pastor of a local church some pastors at any rate. Those one-man-bands who are stretched way beyond their training,
gifting or call, having to deal with Sunday services, choirs, church budgets, difficult church
councils, difficult church people who expect him to attend their every whim and need, all the
while muttering rude things about him “getting us to heaven”. He would deserve a medal too
if he were doing what God expected of him. However, the New Testament picture of a
local church elder is, of course, not that of the one-man-band – instead more of a football
trainer.
When Chile’s Colo Colo won the Copa Liberyadores cup in 1991, they played brilliant
football. They went out on the field and used Yugoslav tactics because their trainer, Mirco
Yositch, is a Yugoslav by birth. But we rarely saw Mirco! He trained the team for the
hard work on the field. Ephesians 4:1-14 gives us a clear picture of the church as a body,
each member playing on the field, the leaders training them.
Yet, how often we have to agree that the description that most aptly fits the church is “God’s
frozen people”. God’s frozen assets, especially among the vast majority of lay people who
would never dream that theirs is to do anything more than come to church, be fed and
pastured and give an offering. Yet here is exactly where we see a great difference in
churches, usually in developing nations, that MOBILISE THE LAITY as their greatest work
force. These churches are veritable armies with generals at their head who move the army
on to victory.
The greatest challenge before the Western church is to break free from the traditional mould
that freezes the laity in a wrong “escapism” from ministry, and the clergy in a wrong
“expectation” of their solo ministries. Church life is too easily reduced to the rituals of a
religious club where the members simply prop up the status quo and enjoy the facilities.
The activity of the Spirit is quenched in order to keep the church “as we have always known
it”.
We have already seen how discipling one another can lead to a movement of evangelism
even in the first year of the new believer’s life. What next? How can we maintain that
momentum, that interest and enthusiasm, in the life of that church member so that he will
never stop moving for God? How can we mobilise the laity into continuous ministry and
evangelism, thus unfreezing God’s people and realizing the maximum potential for the
Kingdom?
Here there is much to be learnt from the newer churches of the Third World. On Saturday
mornings, for instance, all over Chile one can see the Pentecostal cyclists, entirely lay
evangelists, who go out to preach in towns and villages neighbouring their church - then
there are the vast crowds marching to church on Sundays.
The real value of the Sunday
march, I was told by a Pentecostal Bishop, is to “strengthen the believer so that he can
witness anywhere”. The church programme expects it, demands it and trains for it. THE
LAITY MUST BE MOBILISED TO DO THE MAJOR WORK OF MINISTRY.
But How???
One way is to plant a new church and ensure the laity never freezes over. The whole concept
of clergy and laity confuses for a start. I felt it was religious clutter to wear Anglican robes
in an infant church, thereby denying to the new members with my practice exactly what I
was so interested in them learning: that there is no New Testament concept of a “special”
man who is somehow mystically or magically separated from the congregation. We are all
“priests” and so why not minimize the difference?
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So we asked, “How should a congregation look if it is to be true to New Testament
principles?”
What should a simple church member be like in such a church? As we
thought and prayed we came up with an equation that we trusted God to work out for us. It
seemed that in the New Testament there were requirements for ALL – and requirements for
SOME.
A MOBILISED CHURCH seemed to require for ALL that:
 ALL keep growing into “the fullness of Christ”.
 ALL be taught the whole counsel of God.
 ALL be part of the only job that is never over until the Lord himself comes to release
us from it – that of making disciples.
 ALL share in some small-group community in the church
 ALL have a place of ministry in the local church.
ONLY SOME would need to be specialists:
 SOME should study theology and ministry at a higher level.
 SOME lead smaller groups
 SOME be part of leading the church and later plant new groups and churches.
So if this was the challenge ahead, how could we produce such a church? Certainly in
Santiago’s Barrio Alto we had a golden opportunity to raise up the churches we wanted,
Anglican churches with no inherited expectations other than the ones we chose to give
them……
Gradually we developed the PROGRAMME OF GROWTH AND MINISTRY, a six year lay
mobilising programme that seeks to bring the Bible College to the local church and train and
employ as many as possible of the congregation in a “jobs for all” scheme.
Once again, SEAN principles were around to help us. Essential to this task was the enabling
afforded us at the time by this new revolution in theological training taking place in Latin
America and the world – Theological Education by Extension (TEE). These brilliant
materials written for Anglican home consumption originally, were now meeting a tremendous
need all over the Christian denominations.:
 How to train up leaders and pastors without taking them out of their context, family
setting and jobs.
 How to bring the Bible college to them, in other words.
The SEAN Matthew course – or Compendium of Pastoral Theology, encapsulates main
teaching areas, doctrines, pastoral skills . Its Tutor Manuals enable competent tutors to run
the course in situ. When I saw them close up, their potential for lay mobilisation became
immediately clear to me. Although they had been used in Chile already, the idea developed
from this to work a programme into the local church, making use of this gift from God to
the church.
And so “PROGROMIN” became part of our church life at La Trinidad de las Condes.
When our people come back from their January and February holidays they are now used to
going immediately to look at the Church Notice Board where their names will appear on a
list.
We do not ask them to volunteer for this, they are simply called because the
NATURAL MODE for the laity is mobilisation. In our experience they feel happy that they
have been thought of and that the leaders of the church want them to grow in their faith so
much that they arrange programmes for their training. If they are freshly out of the
Beginners Group they remember the times they have been told that after the Bishop confirms
them they will be considered workers in the church and will therefore need training. So they
look to the board to find out in what class they are in, with whom and with what tutor. We
are open to complaints, suggestions, pleas for mercy, but after the Programme begins it will
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continue to function all year as laid down by the powers that be. World over we note that
study programmes of this nature function far better with institutional discipline.
The diagram bellows shows the programme.
The programme can be varied , but generally works as follows:
After the Beginners Group, newly confirmed members find themselves in the SEAN
Matthew 1 and 2 course, That means they will be studying their basic Christology, the
history and geography of Palestine , a basic outline of the life of Christ, how to face the
sects, occultism, learn some basic counselling, as well as study the texts of Matthew and
related Old Testament and New Testament passages.
They begin to feel quite expert and
so in their third year we place them directly into the ministry of EVANGELISM EXPLOSION
(EE). Again, a ministry designed for the mobilisation of the laity in the local church, EE has
proven ideal in our context to take out the students in visiting evangelism. They will learn the
never-to-be-forgotten conversational Gospel outline and gain useful insight into pastoral
visitation. During this course they thrill at the miracles they see God perform.
Year 4 will mean more study but with some ministry included. They will be required to lead
out the new EE into the fray during their first visits. So now they are studying and
ministering at the same time – the ideal balance. This experience will be useful to them for
the rest of their lives. They will also begin to use “The Bible Encounter Manual” for house
groups or the churches they may be starting up. A very useful tool, this manual enables
young leaders to plant small groups developing all the while and learning group-dynamic
skills.
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In their 5th year the students will be challenged to grow into further ministry. Sometimes
along other leadership ministries in the church. They may help lead a house group, or
become Tutors of a SEAN group, continue to help in Evangelism Explosion or begin to learn
other teaching ministries, for example alongside a Sunday School teacher or helping the
pastor in the Beginners’ Group. Most “marrieds” will become involved with “Marriage
Encounter”.
A final year in the Programme will see them complete the Compendium of Pastoral Theology
and be prepared for further ministry after their training.
It is expected that those who have completed their lay training become the future workers in
the church. Some will exercise pastoral gifts as they lead house groups. In time some of
these house groups can band together and form new churches. Others will show evangelistic
gifts and become involved in missions. Still others will be called by the church to exercise
their administrative gifts at local or regional level in the churches.
The advantages of such a programme are obvious. The members sense that the church is
going somewhere, people are being prepared for the work of God. Most of the laity go
through such a programme. We find that 60-70% of our members are inscribed and complete
their studies. Leaders that are trained this way are proved on the job. Their gifts become
apparent as they train and study, and they consequently can be moved into ministries that
they are most suited to. The most gifted and fruitful among them will later be called by the
church to go on to further training and become the kind of ordained ministers who are not
only academic in their orientation but know how to be practical and effective in the work of
God. Trained in the context of churches with a mobilised laity and Team Leadership,
they will hopefully further mobilise the laity in their own churches.
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PASTORAL TRAINING
Recently the challenge has gone one step further. Why not extend the PROGROMIN all the
way to ordination? We have therefore begun to plan for another level of training for those
committed and fruitful workers who could specialise and be called full-time into the
ministry. Why remove them from the local church context even at this stage? So we are
scheduling to begin the PROPASTA (Programme for Pastoral Training) next year, again
using SEAN tools. First the more advanced SEAN courses like “Pentateuch”, “Jeremiah –
the Prophet of Hope”, and “Hebrew – Learn as You Read” can be incorporated. But also the
new and exciting “TRAIN & MULTIPLY” programme developed in Honduras and
reformatted in collaboration with SEAN, affords a perfect tutorial type curriculum for the
development of each worker-trainee. A personal discipleship style of training develops the
worker on the job along a curriculum of church planting and building. Each student has his
or her Training Sheet which is covered gradually according to the training required for their
particular ministry. Again the basis is MULTIPLICATION.
CONCLUSION
So far so good. SEAN principles and tools have helped us grow and multiply at Las Condes
over these last ten years. How far will it all grow? We feel confident that little can stop the
growth if the main factors remain in place. Those of us who have watched the process
closely sense that central to everything is the proper use of the SEAN materials, written and
tailored down the years for just this purpose of multiplication.
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Appendix A
AN EXAMPLE PRAYER SHEET FOR EVANGELISM
Column headings can be increased/altered, the purpose being to set clear goals for answered
prayer
NAME
DATES
WHEN
PRAYERS
WERE
ANSWERED
SOCIAL FRIENDSHIP SPIRITUAL CAME TO DECISION
RESPONSE DEEPENS
HUNGER ENCOUNTER FOR
GROUP
CHRIST
Sasha & Lara
3.2.98
(White
5.6.99
(meal)
nights)
Sveta
10.7.00 24.7.00
(Office (trolley bus)
party)
Pavel
29.7.00
(YPF
drama)
5.7.99
(discussion
on metro)
10.8.99
JOIN
SEAN
GROUP
9.11.99 7.11.99
PTL !
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Appendix B
FRIENDSHIP EVANGELISM
RECOGNISE CHAIN OF EVANGELISM - COLD & WARM CONTACTS
1.
Social contact – friendship – spiritual hunger – invitations –
conversations – social events – spiritual interest - accept invitation decision for Christ – join church - discipleship
2.
HOW DID JESUS DO IT?
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JOHN 4: 5-26
COLD  WARM --> COMMITMENT
ATTITUDE : LOVE
HONESTY
HUMBLE ASSURANCE
RELIANCE ON THE HOLY SPIRIT
3.
YOUR
TESTIMONY
PRAYER
HOW CAN WE DO IT?


PRAYER


PRAYER


PRAYER


PRAYER


PRAYER


PRAYER


PRAYER


PRAYER

PRAYER
MAKING CONTACTS
MAKE FRIENDSHIPS
PRAYER SHEET
FOR
EVANGELISM
DEEPEN SOME FRIENDSHIPS
SPIRITUAL HUNGER
SPIRITUAL INTEREST / QUESTIONS / CONVERSATIONS
DATE FOR EVANGELISM –Leaflet -- DECISION
EVANGELISTIC ENCOUNTER GROUP – (DECISION)
DISCIPLESHIP