'Multiply' Video Series: How Church Numbers Grow in Muslim World
A global church-planting group portrays the challenge of sharing the Gospel in predominantly Muslim Indonesia in its first video of a series called “Multiply,” released this week.
Pioneers, an evangelical missions movement with 2,400 members, is producing the online video series with the hopes of telling the story of how native and missionary Christians in Muslim countries are able to help increase the number of churches in a primarily hostile environment.
”Multiply Indonesia” is available for free viewing on the group's website. Pioneers begins production of its next video about church planting in the African country of Chad while on location next week.
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In “Multiply Indonesia,” viewers learn how churches exist in homes instead of church buildings because of the need for secrecy. Pioneers asks, “Imagine if following Jesus cost you your home, your family, your job, your life. What would it take to reach you with the Gospel?”
The Pioneers video explores these questions from the perspective of church planters serving in the Muslim world.
"The house churches we're planting are simple, not liturgical," said Michael (not his real name), an actor that portrays a church planter in the video. "We praise God, we pray, we share testimonies. We read one story from the Bible and repeat it together."
Matt Green, who is a member of the communications team based in the group’s U.S. office in Orlando, Fla., told The Christian Post that Pioneers has a passion for people in other countries that do not have any access to the Gospel. Green said he would like the video series to encourage others to support and participate in this ministry.
“We’re hoping that people will begin to see some of the themes that are common as missionaries are serving in different parts of the Muslim world,” he said.
Filming on location in these countries is not a simple task.
“In some parts of the Muslim world it’s not as easy to do this kind of thing. We do not want to expose the church there to persecution or new believers to scrutiny from others there,” Green said. “We want to make sure that we respect the ministry of people that are serving there so that they can continue to serve long after we’re done with the video series.”
The goal for Pioneers in their mission work is to help multiply the number of churches in Muslim countries. However, the group’s methods may be unfamiliar to many Christians in the United States.
“While starting a church in the United States may be as simple as renting a school auditorium and broadcasting a video feed to a portable screen, in the Muslim world it looks much different,” Pioneers officials said.
“The goal is not to just plant sequential churches, one after the other; because of the size of the Muslim world, we are dealing with a huge section of the world’s population,” Green said. “We believe that the only way that the Muslim world would be reached is if churches are actually multiplying. That’s going to require a move of the Holy Spirit. That is not just something we can just go and do ourselves.
“We can’t just go to the Muslim world and set up buildings and hire staff. We have to share the Gospel and pray that God will do something miraculous and actually begin movements of multiplying churches throughout the Muslim world that would dwarf the efforts of Western missionaries in that part of the world.”
“It would have to be something bigger than people going over and fulfilling the call to missions. It would require the work of the Holy Spirit to transform the Muslim world,” he added.
Future “Multiply” videos will show the techniques of church planting among Muslims in Central Africa, the Middle East and immigrant communities living in Western countries. Pioneers wants the video series to “stimulate Christians to consider their biblical responsibility to bring the good news to Muslims, whether next door or on the other side of the world.”
