Surprising October

Sometimes you invest a lot in some people and all at once are surprised by their progress. Each month I equip many leaders throughout Asia. Some I meet online, often monthly, just this last week I coached online with a South Asian leader who is training nearly 1,000 local church planters, advised a leader pursuing his master’s degree in theology, met with a training core group mobilizing more missionaries, and a group facilitating theological education…

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FOCUS ON SOUTH ASIA

As you may remember, I have been working with an entire network of churches seeking to increase their impact in world missions in their part of the globe. I met at a regional missions conference that was attended by over 380 people, a record attendance. Several of the pastors challenged more to dedicate themselves to becoming missionaries and for each church to invest at least 10% of their income for missions. I was asked to…

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FOCUS ON JAPAN 

Then I was back in Japan to meet with some church planters and church planting team leaders that I am coaching. Later I met with 22 key leaders from all over Japan and from key church multiplication groups in the Japan Church Multiplication National Roundtable. For two days we discussed the current state of the church in Japan, the challenges of planting 50,000 new churches, where repentance and change is needed, and how we could…

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Focus on Refocusing

This Thursday I will leave for O’Hare airport in Chicago and fly to Asia to visit two countries in Asia. In one country I will be meeting with leaders I saw this last summer. We will be mobilizing a group of churches toward missions involvement among at least 14 unreached people groups throughout several countries. Then I will fly to Tokyo where I will take part with about 30 leaders at the Church Multiplication National…

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Getting Relational

Many years ago, our mission leader continually reminded us that “Missions is Relationships.” Before I heard it, I had already embraced the meaning. Missions is connecting us with both God and other people. More profoundly it is connecting our partnering churches, other missionaries and believers, national workers and local leaders, all to fulfill the Great Commission of “Making Disciples of all Peoples.” We are in the “people business” even though we do strategy, planning, resources,…

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Perspectives on the World Christian Movement

In July, John was in Chicago at the Moody Bible Institute for the 50th anniversary conference on the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. John has been involved with Perspectives for over 40 years, but not on this side of the ocean. Now that we are based in the US, we thought we would use our gifts to help mobilize, recruit, and prepare more missionaries for completing the Great Commission. Many mission agencies partner with…

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