We built it, tested it, and then we were ready for the road test. This was the Church Planting Institute’s three day foundational Church Planting Next Steps seminar (formerly BootCamp). This time we did it in Nagoya, Japan’s third largest city and home of Toyota’s Lexus. There were 38 in attendance with two training tracks; one for Japanese church planting leaders and another for missionaries. Participants hailed from many parts of Japan and missionaries from North America, Germany, and Brazil.
Along with worship celebration and praying together, 10 training sessions answered key questions for church planters. What is God’s vision for this church? How well do I know my ministry focus group? Who will pray with and for me? In evangelizing Japanese, how can I contextualize without compromising the gospel? What is the best way to build disciples? How do I start healthy small groups? What church planting models are effective in Japan? How do I develop more leaders? How does this all fit together in a strategy? How will I survive and thrive personally in all this? “The list of topics were perfect for my needs,” one worker expressed.
John was part of a CPI core of five experienced Japan practitioners and skilled trainers training in Japanese and English. Several experienced leaders came as training team members and shared their ministry best practices. It was quite a team effort as others shared devotions, led worship, and interpreted. As lots of interaction is built into the schedule, the whole Next Steps provides an atmosphere for integrating the lessons and for mentoring and coaching. 100% of the participants reported that the Next Steps seminar was practical and helpful for their ministry.
We are seeing growing risk-taking vision among church planting leaders. From the 14 surveys we have received so far, they are dreaming to start 11 new ministries in new areas, start 28 new cell or small groups, plant 12 new churches, and deploy 26 new church planters! One church planter pastor was excited to go back to his prefecture and network with other churches for church planting. Pray that these dreams would become reality for these leaders.
In CPI we have always addressed the 3M’s of the Message (Gospel), the Man (church planter’s heart), and the Method (church planting). One veteran of CPI events said,
“This was far and away the best CPI event I’ve ever attended. It just came at the right time and has helped me to focus on several key things I need to do, but has given me passion and hope to do them and not left me feeling lost about what to do and how to do it…. My Next Step is to step back; back to Jesus and his love, grace, forgiveness; to re-new my life in him in order to go forward with him!”
This year, CPI has two more regional Church Planting Next Steps seminars, one in Osaka in June and one in Tokyo in November. Pray for those preparations. We continue to raise up more trainers, improve curriculum and teaching methods, provide more resources for equipping people in front-line church planting ministry. Pray God will again come and equip more transformational leaders for this vital ministry of multiplying healthy gospel-driven church planting movements in the world’s 2nd largest Unreached People Group, the Japanese.