News and Updates

We launched Global Focus in Chile this year. The pastores in Chile told me once they saw how Global Focus could mobilize their own people; “Our church is not the only church that needs this missional process, other churches need the same transformation.” This past week pastor Elias was able to meet with 35 local pastors, from his own denomination and other denominations, to teach them that the local church is God’s instrument to extend His Kingdom, not only in Chile, but to all nations. He was able to present what Global Focus is doing in his own church, and how it can help their churches as well. We are working personally with pastor Elias, so he can help lead the efforts to mobilize local churches in Chile and thus expand God’s Kingdom to all peoples.

There should always be a traceable link between our mobilization efforts and the Kingdom of God expanding to all peoples. Many of the new pastors who we are mentoring in Global Focus are seeing the tremendous value of mobilizing their own people to be on mission with God locally in their own communities and globally among the unreached people groups. Because of the missional alignment that comes to their church as they implement our missional process, they are now launching out new families to extend God’s Kingdom to where it was not before. Now, many of these same pastors are now helping their own denomination and other churches experience the same innovation. They have realized that the way to extend God’s Kingdom to all peoples is to mobilize the greatest missions force that has ever existed; the local church.

Global Focus in Guatemala

I started mentoring several Amigos (Friends) churches in Guatemala a little over a year ago. The Amigos churches were started by the Quakers nearly 150 years ago. Now for the first time this denomination is sending Guatemalan believers cross culturally to Southeast Asia! They have sent 2 families long term, and nearly a dozen short term workers, mostly medical professionals. The unreached people group they  are engaging, many have embraced the Gospel and come to faith in Christ, the church has been planted and is growing. Since these churches have experienced such a dramatic transformation, pastors Maudiel and Rolando are now beginning to mentor nearly 80 pastors from their own denomination in the same missional process. God is mobilizing Guatemalan Amigos to impact the Nations!

So the goal is not to just celebrate or even experience, but it is obedience to the Great Commission to make disciples among all nations. That commission is for churches in Latin America also. So 2 years ago Vida Nueva in Arequipa and Liberty Church in Dublin, GA helped to send out R.Z. and his family who are doing church planting work in North Africa

Because of their obedience (the churches, and the family’s) now people in this unreached people group have access to the Gospel, some are responding, and former mslms are coming to faith in Christ, and publicly identifying with Him. That is the goal of mobilization; God being glorified, by expanding His Kingdom!

During the same week that Vida Nueva was celebrating God’s Mission, 5 Peruvian pastors (including 2 of Vida Nueva’s pastors) were in the Middle East personally experiencing what God is doing. All but one of these pastors have implemented Global Focus in their own church, and even are mentoring other churches in our missional process. They were able to visit many workers, and some of the workers that Connect Global has helped to send to the field in conjunction with their churches. They were able to see what God is doing, and how they can further join in and engage their churches even more on what God is already doing

Vida Nueva B.C. in Arequipa, has not only become a Global Focus model church in Peru, but 3 of the pastors of the church are Global Focus facilitators. They just had their 3rd Global Celebration in which they brought in missionaries from all over in order to continue to mobilize their own people even more. The theme of this years Global Celebration was “Súmate” which means “Join in”.

Pastor Paul Vargas has done an excellent job modeling the concept that “The pastor is the key mobilizer”, not only does he and his family personally participate in missions as the pastor, he actively engages his people to do the same. 

The purpose of celebrating missions does 2 important things:

 1. It establishes that missions is the priority of the church; we celebrate our priorities, 

2. It personalizes missions to every church member.

By bringing in the missionaries, it gives everyone the opportunity to hear what God is doing around the world. It also gives them the opportunity to join in on what He is doing by; intentionally praying, financially giving, and personally going.

Last week I wrote that the goal of mobilization is to impact the lostness of the nations. I want to continue to show you how that is happening in Latin America. Mobilization is not the goal, mobilization is the vehicle that takes us the real goal, which is God being glorified by His Kingdom being expanded to all peoples. When we help mobilize churches in Latin America, we are always working towards the same end game. We want to help them to glorify God, by expanding His Kingdom in their own Jerusalem, and all the way to the unreached people groups on the other side of the world. This does not happen with a single event, but this only happens through an intentional process. We help churches align around God’s mission, then organize and mobilize their people to execute that mission. Then the final step is to celebrate what God is doing around the world, and see even more opportunities to engage with Him.

I have started back mentoring some churches, and preaching. This past weekend I was able to mentor our Hispanic church here in Woodstock, Nuevo Horizonte. We started the Global Focus missional process several months ago with nearly 70 leaders from the Hispanic conjuration.

This weekend we again had a great group of the leaders of the church and were able to help the church develop it’s missions statement, integrate missions into every ministry of the church, and develop a strategic prayer strategy for global missions.

This model is designed to help align the church around the reason the church exits; to be Christ’s instrument to fulfill His mission locally and globally. I was also able to preach on Sunday at the church on “The Gospel is our identity and provides our life mission.” Some of the leaders of the church will be going with us in the Spring of next year to personally participate in a project in Central Asia. God is being glorified!

We rejoice at what God is doing in Latin America, and how He is mobilizing His church to the nations!

This past week pastor Mario Cano, Pastor of Getsemani B.C. in Puebla, Mexico (a Global Focus church, and facilitator) preached the Global Celebration for FBC Tecate, Mexico. He did a wonderful job at challenging the church to participate personally in what God is doing around the world.

The theme of the Celebration was “His Mission is Our Mission”. Pastor Isai Morelos has done a great at keeping the church aligned around the mission of God and getting his people to own the mission. This was their 3rd. Global Celebration, the church is now participating personally in missions trips and supporting Latin American workers in North Africa and Central Asia. They had over a dozen missionaries at their Celebration and the church was able to raise over $300,000 pesos (nearly $20,000.00 U.S. dollars) for global missions! God is being glorified!

Mobilization is not an event, it is a process that has a purpose. If the end result of mobilization is not God being glorified by more people hearing the Gospel and following Christ, then we are just spinning our wheels. The end result of missions mobilization should be the sending of new missionaries and them taking the Gospel to those who have never heard. Then some of those who have never heard, coming to faith, follow Christ, and establish His Church where there was not church. In this update and next weeks update I am going to write about different stages of this mobilization process.

The Unreached are Responding to the Gospel and Following Christ!

We began to mentor the Venezuelan Baptist Convention 6 years ago, and help them send our cross cultural workers to the unreached. J.R. is one of those workers we helped to send out from Venezuela to West Africa 5 yrs ago. J.R. is a baker and has used baking bread as his platform to carry the Gospel to the unreached. He has not only planted churches where there were no churches, the unreached are now following Christ and publicly identifying with Him. This is the end result of local church mobilization; God being glorified where He was not glorified! 

This past week Xochitl and I were able to participate in the Every Church Every Nation conference that the IMB held at our church here in Woodstock. I was asked to teach on the challenges of mobilizing your members to missions.I was able to teach them 6 reasons church members are not personally involved in missions: 1. Compartmentalization of missions, 2. Lack of Personalization,

3. Professionalization of missions, 4. Pastors delegating missions mobilization to their missions staff, 5. Tension between local and global, 6. A lack of informed intercession for missions and missionaries. We had a wonderful time teaching, also it was a great conference, and a time of great connections.