After decades of net decline, more U.S. churches are being started each year than are being closed.

The credit largely goes to the recent increase in enthusiasm for church planting. Stetzer, who leads LifeWay Research, says church planting has become the “it” thing right now and the new evangelism .

Plus, according to FACT2008, the healthiest churches are those that reproduce. Also, the authors emphasize that most new churches survive. After four years, 68 percent of new churches still exist and 70 percent attain self-sufficiency by the fifth year.

Every year, approximately 4,000 churches are birthed in the U.S. (500 more than are closed). But much of the church plants have been focused on addition rather than multiplication, the authors point out.

There may be a hesitancy to having a church planting emphasis because “the thinking seems to be [that] there’s a church on every corner and most of them are empty,” state the authors, who have led and studied church plants.

But research shows that new churches fare better when it comes to drawing new people and they have a higher ratio of conversions and baptisms compared to more established churches, according to Viral Churches.

This is good news to me.

Traditionally, my denominational system had a governing body that initiated the planting of new churches.  They’d raise money, determine a location, gather a team, and then plant a church.  They have successfully launched 2 churches, maybe 3 that still exist since the early 1990s.  Not a good track record.

Money first, location and organizing team later.

What happens when there is no money – no church planting.   That’s what happened.

This past week, I spoke with another church planting coach, and the question we were dancing around dealt with funding new church developments.  To look for funding first may be the wrong leg to start on.   While it’s an important piece, does it have to come first?

Though I’ve been involved in 2 church plants, each was unique.

The first had a very generous benefactors that believed in the vision.  Momentum, passion, vision, timing all seemed to come into play to launch a church that is now 7 years old.  It’s plateaued now, and the turnover in people is huge.  It still exists as a congregation, but I hear it’s facing different challenges.

Our current church plant

The second one is a parachute drop – we are working with immigrants from another country who moved here to work among fellow immigrants and locals.  We are in a high density urban zone neighborhood of 65,000 people that has 7 churches, of which 6 are under 100 in size.

It’s been a two years struggle to build a core group.  No funding other than missionary support and tent making.  No benefactors who give nearly $500,000.  I sell my ebooks on church hospitality at this website here which is 1/5 of our income.

However that core group of mostly new Christians met for over a year in an apartment.  They stepped out in faith after one year and rented a hotel room for a Sunday. 75 people attended the first gathering a few weeks ago. We’ve received almost enough provision to rent the hotel room again for our next service.

We keep praying that we’ll make an impact where we live, planting a church that plants churches. It’s not easy work by any means.

As I’ve talked with other church planters in my city, hotel rental costs are outrageously expensive, and any other locale is just as expensive.  Getting to self-sufficiency through offerings  is really tough.  Land prices in the neighborhood have quadrupled in 3 years.

As I reflect upon my conversation with the church planting coach, I keep wondering how we can help church planters launch new churches when denominational money is drying out.  I don’t have all the answers.

I’d love for our new congregation to be viral.  Join us in our prayer, that our current church would plant churches.

These needs form the social outreach part of his ministry to help their new church plant serve and connect with its neighbors.

He’s spent time listening to the needs of the new incoming residents in a part of the area undergoing new construction.

He’s spent time listening to the needs of the new immigrants in the trailer park nearby.

(Feed Readers: Click Thru to see the video).

Check out how these community found and met a need in it’s neighborhood:

• 5 Keys to a Missional Small Group
• Bridge Building through Caring for your Community

Read: How to Find out Your Community Needs

His goal in the book is to show how the gospel can spread virally through rapid formation of simple churches.

His global perspective – watching church planting movements in various mission fields around the world — gives him tremendous credibility and enables him to show the effectiveness of this form of church planting.

Is there a better way to DO church?

In the early 1990s, a research project among young people in Amsterdam revealed:

• 100% were interested in God.
• 99% were not interested in the church.

This startling statistic helps raise the question: Are we doing church so ineffectively that people search for God elsewhere?

The proponents of house churches believe that their model is a more effective way, and a more biblically faithful way.

With each book I have read so far about house churches (admittedly only two), the authors still maintain a respect for traditional churches.  I don’t see them bashing or trashing current church systems.

Rather, they see people leaving traditional churches for reasons of burnout, dissatisfaction, and a desire to lessen the programmatic burden of too much to do in their life.

My own story right now

I what is happening as well.  I was a part of a church that had large gatherings 6 nights a week.  Pastor “teached and preached” 5 nights, plus 3 services on Sunday.  The same worship team would lead.  Even after new bands were grown up, I noticed the same volunteers were running the same programs all the time in the same facility.  There were no small groups or cells in this church – everything was done at the facility.  People were too busy serving to meet.

I tried to meet with one of the ministry leaders and got stood up 6 times because “something came up at the church.”  I didn’t want to be part of that system.  So we dropped out and found a church meeting in a home.

How are simple churches different from small groups?

The big question I had in mind as I approached this book reflects my own perspective from within the traditional church system.  I wanted to know

• How is simple church different than our small groups that we have every week?
• How is simple church different than our small community groups programming?

As I see it, there are three models of small groups:

• Home groups/care groups
• Cell churches
• House churches

Chapter three lays out common elements of a house church.

A house church is like a spiritual extended family; it’s relational, spontaneous, and organic.  For its everyday life, a house church does not need any higher level of organization, bureaucracy, or ceremony than an ordinary large family. . .  [it forms] its own support structure from within. (32).

As such, it has some common elements of what they do.  It’s important to realize, this isn’t a blueprint, but the skeleton that church planters still have to incarnate locally – the process of contextualization.

• Meating – a fellowship meal.
• Teaching obedience – goal is not just knowledge, but faithful obedience to Christ.
• Sharing – of material possessions, doing life together.
• Praying – the heartbeat of our relationship with god and for each other.
• Helping each other lead transparent lives.

These are the goals of many small groups.  Is this not just another version of small groups?

In that same chapter, Simson goes on to explain why this isn’t just a small group of a larger church (46-50), by listing some distinctions between the house church and other types of gatherings.

Then in chapter 5, he teases this out a whole lot further by giving a table of 13  differences between house churches and cell churches.   Page 75 gives this chart.

Ultimately, he answers my question that I ask of his text.

Characteristics of a House Church

• Organic, simple and relational, not a professional institutional/organized cathedral/temple/ synagogue.
• Go to the people, not get them to come to church. Present a shop window for God to work.
• Team with 5-fold ministry circulating from house to house.
• Lifestyle discipleship not religious meetings.
• Real, family-based nurturing by a father.  Extended family with children included.
• Holistic, spontaneous, intimate, dynamic, secret and powerful.
• A ‘table community’ centered around a family meal. The Lord’s Supper is substantial food.
• Reflects God’s character: love, truth, honesty, forgiveness, faith and grace.
• Teaching people to obey God/submission to Christ. Learning is active and interactive. Teach to learn. Christian living is not taught, but caught. Sharing stories.
• Mutual submission and accountability.
• Reaching out to the community.
• Decentralized and flexible, an interdependent network.
• High level of commitment of members and bonding.
• Worship is a living sacrifice not just singing.
• Sharing and praying together.

Advantages:

• Cheap.
• Persecution-proof.
• Effective discipleship.
• Built-in accountability.
• Offers place for life transformation.
• Not dependant on trained leaders/clergy.
• Empowers and mobilizes people.

Who is Wolfgang Simson?

Wolfgang Simson was born in Germany and has German, Jewish, and Hungarian roots.

Since 1983 Wolfgang has been involved in the planting of several churches and in church-based leadership positions, while at the same time beginning a life of extensive global research on growing churches, church planting movements, and revival and mission breakthroughs.

Wolfgang worked for two decades as a church growth, evangelism, and strategy consultant, researcher, and journalist within various Christian networks and regional and global strategy think tanks in close to sixty nations.  He is the author of twelve books that have been translated into twenty languages.

His book Houses that Change the World (originally published in the UK) is widely recognized as a classic of the house church movement.  Now revised as The House Church Book, this definitive work offers a comprehensive understanding of the past, present, and future of the house church movement—and the vital role of “ordinary” people in saturating the world with God’s truth.

• See: Webinar Replay with Wolfgang Simson – Download the MP3 of our discussion.
• Order: The House Church Book (from Amazon).

He connected with the local people

When he came to the town, “he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla,” (18:2).  Paul went to see them, and “because he was a tent maker as they were, he stayed and worked with them” (v.3)

Here is an example of relationship building.  They had something in common – tent making, and that formed the basis of their relationship.  They were local, even though they were transplants from another city.

At this point in the story, we do not know if Aquila and/or Priscilla are believers.  We know that eventually they are, because of their role in discipling Apollos when they all meet him for the first time in Ephesus.

I recalled reading about the Luke 10 principles from The Rabbit and the Elephant (see review of The Rabbit and the Elephant).  There, the authors remind us of how Jesus sent out the people ahead of him, to find the “person of peace” and to stay with that person.  We see this pattern in Paul’s work here in Athens.  Aquila and Priscilla were those persons of peace.”

He worked among them

While staying at the house of Aquila and Priscilla, Paul used that as a base for his outreach every Sabbath.  Verse 4 reads “Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.”

During the rest of the week, Paul was likely making his tents and setting up his business.  Costs were likely low as his lodging was covered, and he wasn’t supporting a family.

He devoted himself full time

Verse 5 reads: “When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching.”  This suggests some possible growth in Paul’s business – either

• Paul had made enough funds from selling tents that he was free, or
• Silas and Timothy took over business operations, or
• Business had grown to the point where a manager was in charge, or
• Aquila and Priscilla were running the business to support Paul (All three go to Ephesus).

Once they arrived, Paul was able to devote himself full time to the ministry of teaching.  As was his pattern, first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles.  Verse 6 shows his opposition from the Jews, so he setup his teaching base next door.

Paul’s fear

Paul was busy doing good work.  Building relationships, conversing with people, and doing the basics of evangelistic work.  Yet even he was afraid of those who mocked, ridiculed, and opposed him.

The Lord gave Paul a vision one night: “Do not be afraid.”  At first, I thought this was the common greeting of angelic visitors, but as I peered into first Corinthians, I read “I came to you in weakness and with much trembling” (1 Cor 2:3).

Then there is guidance: “For I am with you, . . . .because I have many people in this city.”

Elijah had a similar fear – when he thought he was the only one – the Lord reminded him that there were others.

When one faces that kind of fear in personal evangelism, it can be emotionally draining.  When one thinks of all the other fears that hinder personal evangelism, we have this reminder that Paul faced similar fears.

How did the Lord comfort him?

“keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you”

In other words, God reminded Paul of his presence, and the presence of others in that city who could help him.

If you are a church planter, perhaps one prayer could be “Lord, where are the other people in this city who are called to help us?”

The question that stirs in my mind – what are my fears?

Planting Churches

This missionary work wasn’t setup and funded overnight.

In this case, Paul lives among his initial contacts in Corinth and then sets up and runs his business.  He grows it to the point where he can hand it off, likely using the proceeds to fund his own church planting or missionary activity.

In receiving comfort from God about his fear in the face of rejection, he likely begins to pray, “Lord, where are the other people.”  We see that new relationships develop in the next 18 months while Paul remains:

• Titius Justus, a worshipper of God.
• Crispus, the synagogue ruler and his household.
• Sostehenes, the next synagogue ruler (v.17), who helped write 1 Corinthians (1:1)
• Cloe’s household (1 Cor 1:11)

We can see how the Lord answered Paul’s prayer.

From James White, given as a hand out during a church plant conference.

1. Write a mission statement for your church.
2. Write a twelve-month plan of action leading up to the first public service.
3. Write a twelve-month plan of action for the first year of the church.
4. Write a doctrinal statement .
5. Write your constitution and by-laws.
6. Determine your target audience.
7. Determine first staff hire.
8. Find someone to lead worship/singing.
9. Find musicians.
10. Find a point person to oversee children’s ministry.
11. Find a place to meet.
12. Find necessary funding.
13. Buy/ rent / find a sound system.
14. Buy/ rent / find a podium.
15. Buy/ rent / find plants and other atmospheric enhancements for weekend service.
16. Buy/ rent / find children’s ministry materials (toys supplies etc.) .
17. Decide on an office.
18. Design all printed materials (stationery weekend program etc. ) .
19. Design an accounting system for receipts and gifts.
20. Have your own salary established with integrity.

We are pleased to announce that our resource for new church development, Starting New Churches: A Discernment Process, has been revised and updated.

I know the principal authors and have skimmed the resource this morning and believe that if you are involved in planting a church, this study would be a good study for your team.

The authors write:

Each of the 16 gatherings suggests a Bible study and an extended time of prayer. We encourage you to engage this process slowly. Resist the temptation to rush through the Bible studies and prayerful reflection. New church development is not the implementation of successful models and techniques; it is the faithful discernment of God’s leading and the faithful implementation of God’s mission. Wrestle with the scriptures, listen, and fall on your knees in humility.

Church planters and those who are attracted to beginning new churches are often “doers.” We can’t wait to get started, bring in the kingdom, make it happen and happen now. Remember Jesus told his “doers” to go back to Jerusalem, pray and wait until God’s right time. We hope that all of you fellow “doers” will resist the temptation to start doing and will take the time to discuss, listen, discern, and wait for God’s right time. We have countless stories of teams who were delayed in their plans and the finding of the right leadership took longer than expected, yet in hindsight those delays led the team to the “perfect timing.”

You can see the preview here or click on the link to download the whole thing:
StartingNewChurches2.0

Note:

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Cycles of Small Church Transformation

The first edition of Turnaround and Beyond: A Hopeful Future for the Small Membership Church was released in 1995 and was re-released and updated in December 2008.   In the study Ron sought to explore strategies that enabled struggling and often run down small churches to experience lasting turnaround.

“Turnaround” has gone by various terms in the past

• church revitalization
• church transformation
• church renewal
• church survival
• church turnaround

In the 1980s, church growth studies assumed or believed that sustained growth would last about 25 to 30 years and then plateau and decline unless a new cycle of church growth began with intention to reach new people.

Due to rapid acceleration of society and the new challenges of financial survival, that cycle has shortened considerably.  Some think 10 years, others think 3-5 years.  In either case, there are plenty of smaller churches that need to experience a fresh cycle of growth.

This chart of a church life cycle may be familiar to you:

(Source: Life Cycle of a Congregation, Alban Institute)

Churches have a typical pattern of church growth and church decline that progresses one stage at a time.  The study goes on to show how movement between stages are marked by cycles of rising to the new challenges in front and dying to the old ways.  Even in the decline side of the picture, the new challenges rising up are perceived as insurmountable and the risk taking liberties once valued in the past are dying off as risk is managed and even over controlled.

(Source: Life Cycle of a Congregation, Alban Institute)

The question that Ron Crandall seeks to answer in his book is how do churches that are on the decline side jump start a new cycle that help a small church arrest it’s decline and experience a new wave of transformation that “resets the clock” and starts a new wave of church growth.

Tomorrow’s post will be the first in a series exploring this.  To get the series automatically delivered to you

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Free Online Evangelism Training Webinar

I’ve asked Ron to join me in a Free Church Transformation Webinar on February 26, 4pm.

Though he identified many characteristics of successful church transformation, the Church Transformation Webinar will focus on the priority of evangelism.

Order your copy of Turnaround and Beyond: A Hopeful Future for the Small Membership Church Direct from Amazon.

When I lived in Richmond, I participated in an international church plant with a team of pastors and that church is 7-8 years old now.

We know that a combination of prayer and passion will help this church get launched.  We are not at the place of having public meetings, but our plan is to move in that direction this year.

Here is the initial launching team, planning out our strategies for prayer, fasting, prayer walking, and evangelistic prayer for our friends.

We dream of a church:

• Passionate for God, full of faith and life.
• Passionate for Worship and Intercession.
• Passionate for people
• Passionate for evangelism
• Passionate to influence the culture.
• Passionate to grow through Small Groups
• Passionate to grow and develop a strong leadership to impact our culture.
• Passionate to mobilize leadership to plant churches for people without church.

Praying for Church Planting

I found a website called NewChurchInitiatives.org that contains a folder called “The Church Planters Notebook” (HT: PresbyGrow).  Glen Smith has shared a series of articles on praying and church planting.

• Part One – The Vital Place of Prayer
• Part Two – The Importance of Intercessory Prayer
• Part Three – Intercession for Yourself and Other Christian Leaders
• Part Four – Selecting the Right Personal Intercessors
• Part Five – A Prayer Ministry in Your New Church

Each of these articles is worth downloading and meditating on in developing your own prayer life in connection with evangelism.

Chris Forbes writes: Diary of an Expensive Church Planting Marketing Outreach Flop.  He writes:

Areas to think about when Planning a Marketing Campaign

Audience: When you buy media you are not buying media per se, you are buying eyes and ears of particular people. Audience comes first in media. When you have done your homework, you know who your audience is and you find the media channels that reach them best. When you don’t have a particular audience in mind, media sales people have a way of convincing you their media is the best way to reach people. Know the people you want to reach!

Use of Media: Think about media as the tools you use to travel to the audience you want to reach. It’s like traveling in a train. Say you wanted to get to New York City by train. You can’t get on just any train to get to New York. Imagine someone saying after failing to get to New York by train, “I tried train travel, but trains can’t get you to New York. The Devil wants to keep me outta NYC!” The fact is trains can get you to New York, if you take the right trains. You have to take a train that is going to New York. In the same way, you need the right media “vehicle” to get to your audience.

Mark Buchanan wrote “Wreck the Roof,” a reflection off of Mark 2 when the religious folk were upset that the friends made a whole in the roof to lower the paralytic.

Roof-tile Syndrome is when we are so caught up in the preaching of Jesus, we turn our backs to the needs of those still outside the building. We become barriers and not gateways. It’s when we care more about keeping things intact than about restoring lives that are shattered. It’s when we’re more upset when stuff gets broken than excited when the broken are mended. It’s when church gets reduced to the preaching of Jesus so that we fail to notice that we’re seeing very little of the forgiveness and healing of Jesus. It is when we are so fearful about upsetting the religious folk (or homeowners) in our midst that we stop taking risks to get people to Jesus.

It’s when my program, my office, my title, my privilege, my influence, my comfort takes precedence over others’ needs.

It’s when the church exists for itself; to hell with the rest of you.

George Bullard asks: When is a Congregation Finished With Transformation?

Actually the answer is never. Congregations must be continually transforming to be in full, active response to the pull of God in the direction of their full kingdom potential.

A better question is, when is a congregation successfully transforming? To that question there are several great answers.

Missionaries from 6 different countries had come to Volcán Panama for two months of working with the local church.

To double up the use of the time, I also had the opportunity to do personal evangelism training at an international bi-lingual new church development called Iglesia Casa De Luz (Lighthouse Church).

The OM Panama Base in Volcán

The OM Panama base is located at the end of a road in a residential neighborhood at the foot of a dormant volcano, Baru (pictured below, center rear).   I am told that from the peak of Baru, one can see both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The town of Volcán is about 1500 meters in elevation (about 4900 feet).  The weather was a combination of clouds (we were in them some times), rain, and strong winds.  

At times the wind was biting cold.  Perhaps one doesn’t think of coats, hats, and sweaters for life in the tropics, but that is often a necessity here because of the wind.  It often blows with such strength that tree saplings are bent over and grow at an angle.  I saw several trees that had a graceful curve to them.  The air is pretty cool year round that most houses don’t have either a heating or air conditioning system installed.

The terrain was mostly rocky, with giant boulders that had been left from lava flows eons ago.  Roads were sometimes paved, sometimes littered with potholes, and sometimes not paved at all.  A 4×4 would be a good car to have in Volcán.

Casa de Luz — 3 keys for Explosive Church Growth

See a photo album at our Facebook Fan Page.

The church has experienced an explosion of adult conversion growth in recent months.  I met many people who had become a Christian within the last 6 months.  Some as recent as two weeks prior to these workshops.

I want to share 3 vital keys I observed in their growth.

Key #1: A passionate love for Jesus

It was clear to me when I met with this church that they have a vibrant relationship with Christ.  This is expressed in so many ways — in worship, in prayer, in giving, and in community involvement. 

The positive buzz about this church in the community is attracting those seeking all that Christ has to offer.  Word about this church’s love of the Lord and for its neighbor travels the social vines pretty quickly.

Key #2: A praying leadership

I attribute this growth to the dedicated prayer of the leaders.  Four mornings a week, the leadership team meets for prayer at 4.30am to pray for the church.  They meet in various houses and the host provides a little snack / coffee.

Those who make that prayer time reported to me what a blessing it was to be awake at that hour doing the work of the church and seeing its fruit.  Seeing the fruit of new believers in their midst reinforces their desire to make the sacrifice of prayer.

This is in contrast to other 12 churches in the town that are not experiencing such growth.

It’s not the intensity of the prayer, or the hour of their prayer.  This is an hour that works for them.

Rather, it is the discipline and commitment to prayer that has fueled the growth of this church.

Key #3:  A confidence in the Holy Spirit’s work

Conversion growth is a supernatural event. 

The Holy Spirit uses the church (and it’s people) to proclaim the gospel, and the Holy Spirit creates spiritual thirst or longing in the person seeking faith. 

Evangelism in this church is not a high pressure “we can’t go home until someone raises a hand” altar call.  Rather, people invite others to start following Jesus, trusting the Holy Spirit has set up the moment like Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch.  Invitations are given not only on Sunday, but throughout the week in small groups or in personal conversations.

This church simply trusts God’s working through the Holy Spirit and as such is finding the “low hanging fruit” that is ripe for harvest.

First Evening: Small Group in David.

David is a major town about 45 minutes away (down the mountain) from the church.  The church has small groups in that area because of the distance that hinders regular large group meetings.  Pastor drives out to meet with them on a regular basis.

We met with some of the small group on the back patio of a house.  Most of those pictured to the right are new believers in the Lord who have come to faith in recent months.  Many had little to no bible knowledge when they came to faith, and are at the stage of faith where they are drinking in all they can get ofthis the teachings about Jesus.

They have a passion for sharing their faith because of the tremendous impact that the Grace of God has had upon their life.  The particular training this evening was on the role of the Holy Spirit in evangelism.

After about 90 minutes of teaching time, we moved into a time of prayer ministry. 

We felt that God was leading us to pray for those who do not know Him, and to rejoice in the fact that God has saved us.

A surprise

I was surprised once again by the fact that a pre-Christian would come to a workshop on Evangelism.

However, here again, one lady came to the workshop on the invitation of a friend.  During the workshop, I had explained the gospel message, had explained how the Holy Spirit prepares our heart.

During the ministry time, she came forward on her own wanting to start following Jesus to come into her life. 

God had been already working in her heart, creating a spiritual thirst for Him, to bring her to a place where she knew her need and only Jesus could satisfy it.

We continued to minister in prayer to people for various prayer needs, such as a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit, a passion for those who don’t yet know Christ, and some for physical healing.

2nd evening: Small group in Volcán

The second night, we repeated the same workshop on the Role of the Holy Spirit in Evangelism.  This time, was for the small group in Volcán.  A different set of people came from the local area, including an American lady who had retired and moved to Panama from the US with her husband only 4 months ago.

Again, after about 90 minutes of teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit in Evangelism, we moved into another powerful ministry time.  I was sick and fighting a cold, so the pastor lead the ministry time. 

We were led to pray for those who do not yet know Christ, for infilling of the Spirit again to be his witnesses, and particularly felt that God was giving prayer burdens for specific people groups.

3rd evening: Whole group in Volcán

The third evening, both groups from the first and second night gathered in Volcán for part two of the workshop series.  I had recovered from being ill the day before and was much more sensitive to God’s working.

This evening, the teaching focused on paying attention to the Holy Spirit’s promptings to guide you in your evangelism efforts.  It is a variation on the “Fear Free Evangelism” workshop that I offer to churches in the United States. 

It uses Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch as a model of listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit to position yourself in the right place at the right time.

Afterwards we moved into another moving and important time of prayer ministry. 

Four or five more people came forward to ask Christ into their life, including the two children of the woman who invited Christ into her life in David, two nights before.  We felt led again to be praying for all sorts of things under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

One lady, who had only been a Christian for two weeks, came forward for prayer.

I felt led to pray for physical healing, and physically felt God was working.  I’ve have learned to recognize when God is using me to do a healing work and those signs were present.  I initially was praying for healing, not knowing what for.  After a while, I asked her specifically what for and she reported having some tumors.  As I continued to pray, she reported the physical sensation of her tumors being pulverized, and felt God’s healing upon her.  Of course, we’ll wait for medical verification, but we are confident in God’s healing work.

Saturday: Youth Group meeting

Saturday night, we participated in a Youth Group meeting, together with OM Mission Extreme Team that I had been training during these days.

We had a program that focused on a call to missions, to get beyond the mediocrity of casual Christianity and into giving yourself fully to God’s service no matter where that may take you. 

For some, it involves a short term trip in a foreign country.  For others, like us, perhaps moving to a foreign country.  For still others, it might be in your local neighborhood.   If you have a passion to reach the world that is not geared towards one specific people group, then perhaps you are called to be a missions mobilizer — helping others reach their dream of reaching the nations for Christ.

Sunday morning: Worship service

The final day of ministry wrapped up with preaching at Casa de Luz, using a message on Psalm 51. 

It’s a bi-lingual church so much of the service is translated.  It meets on a covered carport because it doesn’t have a building to meet in.

Many of these people are new believers in Christ and God is doing a wonderful work there.

It was a beautiful morning.  The punishing breezes of Volcan had calmed and the clouds had lifted so that we were warmed in the bright sunlight of that morning.

The message focused on the punishing burden of sin, and the freedom that is found in Christ’s forgiveness.

It is a message that naturally led into a time of repentance and rededication.  The time of prayer ministry after the preaching lasted about 30 minutes and had several highlights.

People came forward for prayer about personal repentance, to give or rededicate their life to the Lord.

Others came forward for prayer as well, and several families spent time seeking forgiveness from each other for the broken ways they had been behaving.

A son sought forgiveness from his father and mom, praying for them as well.

A mom sought forgiveness from her daughter for how she had been behaving.

Brothers and sisters asked to be reconciled to each other.

One family, after being away from the Lord for two years, visited church for the first time and rededicated their life to the Lord.

Others, including one lady from the local indigenous tribe, came forward to give her life to the Lord.  She also sought prayer for her sick child.

Final Reflections

God is doing amazing work with this church.  I am humbled to have been a part of it.  I don’t claim any special power, but am simply a vessel in God’s purposes.  I may have the gift of evangelism, but am humbled every time God chooses to use me in leading someone to faith in Christ.

I don’t claim to have any special ability.  But rather I’m an available tool that God has chosen to use, and one that has been positioned at the right place at the right time.

I wasn’t in Volcán on my own doing, but in the sovereignty of God, the door opened and I was there to participate in a work that God was already doing.

What a privilege to see more souls come into the kingdom, to see people experience the power of God, and to ignite the church in the power of the Holy Spirit for missions.

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We are also available to do workshops for your local church or for your local area.  Contact us for more information.

If you want to be involved in supporting the international work of EvangelismCoach.org, tax deductible donations can be made to support our work.  See our support us page.