“This was really good timing for me personally. I needed to be reminded of the truths of the gospel – especially the part that I am dearly loved and valued by God. I am greatly challenged to soak in these truths more.”
We saw and heard a lot about heart change. Last month Elaine and I were caught up in the renewal environment we developed in 4 regional Church Planting Institute (CPI) seminars throughout Japan. In total over 120 leaders received training in Gospel Renewal in Sendai, Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. These seminars were done in conjunction with Josiah and Barbara Bancroft of World Harvest Mission. CPI has been partnering with World Harvest Mission to develop training systems for gospel renewal for Japan.
You see we believe Gospel-driven churches need to be led by gospel-driven leaders. The purpose is to equip leaders depend more on the Work of Christ as their power source for life and ministry. The seminars’ 4 lessons were Righteousness, Honesty, Loving Relationships, and Mission.
Here are some comments of the benefits from the participants. You can see heart change for boldness, freedom, honesty and dealing with failure.
• [I learned] I’m more performance driven rather than Gospel driven.
• I think [the seminar] placed a great emphasis on honesty. It’s something not often discussed in church. If ever, not in such matter.
• Killing the idol “fear of man” and deeper understanding of my sinfulness.
• More boldness in sharing the truth of the Gospel.
• Living and proclaiming freedom from fear of man in my life and in my church.
• The method of sharing and learning thru failure and pointing to Christ as the solution is refreshing.
Last month, in developing these training systems we accomplished many of our goals as 1) along with the Bancrofts 6 trainers took part and learned from this master teacher on Gospel Renewal. 2) Important progress was made on the new Walking in the Gospel manual in both English and Japanese. This manual was first introduced at last fall’s CPI Conference. 3) These 6 trainers taught 7 lessons for the first time and also two people shared their gospel stories. We have just raised up another batch of trainers. Elaine and I for the first time learned to present 3 of the 4 lessons.
In addition there was a Leaders’ Summit on Gospel Renewal with about 30 in attendance. We discussed gospel discipling and leadership along with future plans for seven projects to develop more grace-based renewal resources, developing more trainers, and curriculum and seminar content. So the development of transforming leaders for transforming churches continues.
Our CPI Vision is to multiply leaders for multiplying gospel-driven churches. We begin with the leader and their heart. As we want to be gospel-driven in all that we do as one participant shared, “Remembering the Gospel is the key, not a specific tool, program, or method.”
We will continue regional training throughout Japan in 2014. The next batch of training will be Church Planting Next Steps seminars in three locations. In April we will be in Nagoya, Kansai in June, and our mega-seminar in Tokyo in November. In this CPI 20th anniversary we could train more people than ever. Continue to pray as we impact leaders’ hearts and also their strategies for new churches. Pray as we develop more trainers so we can multiply even more leaders.