As our Africa Division LeadTeam has been praying over our
vision to “see the Gospel transform lives, communities, and institutions across
Africa by the power of God’s Spirit” we have become increasingly aware that the
only way this will be realized is by a major move of God across the
continent. The seemly endless brokenness
that we face everywhere we minister is something that either presses us into
greater faith or into increasing cynicism about whether things in Africa will
ever change. I can understand why people
I know who have invested their lives in Africa for decades and deeply love the
people there are hesitant to embrace a vision of not only individual lives
being changed by the Gospel, but seeing whole communities impacted. After all, missionaries came to Africa decades
ago and the growth of the church there today is in many ways unprecedented, yet little seems to change related to the
corruption, violence and brokenness that we see everywhere on the continent. However, my study of the scriptures and my
personal journey of faith have led me to deeply long for God do some
extraordinary things by the power of His Spirit through the lives of His people
in Africa.
A few years ago TJ Addington, Executive Director of
ReachGlobal, shared from his heart with our leadership that he was asking the
Lord for 100 million people to be impacted by the Gospel in the next decade
through the ministry of our staff and partners around the world. It was amazing to see how this “faith goal”
resonated with the ReachGlobal leaders that day. Several months later he shared the same
vision with our staff and national partner leaders in Africa. The challenge so deeply touched the hearts of
our African brothers that they spent time late into the night praying,
worshipping and talking about what their responsibility was as African church
leaders to see a significant number of these 100 million people be from
Africa. It led them to launch an indigenous
African missionary equipping movement they have called ReachAfrica. God is using them in powerful ways to see
this becoming a reality in Africa today!
Our ReachGlobal Africa Division LeadTeam prayed about
what our “faith goal” should be and the Lord clearly led us to the first of our
10 Year Goals, which is to see 25 million
people impacted by the Gospel in Africa.
As I began to share this with our staff and partners I saw a couple of
immediate responses. Some were gripped
by the challenge and immediately embraced the call to both pray hard and work
hard to see this rapid expansion of the Gospel take place. Others looked at it as a “pipe dream” so far
out of reach that is was actually a “demotivator” to them. To some it sounded like more organizational
“hot air” designed to get people excited and others asked how we would ever
measure it to know if we had reached it.
The purpose of this “faith goal” is not to have something
to carefully measure and track in order to gage how close we are coming to
reaching it. Rather it is something that
I believe is essential to keep us on our knees asking the Father to pour out
His Spirit and to use the efforts of our staff and partners to radically impact
Africa. I know that if God doesn’t move
powerfully we won’t get anywhere close to this goal. Yet, I believe with all my heart that 25
million people impacted by the Gospel in a decade may well be too small a
number if God moves in dynamic ways through His church in Africa. The good news is that we are already seeing God
do some things in this first year of our 10 year goals that have astounded
me! God is more than able and we are
committed to being both faithful and faith-filled to see significant Gospel
impact take place in Africa.
I am asking you to join me in praying that God would be
gracious and allow 25 million people to be impacted by the Gospel in the next
decade through ReachGlobal staff and partners in Africa. I want to see this happen not so that our goals
can be met, but rather so that His name will be praised and so that worship
will ring out from Africa to bless the heart of God. I am praying the Apostle Paul’s prayer from
Ephesians 3 for Africa:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family
in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches
he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being
rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know
this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of
all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or
imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in
the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
Amen.
Th
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