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The Weightiness of Listening Prayer

Like we said in the last post, learning to increase our awareness of God with us and becoming more confident in hearing the Holy Spirit is a process. But as we grow in these things, we can be so confident in Him speaking to us that we can make weighty decisions based on what He is saying.

Last week I was talking to a worker on the field, who shared that as they were praying, they heard God tell them, “I want you to actually go apply for a visa to a country that has already rejected you.” And they knew that if they got rejected again they wouldn’t be able to get back in for the next 10 years. And they said, “OK God.” 

It’s a big risk! It’s gonna be a problem if they get rejected. But they get the visa! And the immigration officers tell them that they need to write down a local person’s name that is their host in the country. But if they write a local believer’s name on the visa, they might compromise the whole movement.

So they pray, and the whole team prays and listens and they all come up with the same name. And they call that woman, this local believer, and they say, “hey we were told to apply for a visa and they asked us to write down a name. Can we use your name?”

And she says, “Let me go ask the Lord.” She goes and listens and she says, “Yes, you can use my name. God told me to say yes.”

That’s weighty. Because that woman could end up in jail. Because you know what? Paul ends up in jail too. But God spoke – to that team, to that woman, and it’s OK because it’s on Him. And it doesn’t mean that because He responded that it’s going to be safe the whole way through. But if God is speaking to you, it means He is speaking to be with you and He will be with you the whole way through.

Ways to Practice Listening

So we already talked about the different ways that God can speak. When we are praying and receive thoughts, words, Scripture, emotions, images, memories, songs, etc., pay attention because it could be God speaking! Here’s some different practices you can try to increase in your listening prayer.

1. Finding a Place to Meet with God

One thing I’ve noticed, especially with Westerners, is that if we do silent prayer then it’s really easy for us to get distracted. Like your phone could buzz, you’re thinking about other stuff, there’s so much coming in. The world is coming in, your thoughts are coming in, and we’re not even very self aware in general. It’s almost like we don’t even know which ones are our own thoughts and which aren’t.

Here are some ideas about how to focus a little bit. This is what I did with my friend from the Middle East – I said, “what I want you to do first is to ask God for Him to show you a place to meet with Him.” This is a mental place – it could be a physical place God has shown you before, or maybe He hasn’t shown you it before.

It’s going to be a mental place that represents that you are entering into that space in your mind and you’re meeting with Jesus. So take a few minutes to ask God to show you a place to meet with you.

Ask Him for a place to meet with you and just listen. As you go into that spot, we know that God wants to meet with you. And He loves us and wants us to be focused to meet with Him, so that we can be present and encounter Him in our own mind.

I want you to remember that place. Anytime you’re in prayer, go back to that place He’s shown you. Even if I’m meeting with someone and I’m praying for them, I’ll go to that place and meet with Jesus and ask him, “what do you want me to say to them or pray for them?”

One fun thing for me is that when I meet with Jesus, I have a greeting that I do. Not everyone has these things but sometimes it’s helpful to hear someone else’s. After I connect with Jesus and we greet each other, we do an Egyptian-style hug. I learned it when I was on a trip to Egypt. It’s really neat! It’s changed from what I used to do before, which was more like a bro hug. But now it’s a little more intimate.

Sometimes he actually just grabs my shoulders and just looks at me for a bit, which means a lot to me. Then I usually bow and I’m going to receive either of two things. He gives me a ball which is the Holy Spirit, or a sword. Which is the Spirit of God and the Word of God. And I turn towards whoever I’m praying for, and I don’t try to think about what’s going to happen. Just start praying. And that’s my interaction with God.

Other people don’t have all those things, that’s just how God decided to communicate with me to let me know He’s giving something for that other person.

If you were just now listening and asked God for a place, it’s OK if that’s not what God gave you. It could even be that He wants it to just be everywhere for you and you don’t need that. Having that place is a good idea and helpful for some people, but doesn’t mean that is necessarily something for you. He has a relationship with you – so walk in confidence and oneness and boldness that Jesus loves you.

2. Soaking and Waiting

A lot of times when we are praying, we are asking God for something or interceding for someone. So we’re bringing our requests to the Lord, and that’s good – He tells us to do that.

But if you’re new to listening prayer, it can be rare for you to just come to God with no agenda and just wait and see what He wants to say. Soaking is just a term for sitting and taking in God’s presence and waiting for Him to speak. We are soaking in God’s presence like a sponge soaks in water.

First, get rid of any other distractions – put your phone on silent, go to a quiet space for prayer. If God gave you a place for you to meet in your mind, go and meet him in that place.

For some people, it can be helpful to put on some acoustic or mellow worship music, or even these compilations of ambient worship music specifically made for soaking prayer. This instrumental version is one of my favorites.

Get into a comfortable position, and just wait. Try to clear your mind of distractions. Sometimes holding your hands open as a posture of surrender and receiving can be helpful. To begin, you can just try 10 minutes, or go as long as you like. If the Lord brings to mind a verse, a person, a word, an emotion, an image, a vision, or anything that you might think is from Him, try to remember it or just quickly jot it down into a notebook.

After you get that initial thing from the Lord, feel free to ask follow up questions. “God, what do you want me to know about this? Is there someone I should share this with? Is there Scripture that goes along with this?”

Soaking can be a good way for us to get used to entering into God’s presence. The more we do it and the more we’re used to noticing when God speaks, the quicker and more confident we’ll become as we grow.

For soaking, it’s best to go in with no agenda and just wait for God’s presence. But as you learn what it feels like when He is drawing near and speaking, you can ask questions and get answers from Him quicker as well. Questions can be as simple as, “God what do you want me to do in this situation?”

But also ask Him questions like, “God, how do you see me? God, what hurts your heart right now? What are you really proud of right now?”

In relationship, don’t just ask for things that you need! We want to know God more!

3. Folding Paper Activity

I think one of the best things that comes out of growing in listening prayer is hearing what the Lord wants to communicate for someone else when you’re praying for them.

One of the things we do is to have a group of 3-4 and take turns all praying for one person. When we do group prayer and pray for a person, it’s usually to encourage them. And it’s things that God wants to say to them about their situation now, who they are. And when you have 3 or 4 people doing that, it’s fun because you can be affirmed in your ability to listen when there is a similar theme with someone else because we all have the same Holy Spirit!

But if you’re not confident yet in listening to the Spirit and praying that over someone, one of the activities you can do to grow in listening for a person is the Folding Paper Activity. You start by writing a name on the top of a piece of paper and we fold it back so nobody can see it. Because sometimes when you know someone, you start projecting what you want to pray into them. But you fold it over so you can’t see the name, and you pass it out randomly. You don’t know the name on the paper you have but you start listening to God for about 5 minutes and write down whatever you get. Then fold it over so that your words are covered and everyone passes it to the person on their right and listen again.

After you’ve gone enough times that everyone in the group has prayed over one person’s paper (e.g. 6 times if you have a group of 6), unfold the top to see the name and hand the paper back to that person. After everyone has had a chance to read through the words, you can let people share with the group something that stood out to them, that encouraged them, or a theme that they noticed.

And yes, you will have listened for yourself on your own paper without knowing it. Sometimes that’s the most interesting one, because the Lord speaks something to you and you don’t know who it’s for, but it ends up being a word for you! We had one person say – “I feel like I heard this encouragement when I was praying and wrote it down, not knowing it was my piece of paper. I have a hard time believing these words for myself but when hearing it from God for someone else I believed it! So I should believe it for myself as well!”

It would get to a place in our group that when I was handed the piece of paper and couldn’t see the name, I would start listening and God would show me the same thing about that person and I would know who it is. He showed Ellie flying, or he showed Stephanie in a garden, or he would always say about Julian, ‘this is my friend.’

It’s really affirming to get that because I’m hearing God! It’s not that I’m the one giving them some Word but God is. Because I want to be like Philip when he gets close to the Ethiopian eunuch, recognizing God’s voice and having the boldness to say it. So you’re building that when you practice in a group and it’s a safe place to build that.

In general for an activity like this or as you’re learning how to listen for other people, it’s better to keep things more towards encouragement than towards exhorting or rebuking. If you have a strong sense that a word of exhortation is from the Lord, you might make a note of it and bring it up to a person privately, or to your leader and ask them to give their discernment about if and how to share it.

How Do I Know If It’s God Speaking?

On a trip to the Middle East, we were trying to meet new people on campus and talked about listening to God with a Muslim girl. She asked, “How do I know it’s from God?” That’s a great question – many times that can be our biggest fear when it comes to listening prayer. How do we know it’s from God? This is where discernment comes in. 

• Test the spirits: 1 John 4:1 tells us to “not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” John goes on to give us a clear parameter in verses 2 and 3. “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” In discerning listening prayer, John highlights that things that affirm the Lordship of Jesus are from the Spirit. Anything that disagrees with that is not from God.

• Consistent with Scripture: I’ll reemphasize that these posts are not trying to change anyone’s theology. But I think any theological background would agree that whatever we receive through listening prayer should be consistent with Scripture. If you hear anything that explicitly contradicts Scripture, that should be disregarded. Additionally, even if something you hear is consistent with Scripture, no word that we get from listening should be elevated on the same level as or above Scripture. Many times, if you hear something in listening prayer, we’d encourage people to find 2 or 3 verses that support that word or at least speak on that topic, and interpret the word they hear together with Scripture.

• Fruit of the Spirit: Another passage that comes to mind when discerning if the Spirit is speaking is Galatians 5. Paul outlines desires of the flesh that are against the Spirit, and fruits of the Spirit that are borne out of walking with the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22). Does this word I’m hearing from the Spirit produce peace or dissension? Is it a gentle word or a harsh word? Is my motivation to share this out of love or out of being judgemental?

• Against Shame, Guilt, and Fear: In the opposite direction, if a word in listening prayer produces shame, guilt, or fear, we can be confident it’s not from the Lord. 2 Timothy 1:7 tells us that “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self control.” Shame, guilt, and fear keep us in a cycle of being afraid of God or against God. God speaks through the Spirit to draw us nearer to him. That is not to say that the Holy Spirit won’t convict of sin (John 16:8), and there may be things that you hear in prayer that lead to genuine conviction of sin and a desire for repentance. But that is different from guilt, shame, and fear.

• Encouraging towards Others: As a general rule, if you’re newer to listening prayer, we’d again say a good guideline is to keep towards things that are encouraging and uplifting. 1 Corinthians 14:3 says, “the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.” If there’s words that you think might be for someone towards exhortation, write it down, pray about it and check it, run it by other community or leaders, and plan to share it carefully. With encouragement, it’s much easier and safer to go ahead and share it for someone else’s edification!

• Affirmed in Community: Paul in Ephesians 4:4 tells us that we have one Spirit – meaning that when we hear things in listening prayer, hopefully the Spirit is saying those same things to others as well! This is not to say that every time you do listening prayer in a group, everyone will agree. But if there is disagreement, or other people hear what you share and there isn’t peace, it’s worth figuring out what exactly is happening underneath. That’s why we encourage people to practice listening prayer in a safe space with trusted community. When we start to do listening prayer exclusively on our own, and tell other people that “God told me this” and won’t take feedback or disagreement from community, we run the risk of falling into pride.
• Glorifying God and Advancing His Kingdom: Lastly, words from God will bring glory to God and help to advance His Kingdom. So much of the book of Acts contains examples of the disciples hearing from the Lord in prayer and being filled with boldness to share the gospel even in the midst of persecution. The Lord will bring to mind people and places that you are meant to show love to and share the gospel with!

Conclusion

We (Steven and Jenn) want to thank Steve Dekkers so much for contributing his wisdom and insight in these posts on listening prayer! We hope these guidelines and activities will be helpful to you as you continue learning how to hear from the Spirit.

Lastly, we wanted to leave you all with one more exhortation and encouragement.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul leaves some final thoughts with the church in Thessalonica, including to pray without ceasing. In verse 20, he gives a short but direct command: “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.”

Some might think, “I don’t need listening prayer since I have the Bible.” But so many of the examples in the Bible show a rich, two-way communication between God and His people. And Paul explicitly tells us to not quench the Spirit by throwing away anything that might come from prophecy or listening. It comes with the caution to test those prophecies and hold fast to what is good. But we are commanded to not quench what the Spirit is trying to tell us. Listening prayer is one of those ways that the Lord might be trying to speak with you, in order to increase the intimacy of your relationship with Him! Will you respond to Him?

And our encouragement is this – when you begin to familiarize yourself with His voice, your abiding and fruitfulness will surely increase! Steve has mentioned a few examples of why it’s so important to learn to hear God’s voice as workers on the field out of necessity. But listening prayer can also become one of your most powerful tools to see the gospel multiply among the unreached.

Some of our friends have helped to catalyze one of the biggest movements in the world with hundreds of thousands of churches planted, and their case study is called the Listening movement. One of their main tools when hitting roadblocks or setting goals is simply, with their partners, to stop, ask the Lord, and listen.

“Prayer is the work. Listening is an important part of prayer. There have been so many changes along the way and so many questions: What’s next? Should we work with this person? What should we train? Is this a dead end? We’ve had so many questions and we’ve learned to sit and wait for God’s answer. Usually he gives the expat team and our national partners the same answers, and we don’t even know it until our next biweekly meeting.”

– Listening Movement Leader

It’s a humbling reminder to us that the work belongs completely to the Lord. He knows our steps, and He is the one who has prepared good works for us to step into. How limited are we if we aren’t listening to what He wants for us, in every moment of every day? And if we would stop and humble ourselves to hear from Him, how much more fruitful and abiding could we become?

Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something. Prayer is to enter into that activity…Convert your thoughts into prayer. As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer. The difference is not that prayer is thinking about other things, but that prayer is thinking in dialogue…a conversation with God.

– Henri Nouwen

Guest Contributor: Steve Dekkers

For cross-cultural workers, the sentence “I don’t know what to do!” can come up every hour! Away from familiar resources, cultural understandings, and support structures, serving in ministry overseas is a challenge and an opportunity to depend on God. Learning to hear God’s voice is a critical component for thriving and in pioneering ministry. However, many of us feel under-experienced or confused with the topic of listening prayer.

Our guest contributor Steve Dekkers is a missions mobilizer and trainer based in Texas, who is someone we (Steven and Jenn) have greatly benefitted from in learning about prayer and the Holy Spirit. These posts are adapted from a training that Steve has given on listening prayer that is our favorite!

These posts on listening prayer will provide some biblical foundations around the topic of listening prayer, give some different activities to engage in listening, and help you know how to discern God’s voice in your listening.

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Disclaimers

First, I want to start with a disclaimer that there are many different theologies, church backgrounds, and personal experiences. Listening prayer might be a topic that is familiar for some or can range from confusing to unsettling for others. This post is simply an introduction, so my encouragement is to keep pressing in and learning and following up as the Lord leads. Curiosity about this topic has helped drive many people to learn more about listening prayer, and that’s been my journey as well.

This training isn’t meant to try to change your theology. I’ll try to share as much as I can about where I see this in Scripture, but I also acknowledge that a lot of peoples’ perspectives about listening prayer are heavily influenced by their own personal experience, mine included.

If you read this and don’t agree with what is shared, that is OK! My suggestion is to read this with an open mind and allow the Lord to search your heart and see if there’s anything here that will be beneficial to your relationship with Him. Seek out others that practice listening prayer and ask them questions.

Secondly, for those that want to learn more about listening prayer and how God speaks, this is a process. I want to make it very, very safe, especially if you try some of these activities and don’t have a strong sense that you’re hearing anything or get something specific! 

It’s completely safe and OK to feel like you didn’t hear something. It takes a lot of faith and boldness to try and listen. But it also takes boldness to say, I didn’t get something even though it kind of feels like you’re supposed to. There’s no shame there because you’ve tried and that’s OK.

Also, it might not be your role for a certain time. Your role might be to receive from someone else that has heard something and shares it with you. That doesn’t mean you don’t have God or you’re not saved. It actually means that God is probably communicating to you in lots of other ways. In listening prayer, it’s OK not to get something.

In our training group where we practice listening prayer, we had a guy named Joe who embraced that. He wasn’t resistant to listening prayer, but He would listen and a lot of times just think of Scripture. And that is also from the Lord!

It’s important to continue seeking and engaging, preferably in a safe place with your community. As you pursue God in this process, I’m confident you will grow in hearing His voice!

The God of the Bible is a God who Speaks

The God of the Bible is a God who speaks.

Before we talk about how to engage in listening prayer, this is something we need to be confident in from Scripture. In Genesis 1, God introduces Himself to all the world as the God who speaks creation into existence. And He continues speaking in all of the pages of the Bible to the very end.

God is a communicating God. There’s some examples like Esther and Ruth where they are just trying to be obedient in the situations they are in and see God at work through that. But there are even more examples like Jonah, Moses, Samuel, David, Philip, Paul, Peter, and many more where they communicate with God pretty directly, through prayer and through the word of the Lord coming through other people. We’ll give a few examples here that include different ways that God communicated to His people.

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

In Acts 8, we see God communicating with Philip to evangelize to the Ethiopian eunuch. In verse 26, “an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’” Philip doesn’t even know the purpose of this instruction, he just hears from an angel messenger to go and he obeys.

When he gets to that area on the road to Gaza where the Ethiopian eunuch is traveling, “the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over and join this chariot.’ So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’”

Philip’s there by the side of the road, and sees the Ethiopian eunuch who he knows is royalty. Philip hears the Spirit tell him to go near the chariot, and he runs towards it! From anyone’s point of view, Philip looks like a robber. There’s no reason for him to run towards a chariot!

But Philip obeys and RUNS immediately upon hearing the Spirit’s voice. He doesn’t say, “What’s that voice? Was that God? I don’t know if I’ve heard God speak before.” Philips hears and runs to the chariot. He shares the gospel with the eunuch and baptizes him immediately by the side of the road. Church tradition says that this Ethiopian eunuch may have been one of the first to bring the gospel into Africa.

When we are in an unreached place and out on the road and the Spirit tells us to go towards a person that He has prepared to hear the gospel, will we RUN forward in obedience? Will we be able to recognize His voice?

Samuel

We see another example of God communicating clearly with Samuel. At this time, they already have the Torah from Moses. But the early Jews knew that they were supposed to continue to receive the word of the Lord – not to just get the Torah and be done. After Moses, God spoke through prophets to the people of Israel. But 1 Samuel 3:1 says “the word of the Lord was rare in those days, there was no frequent vision,” which must have been really concerning.

Eli is the priest and Samuel is serving as a boy. In this story, the Lord calls out to Samuel but Samuel gets confused and thinks it is Eli calling him. Eli perceives that it’s God calling out to Samuel and encourages him to answer, “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”

God gives Samuel a prophecy about Israel. God begins communicating with Samuel directly and “Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground… and the word of Samuel came to all Israel.”

Even when it feels like we haven’t heard God’s voice for a long time, or maybe if we feel like we have never heard God’s voice, He can still start communicating with us at any moment! Can we posture our hearts like Samuel to say – “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”

David

Next you have David. Saul is a king that prophesied a few times but he has Samuel as his main connection to hearing the Lord. But David actually starts to operate as a prophet, a priest, and a king!

9 times in 1^st and 2^nd Samuel it says that David inquires of the LORD. When David inquires, he is specific, and he is obedient. He asks specifically of God, what do you want me to do? Should we go here? Will we have victory? He waits for God’s response and obeys.

The best example of this is in 1 Samuel 30, where David and his men go to battle but return to their city to see that the Amalekites have raided their city and kidnapped all the women and children. David and his men “wept until they had no more strength to weep” and “the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord” (1 Samuel 30:4, 6).

This is probably one of the hardest points in David’s leadership. But he does something unbelievable here, with his people ready to stone him. 

He inquires of the Lord. 

Should I pursue, will I overtake them? And God says yes and that he will rescue them.

What else is David supposed to do here except pursue?! The people would’ve certainly stoned him. But David doesn’t do what is obvious, doesn’t do what his followers expect, doesn’t do what he thinks is right – he obeys the Lord after he inquires of the Lord. David is a man after God’s own heart, and he knows God’s heart by communicating with Him.

Cornelius and Peter

In the book of Acts, we see some types of communication from God that are more apostolic in nature. And what I mean by that is the Holy Spirit is guiding the Apostles and disciples to bring the gospel to places it has never gone, because the church is just beginning and spreading.

But later in the Epistles you see words that are more about sanctification in nature. These words are bringing us to look more like Christ, focusing on our union with Christ and oneness with Him.

In Acts 10, we also see a few different ways that God communicates. Cornelius gets a message from an angel to find Peter and tells him exactly where to find him. So he sends three men to find Peter.

At the same time, Peter goes into a trance while he’s really hungry and praying. So that’s maybe how you know you’re doing fasting and prayer well – you’re so hungry that you go into a trance and have a vision!

Peter gets a vision three times about supposedly unclean animals that God says that he can kill and eat. But God says it’s OK. And as Peter is thinking about this vision, the three men are at the gate, and the Holy Spirit tells Peter, “Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.”

So there’s three types of communication just in this short passage – the angel giving a message to Cornelius, Peter receiving the vision from God, and the Holy Spirit literally saying to Peter what he’s supposed to do, to go with the three men. And the rest of the book of Acts is completely transformed by this moment because it opens the door for Gentiles to come into the Kingdom.

Ways that God Speaks

Now we’ve seen several different people in different times hear from God in different ways – visions, angels, prayer, hearing the Spirit’s voice directly, and through prophets and leaders.

In John 10, Jesus says that the sheep hear the Shepherd’s voice and “the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.”

The sheep know the Shepherd’s voice.

So that’s just my word of encouragement to you as you begin to hear God speak. You know your Shepherd’s voice. God is already communicating with you!

The sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

John 10:4

This was my “ah-ha” moment as someone taught me about listening prayer. When you’re praying and certain thoughts, words, Scripture passages, images, songs, visions, impressions, and even emotions enter your mind and heart, that is the Holy Spirit speaking! It really is!

Sometimes when the Spirit is speaking, it might be accompanied by certain emotions like peace or love or joy, or even physical expressions like warmth, waves of tingling moving down your body, goosebumps, or feelings of electricity.

As you hear those things, write them down even if it feels like it’s from left field. Obviously the random distracting thoughts like “what am I going to eat for lunch” or “what’s the score of the game” are probably just your own mind. In part 2 we will talk about a way to quiet your mind to remove distractions and find a place to meet Jesus and hear from him. We’ll also address the more difficult part in discerning whether some things you hear are from your own mind or are from God. 

But I want to help you grow to be confident in knowing that it was God who spoke. The more you know and recognize God’s voice, the more you’re going to stand on that rock until He gives you a new word, and continues to communicate with you more and more.

God Speaks to Be With Us

In many of these biblical examples, there’s a lot of instruction from God about what people should do. And that can be a strong motivation for cross-cultural workers as well when they are seeking God’s voice through Scripture and prayer – what am I supposed to do?

It can be really great when God tells you to go do something, and you go do it and it feels like it was exactly right. But a lot of what God tells you in listening prayer will be about your identity because he wants you to be loved and to be in him. He tells you about identity so you can be one with him.

If we read and study Scripture to increase our knowledge but miss out on loving Jesus more, we have missed the point. Jesus says to the Jews in John 5 that “you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

In a similar way, if our only motivation to increase in listening prayer is to receive guidance in what to do or receive just what we need but not to enter into deeper relationship with Jesus, we may also be missing the point.

Throughout his time with the disciples, there is plenty of instruction from Jesus to the disciples about what they are supposed to do. But in Jesus’ final words to the disciples, he says that he no longer calls them servants but friends. In his final prayer for the disciples in John 17, he prays for our unity, our joy, our sanctification, our perseverance, and ultimately that we would know Jesus in the Father. “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

It was a journey for the disciples to grow in their relationship with Jesus, and it’s a journey for each of us to grow in further maturity in our relationship with Jesus and that’s OK. Our prayer lives start with being like toddlers – “Look at me!” And we’re the ones talking and talking and talking at Jesus. Then it goes to being like a teenager believer, who is like, “I need this, I need that.” Eventually we get to the point of more maturity where we are experiencing oneness with Jesus. Where we’re in tune with him, we’re interacting and communicating with him. We don’t only ask for things or even ask what we’re supposed to do, but we ask him about his heart, about his desires, about what he wants us to know about ourselves.

For sure, it pleases God when we hear and obey his voice. But let our motivations to hear his voice mirror his heart, “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Questions for Reflection

1. What hesitations or doubts do you have about listening prayer? Offer those to God and ask Him to speak to you.
2. What are other stories in the Bible where God communicates? Do you believe He could communicate with you in those ways? Why or why not?
3. Have you ever felt like the Holy Spirit was speaking? What method did it come by (image, emotion, words)? What happened after hearing from God?
4. What is your motivation for increasing in listening prayer? Ask God to help you align your heart to His in seeking His voice.

Read Listening Prayer (Part 2).

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Guest Contributor: Jorge Gonzalez

In our last post, we learned from John C. about what Barnabas did in order to help us understand why it’s strategic and critically important to play a Barnabas role in the Great Commission today.

For this post, we have another guest writer! Jorge is a mobilization leader based in Spain, whose passion is to see the Spanish-speaking church engaged in multiplying disciples among the unreached. Jorge will bring us through who Barnabas was in Scripture, mainly looking at his character as an example to imitate as we seek to be encouragers to the National Apostolic Visionary Pauls that will start movements.

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Hello, my name is Jorge Gonzalez, I’m honored to help us learn about who Barnabas was from Scripture!

When I was a kid, I remember me and my friend trying to jump over a wall. The only way to do it was for one of us to put our hands together and boost the other over the wall. One person got to go up high over the wall while the other was the support who would get stepped on trying to help his friend! In soccer, everybody knows who scores the goal, but the goal scorer needs someone to pass the ball to them in order to score.

Usually, those that give the pass or boost others over the wall are forgotten or unmentioned, but they are so needed! That’s why we are going to be looking at Barnabas. As the writer of Hebrews encourages us:

^“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”

Hebrews 13:7

We want to consider the outcome of Barnabas’ way of life and imitate his faith. What was his outcome? God used Barnabas to initiate and advocate for two key leaders in the New Testament – Paul and John Mark. As far as we know, Barnabas wrote none of the New Testament. But the men he developed wrote half of it: Paul wrote 13 of the epistles of the New Testament and Mark wrote one of our four gospels. And much of the first century church was established through Paul. We want to examine who Barnabas was because we want to imitate him as he imitated Christ, and because we want to develop and encourage great leaders like Paul and useful laborers like Mark. So together, we’ll look at different aspects of Barnabas’ character that we see from Scripture.

Encourager

The first time we see Barnabas mentioned is in Acts 4:

“Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.”

Acts 4:36-37

His name was actually Joseph but the apostles saw a gift so strong in him that they gave him a new name. Barnabas was so full of the Spirit of God they called him Son of Encouragement. He boosted others over the wall, he advocated, he comforted others. Usually they give you nicknames for something bad, or something funny, like sons of thunder, but imagine being so filled with God and so gifted at encouraging that the apostles named you the encourager!

Generous

Barnabas sold a field and brought money and laid it at the apostles’ feet. Many were giving gifts because they loved each other and wanted to help the needs of the community, but Luke particularly uses the example of Barnabas as an example of a generous man. Barnabas was free from the love of money because his trust was not in the money for his security but in God, and he was free to give whatever was necessary.

Took Risks

“And when he [Saul] had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.”

Acts 9:26-28

Saul was a persecutor – imagine a well-known ISIS leader killing Christians, and now he says he is a Christian. Many would normally think this guy could be working as a spy to continue persecuting Christians. Luke said all were afraid of him. But Barnabas saw his potential, saw God’s transformation in him, and he stood up for this Saul. He took him and brought him to the apostles and gave his testimony. We rarely want to risk our reputation for others, but Barnabas reflects Jesus and the Holy Spirit in how they advocate for us with the Father. Barnabas, full of the Spirit of Christ, advocates for a brother in Saul that others would not. He had the courage to stick out his neck and take risks for potential leaders that God wanted to use!

Loved the Church – Rejoiced and Exhorted

“The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.”

Acts 11:22-26

After persecution caused Christians to scatter all over, normal believers went to Antioch and preached the gospel and one of the first Gentile churches was formed. So the church in Jerusalem wants to send someone trustworthy to see what God was doing and they send Barnabas. He loved the church – was obedient to be sent by the church in Jerusalem, see what God was doing in the church in Antioch, and stayed to rejoice and exhort the believers in Antioch towards faithfulness and purpose. From Barnabas’ actions, “a great many people were added to the Lord!” And Barnabas intentionally invites Saul into what God is doing in Antioch, modeling and partnering with Saul in fruitful disciple-making.

A Good Man – Full of the Holy Spirit and Faith

Luke makes it clear that all of this was because he was full of the Spirit and faith. He was a man that abided in Christ, delighted in Him. He put his faith in God, meditated on his Word, and was obedient to the Spirit.

Humble Advocate – Put Others Above Himself

We already saw that Barnabas took a personal risk in advocating for Saul. And Barnabas also had the Philippians 2 humility of Christ. He saw that Saul was the more gifted speaker and more dynamic leader than him, and wanted to empower Saul to be used by God. Normally, we think of leaders as getting others to follow and help them, but are we willing like Barnabas was to be the one boosting people over the wall? Even if they might surpass us and take our “position,” will we be willing to serve others as if they were better than ourselves?

In Acts 13, Luke has referred to Barnabas and Saul together six times, with Barnabas as the first name listed and given priority. But in Acts 13:13, everything changes!

“Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem.”

Here, Barnabas is not even mentioned, but Luke now calls them “Paul and his companions” and the narrative shifts to Paul as the primary character. Barnabas took a risk to humbly advocate for Paul and see his gifts as even higher than his own. It makes me want to imitate Barnabas because he imitated the humility of Christ like in Philippians 2! 

Faithfully and Boldly Proclaimed the Gospel, Made Disciples, Planted Churches, and Developed Leaders

“And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.”

Acts 13:46-49

“When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.”

Acts 14:23-23

Many times, when we talk about Being Barnabas in starting church planting movements, people think that means we won’t be a part of sharing the gospel or making disciples. But if we are really imitating Barnabas, we see that with Paul, Barnabas boldly proclaimed the gospel, made disciples, planted churches, and raised up leaders. And like we would expect, “he strengthened the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith.” Barnabas was an advocate and supporter of Paul, but he was also an apostle that made disciples!

Joyfully Endured Persecution

“But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 13:50-52

We see more of Barnabas’ character in that he was persevering in the face of persecution, with the Holy Spirit filling Paul and Barnabas with joy and his own presence.

Gives Second Chances – Sees the Potential in Leaders

“And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.”

Acts 15:36-40

Just as he did with Saul, Barnabas repeats the process of advocating for John Mark. Barnabas was such an encourager and advocate that he risked his own reputation and even his relationship with Paul for John Mark. In this occasion, we see Barnabas as someone who gives second chances. Even though Mark had previously abandoned Paul and Barnabas, Barnabas gave Mark another chance to go on mission and to develop him in the process. We see the result several years later when Paul writes to Timothy, “ Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.”

Barnabas was patient, saw the potential even in those that had previously failed, and gave a second chance to John Mark and encouraged him in his leadership. And God uses Mark not only to be a fruitful laborer in Paul’s ministry, but also in having a huge impact by writing the gospel of Mark.

Barnabas Was Not Perfect

Even though we see so many great and godly characteristics in Barnabas, we want to be objective and realize that he wasn’t perfect. In Galatians 2, Paul talks about the separation between Gentiles and Jews and that Barnabas also fell into sin. 

“For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.”

Galatians 2:12-13

Barnabas also fell into the sin of wanting to please people more than God. He was not perfect, and even though there are many things to learn from Barnabas’ example, we don’t want to fall into the temptation of idolizing a biblical character. 

Barnabas had flaws like any of us – but it encourages me that even with these flaws, what made Barnabas have a powerful impact on the Kingdom was that the Spirit of God was in him. Barnabas was not perfect – but still God used him. 

We want to imitate Barnabas in being full of the Spirit, full of faith, a humble advocate, and an empowering encourager. Let us be like Barnabas in reflecting Christ – becoming less so others can become more. And let us be Barnabas to find, advocate, take risks, and launch many more Pauls that will fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of Christ through multiplying church planting movements.

Guest Contributor: John C.*

In this post, one of our friends and co-workers will answer the question – ‘Why Be Barnabas?’ through Barnabas’ example in Scripture and his personal experience.

We are defining ‘Be Barnabas’ as the role of the outsider in finding, equipping, and empowering a national apostolic visionary (NAV) who is a cultural insider to catalyze movements. Additionally, the vast majority of movements have been started by these near culture or cultural insider NAVs that receive coaching and training from outsiders.

John C. is a team leader in Southeast Asia pursuing movements among the unreached and is passionate about his team’s role of Being Barnabas to national partners in their ministry to multiply.

*name changed for security reasons

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As goers pursuing movements, we often look at Acts 13, with Antioch as Paul’s sending base, and the point in the Acts narrative where the Gospel begins to explode across Asia and Europe.

We want to see something similar in this generation and it’s helpful to not just see what happened, but where it came from. So to that end, let’s look together at the community in Antioch before Acts 13, and see what we can learn from one person in particular, Barnabas.

So we’re going to focus on just a few observations, and ask: What can we learn from Barnabas and his community about helping others reach the unreached around them?

Let’s look at Acts 11:22-26.

The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.

Acts 11:22-26

Sent from the Church to the Church

The first thing we see in verse 22: Barnabas was sent. Just like many of those reading, Barnabas was a missionary. But there are so many different roles and we need to ask ourselves, what’s our specific role? What is God’s calling for me in his work?

Barnabas was sent, from the church, to the church! Barnabas didn’t find out about the work by himself, but the news was delivered to the church in Jerusalem, who decided for Barnabas to go to do something for the believers in Antioch. What was his purpose?

Rejoice to Witness the Grace of God

What was Barnabas’ purpose in being sent to Antioch? In verse 23, ‘when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord.’

When my wife and I finished multiple years of language school, we were feeling great: we could now speak the local language like a 6-year old, and so it was decided we should start taking on more ministry responsibility. One of the first things we did was join a small group at our partner church. It was mostly college students, and the leader of the small group had a previous relationship with some of our teammates. Our task was to help her to help the small group make disciples. Easy peasy!

Our first week at the small group went like this: first, we try for 10 minutes to get a taxi during rush hour traffic. I have to fumble through the name of the college where the small group meets and anxiously hope the driver knows where that is. We sit in traffic for an hour to go 3 miles. We are off to a GREAT start. But we finally make it! And on time! 

Buuuuuut, everyone is 20–30 minutes late. We sit waiting in a badminton court for someone to arrive and open the shipping container where the group meets. Finally, people start trickling in and we have to do the whole small talk thing, but again, language:

“My name is John.”

“Do you like food?”

That’s about all I can say at that point – we’re totally winning people over left and right. Then, and this next part is kind of a blur, we played icebreaker games for an hour, sang worship songs for an hour, prayed in tongues for a few minutes, and someone read a short Bible devotional out loud. Then we all hung out eating snacks for another half hour. I was livid. What the heck were we even DOING?! I thought, NONE of this would lead to movement.

When Barnabas arrives in Antioch, he sees the grace of God and what does he do? He REJOICES. Antioch wasn’t perfect. Later on, we read about controversy between the Jewish-Background Believers and the Gentiles that require the apostles’ attention to resolve. They for sure had issues. Yet, Barnabas rejoices. He recognizes the church for what it is: the grace of God.

Where our team lives, there are only 800 believers for a population of 2.5 million Muslims. You’d have to talk to 3,125 people before meeting someone who could tell you about Jesus.

And there I was, sitting with a dozen college students who know Jesus, know the culture, know the language, have the Spirit, have the Scriptures, are loving each other, and I’m angry. Because it’s not done the way I think it should be done. Because it’s not “reproducible”, “missional”, or whatever.

If you’ve read all the CPM/DMM books, or have a seminary degree, or whatever else – none of that matters if you are unable to rejoice at the sight of the church, even if it doesn’t look the way you think it should.

Yes, in all churches, there are valid criticisms and things to grieve that are not right, but the repentance we move towards comes from a salvation that erupts into JOY. So, if our interactions with the church, wherever your local context is, are marked more by criticism than by joy, then we have to ask ourselves whether we desire to see the grace of God, or the law of missions methodology.

Our goal is to empower believers in the local church to catalyze movements, but perhaps the first thing that gets in the way of us even entering into relationships with local believers is our attitude about them and our opinions about what the local church should or should not be doing.

You are definitely going to run into situations that don’t line up with what your tradition or training holds as obedience to the Scriptures, and you’ll have to wrestle with that. I have no solutions for you, only an exhortation to be like Barnabas and rejoice at the sight of God’s grace.

The Most Effective Disciple-Makers Among the Unreached

If you look at the largest unengaged, unreached people groups on Joshua Project, there are 33 UUPGs with more than 10 million people. Of the 33 largest UUPGs, all but 2 have a numerous, local church in the same country. That means for the largest UUPGs, almost all of them have tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of believers right next door. With the growth of the Church in the global South, and with globalization bringing people from everywhere to everywhere, chances are that there are national or near culture believers somewhere in proximity of the unreached that we’re trying to see reached with the gospel.

Using my country as an example, a worker did a huge study in 2008 looking at how churches grew in our country. Working through loads of statistical and survey data gathered by in-person visits to 80% of the churches in the country, he uncovered some interesting observations:

• Statistically, no group is more receptive to the gospel than others.
• A local person is 700 times more likely to follow Jesus if they have a Christian relative.
• And someone living in a village with a church is 100 times more likely to become a Christian.

Furthermore, 70% of all believers said that the main influence in their turning to Jesus was not a missionary or even a church leader, but a lay person – another local believer.

Let’s consider ourselves as outsiders. We are not related to anybody in our overseas contexts. We are not the local church – we speak a different language, have a different background, have different ways of doing things.

Compare that to the typical local believer. They have relatives and relationships in that country. They are part of the local church. And they don’t carry the associations people have with “missionaries”. They are an order of magnitude more likely to lead someone to Jesus, not to mention the quality of the discipleship after conversion.

For me, the key takeaway is that the most effective disciple-makers among the unreached are local believers!

Bringing Movement through the Local Church and Local Believers

We are well-served to take a humble, yet critical eye to findings like this, but the sheer volume of the data in this study does force us to consider: the local church might be the very vehicle that God wants to use to bring a movement of multiplying churches through the proclamation of the Gospel, and not us directly.

I was talking with my teammates last week, and one of them said, “Any time I go out sharing it is hard to know if the person is just interested in my white skin or actually interested in what I am talking about. My skin color can often be a barrier to deeper heart conversations with non-believers.”

That’s a hard pill to swallow for our Western sensibilities, that what we look like and where we come from could be an obstacle to spiritual conversations across the world. Then, what can we do?

Barnabas Encouraged The Church

Let’s look at what Barnabas does next: ‘[he] began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord.’ Let’s note 1) who he encourages and 2) what he encourages them towards.

First, Barnabas encourages them ALL. He doesn’t just encourage some select few, isolated from the community as a whole. He doesn’t just focus on whomever meets some arbitrary list of man-made criteria, subject to cultural norms or internal biases. He doesn’t just focus on those who have “already started a movement”. He encourages the whole church, and everyone in it, with all their beautifully unique wirings, giftings, diversity, whether from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria or any other part of the world.

Barnabas doesn’t limit himself when it comes to those that God can use.

Steven likes to quote Ratatouille here: Anton Ego at the end of the movie writes, ”In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.” In the same way, we encourage the whole church, because we don’t know who God is planning to use to start a movement. Not everyone will be a movement leader and that’s OK, but a movement leader can come from anywhere in the body of Christ.

The Lord can use anyone to do his work. After all, he has chosen to use you and me!

Encouraged to Abide

What does Barnabas encourage them all towards? ‘With resolute heart to remain true to the Lord’. In Barnabas’ encouragement, he doesn’t point them to fruit they’re seeing. He’s not bringing some new, crazy effective discipleship tool. He doesn’t even have a super cool vision statement, or three-point, alliterated presentation on church-planting strategy.

He points them to Jesus.

I like the way Darrell Bock translates this: “abide in the Lord with a devoted heart.” Barnabas encourages the believers in Antioch to abide in Jesus. Why does he do this? Because he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and faith.

Many of us have heard, ‘character precedes calling.’ Your character matters, your maturity matters, your dependence on the Spirit and understanding of who God is – not just knowledge about who he is – but your relationship and believing in him. All these things are fundamental to you being one sent to help spark movements of the church around the world. In Being Barnabas, one of our primary roles is to encourage the disciple-makers among the unreached to abide in Jesus.

What happens as a result? Considerable numbers were added to the Lord. Barnabas is a pretty great guy: we just read that he was ‘good’, which is the ONLY time in Acts someone is called good. None of the apostles get that kind of description. He was FULL of the Holy Spirit. He was FULL of faith.

Of course big things are going to happen now that this guy shows up, right? Well, they do and they don’t: instead of going to Antioch and doing everything himself, Barnabas set it upon himself to go to the local believers, rejoice with them and encourage them to abide in Jesus. And then, the Lord continued to build his church.

My invitation to you is this: embrace your role as an outsider, and encourage, equip, and empower the local church to reach the unreached around them.

Barnabas and Saul

How do we do that? Let’s finish this last part of Acts 11.

To recap: Christians on the run from persecution make their way to Antioch, and some of them, Cypriots and Cyreneans start to share the Gospel with Greeks, Gentiles. The Lord brings many to faith, and the church in Jerusalem sends Barnabas, also from Cyprus, to check it out. He’s ecstatic at what’s going on and encourages the believers to abide in the Lord, and things continue to blow up.

What does Barnabas do next after visiting Antioch? He goes and gets the guy who was there when Stephen was stoned 3 chapters ago, sparking the persecution that forced the believers to flee in the first place: Barnabas goes to Tarsus to get Paul (v. 25). Why does Barnabas get Paul?

Let’s remember Paul’s story: after Paul’s conversion, he goes to Damascus and proclaims Jesus. He has to run from the Jews, so he makes his way to Jerusalem, where he tries to get in with the disciples, but they’re all still petrified of him. Who should advocate for him, but our dear friend, Barnabas? He ‘takes hold’ of Paul, believes him, and Barnabas brings him before the apostles and backs him up and shares his story, that Jesus called him ‘to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel’.

What does Paul do in Jerusalem? He continues to speak boldly, this time reaching out to Jews with a Greek background, the Hellenistic Jews. This gets him in trouble again, which leads to him being sent to Tarsus. Then, after some time, Barnabas shows up to bring him to Antioch.

Barnabas Listened and Connected

But of all the people to get, why Paul? Because Barnabas listened.

Barnabas listened to what Paul said about his calling to the Gentiles.
Barnabas listened to what Paul was doing in Damascus and Jerusalem.
Barnabas listened to what God was wanting to do in Antioch.

And Barnabas connected all of that together, that Paul was called to the Gentiles, and that the Spirit was now at work grafting them in, first through Philip, then through Peter, and now in Antioch. That’s why he went to get Paul.

Barnabas connected the need of the church with the calling of those around him. The need among the unreached is national apostolic visionaries who will catalyze movements – as Barnabas, we can connect local believers called and gifted in this way to principles and opportunities that can help them fulfill their calling.

Barnabas Spent Time with Paul

Back to Barnabas and Paul. Is it that simple? Just moving the right people to the right places? We read in verse 26, ‘for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers of people.’

Barnabas spent time. He didn’t just bring Paul and dump him in Antioch; for an entire year, they served together, spent time together, did ministry and lived life together. Mobilization is so much more than a class, or a conference, a video, or a training. It’s good to have all those things and they all have their place and purpose, but the kind of encouragement, equipping, and empowering that is required to see movements? That takes time. And being with each other.

In fact, after that year, Barnabas and Saul go on a short-term trip to deliver relief to the churches in Judea suffering from a famine. They come back and we don’t see them until another chapter, Acts 13, where they are sent out on the first missionary journey. Then after that journey, we read in Acts 14:28 that they spent ‘no little time with the disciples.’ Commentaries differ on how long Saul was in Tarsus vs Antioch, but adding his time in the 2 cities together, it was at least a decade between his conversion and his being sent out, and Barnabas was a part of his life the entire time.

Helping the local church pursue movement among the unreached isn’t fast – but I’m convinced that it is better.

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Conclusion

Acts 11 gives us a very clear outline of what Barnabas did which leads us to understand why we should follow Barnabas’ example today.

Why Be Barnabas? 

Because Barnabas was sent from the church to the church. To encourage the church towards abiding. To rejoice in the grace of God.

Because Barnabas found Paul, by listening, connecting, and spending time with Paul to empower him to catalyze multiplication in the first century.

Because the most effective disciple makers among the unreached are local or near culture believers. 

Because the vast majority of movements are started from near culture or cultural insider NAVs (Paul) with coaching and training from outsiders (Barnabas). To see movements started among the unreached, our role as outsiders is to Be Barnabas.

Questions for Reflection

• From Barnabas’ example, what aspects of his ministry and character would you want to model your approach after?
• Would you consider shifting your role to support and empower national believers? Why or why not?
• Are there local or near-culture believers in proximity to where you are among the unreached? Could you consider partnering with them? Why or why not? What obstacles might exist?
• What’s your perspective or attitude about the local church in your area? Is it primarily critical or rejoicing like Barnabas? Why?