Our Story

Our Roots: An Honest Prayer

“Why Lord, did you give us a command that you knew was impossible to obey? Did you mean something different than what your word seems clearly to say?”

This was the daring yet honest prayer in 1974 of Jim Montgomery, a missionary to the Philippines as he wrestled with the meaning of Jesus’ Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20), and what he saw as the likelihood that this commission would not be completed any time soon.

“Why didn’t you stay here on earth? You could have gone speaking their language, wearing their dress, intimately knowing the culture, eating the food in every village and neighborhood of every nation in the world.”

After weeks of praying this prayer, Jim sensed Jesus saying, “I want you to know that is exactly how to go about completing the Great Commission. See to it that I, the Lord, truly become incarnate, in every small group of people on the earth.”

In a flash of insight from the Lord, it all became very clear. Since Jesus who now indwells every believer (Colossians 1:27), is greater than he that is in the world (I John 4:4), and promised to be in the midst of even two or three gathered in his name (Matthew 18:20), then Christ through his born-again children, as they exercised the gifts of the Spirit, could contextualize the gospel in every small community of the world.

Thus was launched in 1984 a church planting movement in the Philippines called DAWN 2000 that resulted in over 50,000 new churches planted by the year 2000. In founding DAWN (Discipling a Whole Nation), Jim’s goal was to help catalyze “saturation church planting” on every continent. (See Jim Montgomery’s book, DAWN2000: Seven Million Churches to Go.)

Enter John White and Kent Smith who were serving on the North American team for DAWN. As leaders for the team they began pioneering innovations, viral principles to help fulfill the Great Commission by seeing a vibrant family of Jesus (a church) within easy reach of every person on the planet.

With the passing of Jim Montgomery, in 2007 DAWN came to an end. But John and Kent, captured by the original DAWN vision, felt the Lord calling them to found a new organization.

In 2008 the LK10 Community was born with the purpose of connecting and equipping emerging house church leaders around the world.

Why the name LK10? Because in Luke, chapter 10, Jesus focuses on training and sending his disciples to start small, family-like Kingdom communities in houses of peace (Luke 10:5-7). These verses seemed like the clearest picture of Jesus’ strategy for fulfilling the Great Commission.

Soon God began bringing leaders, pastors, missionaries to LK10; some were facing burnout and discouragement, but all desired to learn how to be “church as family;” learn ways they could live as church in their natural contexts of work, school, and home; learn how to live as joy-filled people in maturing family relationships (biological or spiritually adoptive) who know how to sense God’s presence and discern God’s voice together.

A Board of Directors was established as well as 501c3 non-profit status. A website was created, along with a weekly newsletter featuring “Stories from the Revolution,” alternate stories about life in God’s Kingdom. A library of resources was developed with articles, videos (and now podcasts) of practical information and tools for life in the Kingdom.

To meet the needs of those seeking help in starting vibrant families of Jesus, and for training leaders, two foundational courses were developed: Church 101 and Leader 101.

In 2014 Toni Daniels, a former missionary to Uruguay, joined the leadership team and helped rewrite LK10’s training modules to include the brain science behind the training.
Then in 2018 our 5 Core Values were developed, primary values that were already being practiced by the LK10 community.

And now LK10’s first book, Joy Fueled: Catalyzing a Revolution of Joyful Communities, authored by John, Kent and Toni, was published in March, 2020. Four more books are planned to be written, focusing on each of the Core Values.

Since our inception, LK10 has trained over 5,000 people, on 6 continents, in 28 countries how to practice and teach the two rhythms of attention – checking in with each other, and listening to
Jesus.

May our future continue to be a model of training leaders to establish joy-fueled, vibrant
families of Jesus who will incarnate the Lord throughout the world, helping fulfill the Great Commission!

Join the joy-fueled revolution

Vibrant families of Jesus are springing up all over the globe. Schedule your intro call and give it a try today.

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An organic movement is rising, fueled by joy and led by Jesus, rediscovering God’s original intent of Christ-communities. This book shares the 5 shifts of this movement. Paperback, $9.99. Kindle, $0.99