EnfoqueGlobal

There was hardly a dry eye in the church as they watched their friends they have gone to church with for years, their own children respond to God’s calling on their lives to serve full time as missionaries. It was one of the most moving services I have ever been a part of as they realized the people they were looking at standing in front of them would no longer be sitting in their pews, but serving on the mission field. This was the closing “Life Commitment” service of the Global Celebration at the 2 Amigos (Friends) churches in Guatemala.

We began to mentor the Amigos churches a year and a half ago, and they had their first ever Global Celebration, I preached both of the Celebrations at the same time. During the opening celebration both churches were filled to capacity as They cheered as their missionaries came in, some locally and some from all the way from Cambodia. Every day and every evening they had multiple opportunities to personally hear about what  God is doing in their field, and how the church can engage with them. Then we came to Sunday, they day of commitments.

On Sunday morning (at 8:30 at one church and then 10:30 at the other) we had our Financial Commitment. The first church committed over $30,000 US Dollars to missions, (the more than tripled their previos missions commitment) and the second church committed nearly $20,000 (which was almost four times their previous commitment)!

Then on Sunday afternoon and evening we had two separate “Life Commitment” services in which hundreds committed to pray for the missionaries, participate in their missions teams, and go and help them with specific projects. Then I asked those who God had spoken to specifically and was calling to be the future missionaries to go from their church to help expand God’s Kingdom in other areas to stand with the current missionaries. God did an incredible work in calling out those He is sending out!

We held our Missional Church conference around the Global Celebration of Miramonte Baptista Church. In a time when many churches are moving away from doing a large Missions Celebration and bringing in missionaries to personalize missions, Miramonte had a packed house on Wednesday night. I wish you could have seen the enthusiasm of the people as they arrived early in order to walk through and personally interact with the missionaries at the Missions Fair. Then I wish you could have felt the palpable energy as the service started and they welcome their missionaries and missional projects to the platform. (This year they had to enlarge their platform significantly in order to fit everyone on the stage). That same energy continued through the rest of the week as each missionary met with small groups in order to share what God is doing in their projects, and how the people can engage with them.

Then on Sunday the challenge was given to Sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel, and the church responded with a commitment of $122,000.00 and many hundreds responded to he life commitment service Sunday evening.Our pastor Johnny Hunt, and Doug Ripley were visible moved at so many people from Miramonte personally engaged in missions. That is the whole purpose of Global Focus. It is not to teach a church on how to do their Global Celebration, but to engage every member in the church missionally. 

This past week Global Focus and Miramonte Baptist Church held a Missional Church conference in which we were able to teach how to leverage your church in order to impact the nations. We had nearly 200 pastors and leaders come from Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and El Salvador. Our pastor Dr. Johnny Hunt did an outstanding  job at challenging the pastors to use their role as pastor in order mobilize the people to God’s mission. Dr. Doug Ripley taught very biblical lessons on how to raise funds that can finance the mission.

Then pastor Luis Marti showed everyone how to integrate missions into every ministry of the church, so that missions is not a separate department of the church, but the main reason for its existence. Pastor Mauricio Castellon taught how to develop missional teams with lay people in order to give away missions tot the congregation. I was able to teach on the barriers to mobilizing our people for God’s mission. We believe that the answer to world wide missions, to the need of unreached people groups, is the local church. The church has to understand and own its singular mission.

You are only willingly sacrifice yourself for something greater than than yourself.  As we see the sacrifice of Christ, we also see the Supremacy of the Gospel  and the Urgency of His Mission. So why would churches all over Latin America being to focus on outside the walls of their church instead of focus on inside, in the own buildings and services? Why would these same churches send their people out into marginalized areas in their own city, and even all the way to very dangerous countries in the Middle East? Why would they raise the kind of funding that shows that missions is the church’s priority? Because Jesus is the church’s model on sacrifice, Jesus is our personal model on sacrifice; His sacrifice compels us to make the preaching of the Gospel in our local community and among every nation the main priority of the church.

This is when the church sends out its own members, not just to participate on a project, but to help expand the Kingdom of God in other areas. This month a Global Focus church in Venezuela is sending a couple to East Asia using their profession as a platform to expand God’s Kingdom. They will be working with a veteran team that is focused on church planting among that unreached people group.

Connect Global was able to help send out another young man from Bolivia to West Africa to work with a team of Latin American workers who are planting churches in that part of the world. So, going from a mission field to a mission force is viable, but there does need to be an intentional process to help take churches and people there. Please continue to pray for Global Focus Latin America and the facilitators who are teaching, mentoring and challenging churches all over Latin America to become that missions force.

When missions is the main mission of the church, when the church has a structure and a strategy to mobilize its own congregation across the street and around the world, then they celebrate is what God is doing all over the world. Just this past 2 weeks we have had several Global Focus alumni churches have their Global Celebrations. A Hispanic church in Atlanta, in Cd. Valles, Mexico, 2 churches in Mexico City. Why do we teach this? Because we always celebrate our priorities. If God’s Mission is the priority of the church, then we  elevate that priority by celebrate what He is doing locally and around the world through our church’s impact.

FBC Tecate, Mexico, is a Global Focus model church, we took them through our entire process 3 years ago. This week, pastor Isai Morellos (also president of the Baja California Baptist Convention) and a team from his church are in the  southern Philippine Islands. The area they are in is a mslm stronghold. They have taken  medical professionals and medicine, and use that as a platform to share Christ with the unreached. Why would a church in northern Mexico go all the way around the world to personally preach the Gospel to mslms? Their purpose statement says : “FBC Tecate exists to glorify God by making disciples that love, serve and evangelize from the heart of Baja California to the ends of the world.”

This past week, myself and several of our Latin American facilitators where able to teach the 2nd and 3rd modules of our missional process.

Some were in El Salvador, some in Peru, some in Chile. I was in Bogota, and Zipaquira, Colombia this past week. In these modules we help the leaders understand that the church exists for the purpose of being the Instrument by which God desires to fulfill His Mission and establish His Kingdom in every nation. We help every church develop their own Missional Purpose Statement, and align every ministry around that singular mission.

Rick Warren says that trying to lead a church without a clearly defined purpose, is like driving a car in dense fog… it is easy to drift out of your lane. Many churches begin to drift from the original intent that God established for His church in the book of Acts. By looking to Christ and defining why He started His church, and then developing a purpose statement that declares His purpose for our church, and aligning around that mission, helps keep a church from drifting into other lanes. We also help the church to develop a structure and strategy to mobilize its own members in their own Jerusalem and all the way to the ends of the earth.

This is one of the purpose statements developed this past week: “Vida en Accion (Life Action Church) exists for the Glory of God, by being and making disciples that establish His Kingdom from our families to all the nations of the earth.”

It is much more than teaching or preaching lessons or sermons about missions or about unreached people groups. It has to do more with an intentional process to take churches from where they are to another level of engagement. That is exactly what we are doing in Global Focus in Latin America. Different facilitators are going from church to church helping them realize their potential  impact in God’s Kingdom. Then also helping to take them through an intentional missional process in which the end result is that their church is much more engaged, sending out their own people to their own city, in their own country and among the unreached, all at the same time.

E.H. and his family have been serving in the Middle East for 6 years. They have been able to learn the local language and to share their faith, preach and teach. God has been using this family from Mexico in an extraordinary way where they are serving. They are helping disciple house church pastors, starting house churches, discipling new believers. Now they are discipling believers from small villages that have come to faith, helping them start house churches in their area.

Literally every week we are receiving reports from Latin American families from churches that we have mentored, and helped to send to the field, of mslms coming to faith in Christ, publicly identifying with Christ in baptism, new house churches being birthed. The church is emerging where there was no church! Why? Because there should always be a traceable link between our mobilization efforts and expanding the Kingdom of God.