Imagine for a moment: You’re a full-time missionary who’s dedicated your life to seeing people far from God begin to love and follow Jesus. And not just a few people. You are praying for a movement—for the good news to spread from person to person with unstoppable momentum. A gospel movement like those you’ve heard about in the Middle East, where thousands of Muslims are following Christ. You’ve been working hard, praying, investing in your community, but the movement isn’t happening. In fact, you are starting to feel kind of stuck and a bit discouraged. What more could you do?
Many of our staff are consistently and creatively laying the groundwork for gospel movement around the world, and they’re always asking that question—what’s the next step they can take to see a gospel movement take off? And yes, sometimes they can feel a bit “stuck” in that groundwork stage of prayer and engaging their community.
Our team in Northern Colorado was asking that question last year. They had identified a key missional space in their local community—a truckstop called Johnson’s Corner. This truckstop is a hotspot for human trafficking. In fact, it’s in an area that has been identified as the 2nd most trafficked corridor in the United States. And that’s not all: there’s ongoing prostitution, and murders, suicides, and drug-deals have all taken place on site. There was a chapel once rumored to have been a hub of sex trafficking across from the truckstop. The ministry team, consisting of our Novo staff and a dedicated group from a local church, were able to restore and get permission to use it as a house of prayer. They began to pray over the truckstop faithfully. But when they tried to engage with people, no one would talk to them. They weren’t sure what to do next.
A Training to Create Ministry Momentum
When it comes to ministry momentum, Novo believes that collaboration and learning from others can make all the difference. So, with an aim to help unleash the possibility of gospel movements for teams like Northern Colorado, a few Novo leaders put their heads (and experiences) together to develop a training. They structured it around five key components that have been present in every sustainable gospel movement—two modules for each component. The pilot training of 5COM launched in the spring of 2021, and more than 50 Novo staff signed up, including the Northern Colorado team leader.
Catalyst #1: Tools and a Trajectory
The 5COM training gave participants tools and a trajectory for gospel movement, with specific steps laid out for each part of the journey. For some staff, breaking things down like this brought a new level of clarity on what goes into a gospel movement. It also helped them identify any gaps in their current ministry strategy. One tool that was particularly helpful in that regard was a stair step diagram showing the steps to movement in progression. Novo staff were encouraged to identify where they were at in the progression and work toward the next step. If a team was stuck at one particular step, the 5COM training gave them support to reach the next one.
“All the teams were practitioners of activating prayer, but many were stuck at how to translate that into ‘going’ and engaging with people and spaces,” one of the training facilitators, Bill, said. “We saw that get unstuck. And then there were a number of teams that were great at engaging culture, but were stuck at the next step— inviting people to discover Jesus.”
Catalyst #2: Listening for Direction
One of the things emphasized again and again was that all ministry starts from a place of abiding—deep dependence on Jesus and being led by his Spirit into those missional spaces. Staff were asked to spend time listening to Jesus, asking specific questions to get direction at each step. For example:
Which missional spaces did Jesus want them to focus on?
What were the needs of the people there?
Who were the people of peace in that place?
Which leaders in the Discovery Bible Study needed to be intentionally developed?
“Our 5COM missionaries embraced spending time listening to the Lord, getting clarity on assignments of where he’s saying to go,” the other facilitator, Lee, shared. “That produces courage, because it’s not something they feel they ought to do or have to do—it’s something that Jesus is leading them to do.” And Jesus knows the path to breakthrough better than any missionary ever could.
Catalyst #3: Learning Community
Another element of 5COM that led to greater courage and boldness was being part of a dynamic learning community. Being connected to people all over the world pursuing the same goal (gospel movements), and sharing success stories and challenges with one another was a source of continual encouragement and collaborative learning. This was especially true for people who hadn’t been part of organization-wide initiatives before. “You felt like you were a part of something God is doing all over the world,” said Lee, one of the training facilitators. It was so much bigger than just you and your ministry.
Catalyst #4: Tracking and Accountability Tools
Staff experimented with a new ministry tracking tool where they recorded ministry goals and results from 20 different areas related to gospel movement. Here’s just a few examples:
How many hours would they spend in listening prayer to discern what missional spaces God wanted them to go after?
How many hours would they spend developing relationships with pre-disciples?
How many people of peace who were hungry to know Jesus did they hope to identify?
Several staff said this gave them a new level of focus and awareness of how they spend their time. After setting targets, they mapped things out in their calendars. For some, the clarity of knowing exactly what they were going to pursue when they got up in the morning was a game changer.
Catalyst #5: Coaching
The training was definitely a success, but Bill and Lee said they saw even more fruit come from the optional coaching and ministry site visits that took place after the formal training. This personalized support was key in helping several teams identify hurdles and find new ideas for engaging culture and inviting people into discovering Jesus. “We saw a real acceleration in their ministries—what might have taken them years, they were able to figure out, and see breakthrough in a few months,” Bill said.
The Breakthrough
Our Northern Colorado team experienced that breakthrough. Throughout the course of that year they were able to effectively enter four new missional spaces, and made significant steps forward in their ministry at the Johnson’s Corner truckstop.
The 5COM participant, Joe, took his team-mates in the ministry—a group from a local church—through Novo’s Spiritual Authority Cohort material. It empowered them to pray with a different level of authority, as members of God’s royal priesthood. They began praying blessings over the truckstop, and praying that God would remove the strongholds of sin there. They also spent time listening for God’s voice, and were able to discern important things about the truckstop’s history and spiritual strongholds. As they practiced these forms of activating prayer, they experienced a significant breakthrough in the spiritual realm.
“5COM gave absolute clarity on how to move through the components and how to break through to the next level. It showed us the next step—the need to start engaging culture and developing relationships,” Joe said.
Now, when the team walked through the parking lot where a hundred trucks were parked and tried to talk with people, they were successful! Many people were open to receiving prayer. They got to know certain people by name, and began to pray for them every day. An employee they got to know at the truckstop cafe told them, “Your prayers are making a difference.” These days, instead of the team having to pursue people in the parking lot, people are starting to come over to the chapel to talk to them!
They recently heard God direct them to focus on family: “These people have been wounded in family, and they need to be healed in family. Love them like they’re your family.” So they’re planning to start hosting BBQs and other “family” events to intentionally love the people they’re getting to know and invite them deeper into relationships—with the team, and with each other.
And that’s just the story at the truckstop. In one of Joe’s other missional spaces—a police station—the police chief recently chose to be baptized and they’re running a DBS where several officers, attorneys, and dispatchers are learning about Jesus. You can hear Joe personally share the God stories behind these events in this short video:
The 5 Com training and follow-up coaching were so successful in triggering gospel movement breakthroughs that Novo has decided to re-develop it for a wider audience. The Missional Pathway is a seven module training covering the same material that anyone—missionary or not—can join, complete with learning communities and coaching. In fact, it’s been designed to equip everyday believers to become fruitful missional practitioners. A pilot group is going through The Movement Pathway right now, and it will be open to everyone later this year.
“We're excited about it,” Lee said, “because it will hopefully unleash an army of ordinary, everyday practitioners effectively taking the good news of Jesus to their missional spaces.” When believers from all walks of life get equipped, listen to Jesus, and live courageously for the sake of God’s Kingdom, the forward momentum of the good news will really be unstoppable.
What About You?
If you’re interested in participating in the Movement Pathway, you can learn more or register by clicking on this link: novo.org/movement-pathway. But you don’t have to wait until then to get started. As we described earlier, one of the foundational practices for effective mission is abiding prayer—that deep dependence on Jesus and allowing him to lead our Kingdom assignments. To help you jumpstart that process, here is a simple outline from 5COM you can take into your prayer space:
1. Spend a few moments quieting down and allowing your thoughts and emotions to be still.
2. Read Hebrews 12:1–2 and fix your eyes on Jesus.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3. Ask the Lord to speak to you and show you the faces and places of where he is calling you to join him. Be still and quiet. Pay attention to any images or names or pictures or words he brings to mind. As he does, write them down.
4. Ask the Lord to speak to you and show you any other Christ followers you need to invite to join you in living on mission. Jesus sent out the 72 in pairs in Luke 10. Write down any potential names that come to mind.
5. We listen to Jesus so we can clearly hear his voice and then simply obey. Get confirmation on the things that he spoke by sharing with Christ followers you trust and then jump into living on mission!
ABOUT THIS STORY
Bill Randall and his wife Jill are the global leaders of the Pioneering Initiatives teams within Novo, which they launched in 2016. These teams, currently situated in Western Europe and the US, are made up of Christ followers who are passionately committed to making more and better disciples of Jesus from among the harvest and advancing God’s Kingdom. They have three married children and six amazing grandchildren so far. Bill and Jill live in Boise, Idaho.
Lee Price serves on the Pioneering Initiatives lead team providing coaching and strategic leadership to teams in Western Europe and the United States. He and his wife Jana have lived as missionaries on the Western Slope of Colorado for more than 15 years. Lee loves to develop new disciples through micro churches and pour into emerging leaders. Lee and Jana have two kids.
Joe Schimmels and his wife Connie are team leaders in Northern Colorado with Pioneering Initiatives. The past 25 years of ministry has taught them that gospel movement is the best hope to reach the Western world. They labor to see movement and teach others to do the same. They have been married since 1993 and have three grown children: Andrew, Brooke, and Caleb.