Living the BigLife
Peter Dunn
How did Biglife begin?
About 20 years ago my good friend John, then a business man, was given a book to read by an elderly woman in his church. Reluctantly he took it and then a week later, the night before he was sure that he would meet her in church, he thought that he should at least skim through it. He picked the book up and found that he couldn’t put it down. One phrase struck him, “Are you leading an ordinary life for yourself, or a big life for God?”, and so Biglife was born. John came to see that he had opted for an ordinary life. Yes, he went to church faithfully, he enjoyed fellowship, but there was something missing in terms of what it really meant to be a follower of Jesus. A few years later John ended up in India with another friend of mine called Ben, a Bengali man with a career in banking. There, with Ani, a vegetable grower and Mr Mondal, an electrician, Biglife really took off.
But what is a Big Life?
Ordinary people committed themselves to living a Biglife and today there are millions of people across the world who are part of what some term Disciple Making Movements (DMMs). They are ordinary people committed to the Lord, and to making disciples who in turn make more disciples. Biglife is a multiplying movement that is focused on empowering and equipping disciples to make disciples who make disciples.
I first encountered Biglife about 12 years ago. Initially I thought this was just a uniquely Asian phenomenon, but over time I came to see that it was at its heart a movement of God rooted in the Bible and the principles and practices of Jesus in making disciples. Then, two years ago I came onboard with Biglife as their European Director, and moved to Sheffield with my wife Jane to live the Biglife out for ourselves. Setting aside the rest of Europe, we have seen about 40 groups start in Sheffield and across Yorkshire in the past 2 years, as people have come to faith and others have committed themselves to the lifestyle of being disciple makers.
The house-church movement in China is perhaps one of the earliest of the more recent expressions of DMMs. As the missionaries were expelled from China in the 1950s, so the “professionals” left and ordinary people with simply the Bible in their hands put things into action. They had no manual for church planting or great strategy, but simply the example of Jesus and the early church as they found it in the Bible. Ordinary people filled with the Spirit and committed to a lifestyle of discipleship did the things that Jesus did and so a movement was launched. A key theme that I am seeing in movements across the world and in Sheffield is the release of ordinary people to actively share faith and disciple others. This resonates with the model of Jesus and his first group of followers – fishermen and tax-collectors - leaving everything to follow him. They were ordinary people who turned the world upside down!
The book of Acts puts it like this:
“When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled, ordinary people, they were astonished and took note that they had been with Jesus.”
“When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled, ordinary people, they were astonished and took note that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
Like those first disciples, DMMs are marked by the courageous and continuous sharing of faith with others. Often this starts with friendship and expressions of genuine care. In our own Sheffield street this started with inviting some neighbours for a meal, in which spiritual matters just naturally came up in the conversation. We then agreed to meet to discover more about faith in the Bible and over time we have seen lives transformed.
One recurring theme that we are encountering is people who say, “I am not religious but I am spiritual”. Sadly this often means that they are not looking for spirituality in the church, but nevertheless they are open to conversations where they are. Our focus is to equip people to share faith, and for them to go into their relational network (family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, acquaintances) in order to do that. We equip people to share faith and to disciple one-to-one or in small groups. Movements are more focused on dispersion than attraction in their mission emphasis.
Over the past couple of years it has been exciting to train others in simple ways of sharing faith and of discipleship. Simple things multiply, and so by training in these tools we are seeing ordinary people feel more confident in stepping out as disciple makers.
“What you are saying Peter, is that I can do this.”
“What you are saying Peter, is that I can do this”, said two women in Yorkshire and they promptly went out and shared their faith with three friends in the context of a Discovery Bible Study (DBS), and saw them come to be followers of Jesus themselves. What is important to remember too is that discipleship is not just about conversion, but about people continuing to grow as disciples through encountering God in his word and being empowered by his Spirit.
My observation is that we grow as disciples in action rather than in passive approaches focused on the accumulation of knowledge. It is much like riding a bike, that is not learnt by watching a video, but by getting on the bike and having a go. This is the approach that Jesus took with his disciples. So, in our approach to discipleship we invest heavily in a few relationships to lovingly support, encourage and hold one another accountable. The early church mostly seems to have met in homes and in small groups, and this is where we put our emphasis in terms of the best environment for discipleship, where there is dialogue and interactive relationship.
To be honest, we are really only at the beginnings of working things out in a UK context, but there are some really encouraging signs. One friend said to me, “I am doing this not because it is dramatically successful, but simply because it is right”. Disciple making is not for the enthusiastic few, but for all of us as followers of Jesus. Recently, when asked by church leaders for a closing thought, I said “Pray”. Disciple-making is not some technique or formula, but happens as we commit ourselves to prayer and to keeping in step with the Spirit.
Please contact me on p.dunn@big.life if you want to pick up a conversation or engage with some of our training.
