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 Perspectives. As does Converge is very committed to the Perspective course as it is a requirement for all new missionaries, and Converge has formed learning cohorts to help our new people integrate the Perspectives Course and our Converge Mission vision and values of reaching Unreached People Groups.
At this Chicago conference of 700 people, another worker from Converge was attending, Neil Moyer. He is actually a Regional Director for Perspectives in Florida organizing classes there. As Neil knows many of the key leaders in the Perspectives movement, he introduced me around. At times it was a bit embarrassing. He would say, “This is John Mehn. He is with Converge and served 35 years in Japan as a missionary working in church planting. He is now relocated to the US and working with our Converge Asia Impact Team. During the Covid pandemic he took the Perspectives online course and expanded the final project into this published book on the Japanese. He is a certified instructor in the course.” I was so grateful and humbled to meet so many key leaders in person, many I had only met previously online.
The Perspectives course is the gold standard for mobilizing Christians for world mission involvement. The course has 15 lessons including Biblical, Historical, Cultural and Strategic Sections on God’s plan to reach all peoples. The course is offered in many locations around the US and overseas and online. You can take the course for college or graduate credit, a certificate, or just as a reading program. For more information visit their website at www.Perspectives.org.
At this conference, John was glad to take the Instructor Development Workshop. He is now looking forward to connecting with dozens of Perspective students through teaching up to 2-3 Perspective courses per year. John can teach most of the 15 lessons but is particularly interested in the classes on church planting and cross-cultural communication. Pray for blessing on Perspectives and John’s continued involvement.
During the conference there were several interested in sharing the good news with Japanese. Some had served in Japan, others were planning on going, and others were witnessing to Japanese in the US. One evening we had a chance for all of us to gather for dinner, meet each other, and talk about methods to reach the Japanese.
