by Peyton Jones: Paul was a “ninja planter” always on the move like the Ronin of Feudal Japan. In Acts 19, Paul stopped walking the earth like Kane from “da Kung Fu” and began training up multiple ninjas from his church planting dojo headquarters in Ephesus.  Acts 19:10 tells us that for over two years Paul taught his disciples in the school of Tyrannus daily, and that the gospel went out into the entire region of Asia.  The result was that during that time, Paul sent them out to plant a chain of churches we now refer to as the seven churches of Asia.  Paul was training them with hands on application to their seminary lessons.

The difference between a ninja planter and a shepherd is that a planter’s focus is on raising up others who will duplicate what they’ve done in order to rapidly facilitate a vast number of church plants. This is in contrast to a shepherd who focuses on meeting the needs of those already in the pews. Don’t get me wrong. We need shepherds in the church, but we’re cranking out lecturers from seminaries that resemble Saul of Tarsus more than Paul the apostle.  I’ve been thinking that we need more ninja’s in the Kingdom of God. At least that’s what most little boys hoped they’d be when they grew up.  I’m confident that if we focused on training ninjas instead of shepherds, things would start to look a whole lot more like what Paul did in the first century.

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Buy Peyton’s newest book “Reaching The Unreached: Becoming Raiders of the Lost Art” over on Amazon.com. You can also download a free chapter and watch a cool trailer for the book HERE or click the image below.