ReachGlobal Africa

Music: The International Language of Worship

2012-02-10T21:18:00.001-08:00

Asthe first choir made its way slowly up on to the platform I wondered to myselfwhat the music of the church in Ethiopia would be like. I have the privilege to travel to multipleAfrican countries every year and have experienced the wonder of African worshipfrom large cement block churches in cities to mud-walled, thatched roof villagechurches. In each setting and in eachcountry I have found the heart of worship to be expressed in ways that soclearly reflect the dynamic uniqueness of the people and their culture.

Thekeyboard player started the background rhythm and when he struck the first cordI knew that we were in for a real treat! Young Ethiopian choir members were soon singing with all their might inthe language of their heart. Their facesexpressed their joy in loving and serving Jesus. The sheer volume of their singing along withthe choreographed swaying and movements showed the enthusiasm in their worship and soon the entire congregationwas singing along with them. Hundreds andhundreds of voices lifting praise to the Savior in a language that I couldn’tunderstand. However, I didn’t need to beable to speak the language to know the love and joy that was driving theirworship of the Lord that I too love and serve.

Vision for a Decade of Ministry in Africa

2012-02-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

Over the past couple of weeks I have been writing about our ReachGlobal Africa Division LeadTeam's Ten Year Goals. I thought it was time to share all of them with you before I write more posts in the future about them. Please continue to pray! Without prayer none of this is possible.

Vision: To see the Gospel transform lives,communities, and institutions across Africa by the power of God’s Spirit

Ten Year Goals: (2010– 2020)

25 million people impacted with the Gospel
100 missionally aligned and strategic partnerships
25 Acts 19 locations where the Gospel impacts an entire regionfrom a “hub city”
50 new ReachGlobal leaders (men & women)
50 new ReachAfrica leaders (men & women)
Find and disciple five thousand (5,000) 15 – 35 year old nextgeneration leaders
Equip children’s ministry trainers for every African nationalchurch partner
Grow a culture of Biblical spirituality where our staff andnational partners both know and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit andalso expect that God will do the extraordinary in and through us
Every nationalpartnering movement, church, and organization multiplying healthy churchesamong all people as we come alongside of them
Every national church partnership is a missionary sending movement
Develop four multi-cultural mission equipping centers (West,Central, East and South)
A complete integration of the proclamation and demonstration ofthe Gospel message through the teaching and ministry of our staff and partners
Maximize technology and media for greater Kingdom impact
Develop, empower, and release ReachAfrica as a sustainable Africanmission movement

May the Lord of thechurch receive maximum glory as the transforming power of the Gospel touchesmillions of lives on the continent of Africa and beyond!

Leveraging Leadership

2012-02-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

As our ReachGlobal Africa Division LeadTeam prayerfullyconsidered setting ministry goals for the next decade we came face to face withthe fact that without gifted leaders to move these ministry plans forward weweren’t going to get the traction we need to see things advance. With that in mind we set goals to find 50 new ReachGlobal leaders and 50 newReachAfrica leaders between now and 2021.

You have most likely heard people say that “everythingrises and falls on leadership.” Leadership isn’t the only critical thing necessary for good ministryeffectiveness. A foundation of solidBiblical principles and being sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit areindispensable for effective ministry. However, it takes good leadership to make the best use of both of these essential elements. Good leaders help their teamsto clearly define their missional values, set ministry goals, and keep the teammoving forward toward accomplishing those goals while living out their values. Without good leaders ministry teams can easilydrift off course and be less than effective often simply continuing to do thesame things over and over again. We seefinding the “next generation” of leaders for the ministry in Africa as beingessential and one of our top priorities.

In looking for leaders we purposely focused on findingboth Americans who will serve with ReachGlobal, the International Mission ofthe Evangelical Free Church of America, and Africans who will serve withReachAfrica, the indigenous African missionary equipping partnership of AfricanEvangelical Free Churches. We are livingin a quickly changing missions environment in Africa. The days of “colonial missions” where leadersfrom the West set the agenda, called the shots and provided the resources areover and a day of genuine collaborative partnership is dawning. It is imperative that the face of ministry inAfrica be more and more an African face and that the western missionary takesmore of an equipping and encouraging role. Now is the time for leaders from Africa and western missions to sittogether to prayerfully seek the face of the Lord of the church for His agendafor ministry and then to work together to see ministries launched that areindigenous (appropriate to the local culture), reproducible (able to be multiplied),and sustainable (using local resources for the long run).

Identifying and equipping 100 leaders for ministry inAfrica (50 ReachGlobal and 50 ReachAfrica) will be a HUGE game-changer! I believe God will use healthy leaders to multiply healthychurches, healthy ministries, and more healthy leaders. Will you join me in praying for these 100healthy leaders for Africa!

What are Acts 19 locations?

2012-01-29T22:21:00.000-08:00

Acts 19 locations are places where the Gospel penetratesa city or region deeply, broadly and rapidly. In the city of Ephesus in Acts 19 the Apostle Paul looked for those who wereopen and then boldly proclaimed the Gospel, which was accompanied by someamazing work of God in the lives of people in the city. This resulted inwidespread repentance throughout the region and people’s lives being genuinelychanged. Because of the breadth and depth of the impact in peoples’ livesthere was significant pushback from the Evil One and resultingpersecution.

The following are some essential things to consider as weseek to see Acts 19 type results in “hub centers” in Africa:

· We cannot control the outcome, but we cansignificantly influence the ministry environment which we create. Resultsare up to the Lord!

· We have to look for a coalition of the willing, thosewho share our values and want to partner together to see genuine Gospeltransformation take place in the city and beyond. We cannot do this alone!

· We have to look for holistic ministries opportunities,proclaim the Gospel boldly, pray with expectancy, and expect pushback. This is not for the faint of heart!

The following are the key indicators of when we areseeing Acts 19 results in a location:

· Rapid spread of the Gospel

· Regional influence

· Transformation of lives

· Churches are planted

· Persecution comes as the Gospel transformspeople’s lives

That leads me to ask, “Are we intentionally creatingministry environments that could result in Acts 19 movements if God chose tobring a significant harvest?”

Someone commented on my last blog, “That is a BIGrequest. It is a good thing that our God can handle BIG requests and wants usto ask powerfully in his name.” Icouldn’t agree more. On May 30, 1792Baptist Minister William Carey preached a sermon entitled “The DeathlessSermon” in Nottingham, England in which he sought to spur his fellow pastors tointentional evangelistic action. The twomain ideas of his sermon have been quoted from that day to today:

· Expect great things from God

· Attempt great things for God

The sermon was the launching point for what became knownas the Baptist Missionary Society in England who later commissioned WilliamCarey as their first missionary to India. His ministry there led to him being called the “father of modernmissions.”

The Apostle Paul summed it up well in the end of hisprayer in Ephesians 3 when he wrote:

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 churchand in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Eph. 3:20-21

Praying for Regional Impact

2012-01-26T22:08:00.000-08:00

The world is rapidly moving to the city and itis changing the face of Africa at breakneck speed. There are currently nearly 20 cities inAfrica with populations of over 2 million. The population of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo has justsurpassed New York City making it one of the most populous cities in Africa, approachingnearly 10 million people most of whom live in abject poverty. If projections hold true it will likelyexceed 12 million people within the next 5 years.

Currently approximately 40% of Africans areliving in cities and 60% are living in villages. It is projected that within the next decadethose numbers will reverse with 60% living in cities and 40 living in villages. The implications for ministry in Africa as aresult of this change are immense.

Historically cities have been the government,education, business and transport hubs of any country. The result has been that often what starts inthe cities moves out to the rural areas of a country like the ripples on a pondafter dropping a large rock in the center.

This fact is what led the Apostle Paul tofocus much of his impact on the cities of his time. One of the most powerful accounts of thespread of the Gospel in the book of Acts is found in Acts 19. In this chapter we find the Apostle Paul inthe city of Ephesus, a bustling hub of influence in its day. People flowed in and out of the city on aregular basis for a number of reasons. In Acts 19:10 we read that following just over 2 years of Paul’s ministryin Ephesus “all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard theword of the Lord.” From effectiveministry in a key “hub city” an entire region was impacted by the Gospel.

We are praying that God will move in powerfulways in the “hub center cities” of Africa in the days to come so that we cansee entire regions impacted by the Gospel. The third of our ReachGlobal Africa Division LeadTeam 10 Year Goalsreflects our desire to see “25 Acts 19 locations where the Gospel impacts anentire region from a ‘hub city’.” We arecurrently working to establish the beginnings for these types of ministries in sixmajor cities in Africa. In addition, wehave several of our staff and partners in smaller “hub center” locations wherethe Gospel is taking root among the unreached people of the surroundingregions.

What does it take to initiate something likethat and how do you know if you are seeing “Acts 19” type results? I’ll leave that for the next blog entry, butfor now I would ask you to join me in praying that God will raise up dynamicGospel centered ministries in the cities and hub centers of Africa where entireregions will be impacted and genuine transformation will take place.

We really can do more together….

2012-01-21T02:46:00.000-08:00

One of the keys to seeing the rapid impact of the Gospelspread across Africa is expressed in our second 10 Year Goal, which is to grow 100 missionally aligned and strategicpartnerships. The premise of thisgoal is that we really can do more things together than we couldindividually. For far too many yearschurch ministry in the States and missions ministry around the world have beencharacterized by a provincial mindset that was more concerned about guardingwhat we were trying to do than to seek genuine Kingdom of God results where itreally doesn’t matter who gets the credit and whose name is put by the successstories.

For over two decades I worked to connect pastors togetherin the communities where I served in the States so that we could genuinelydemonstrate the unity of the Spirit and our commom mission to reach our cityfor Christ. One of the things that ledme to leave pastoral ministry to take this leadership role with ReachGlobal sixyears ago was the heart of genuine collaboration that I saw in ReachGloballeadership. As a mission we arecommitted to the fact that we don’t own, control, or count anything as ours inthe places around the world where we minister. We partner with indigenous church and mission movements as well as otherinternational missions who share our Biblical and missional values. (Check out the ReachGlobal Sandbox http://www.efca.org/reachglobal/resources/reachglobal-sandbox and theEFCA Statement of Faith http://www.efca.org/about-efca/statement-faith to learn moreabout the missional and Biblical values that are at the core of our partnerships.) Names and titles don’t matter to us, butrather alignment on these key values is what opens the door for genuine collaborativeministry that I believe blesses the heart of God and advances the cause of theGospel. We don’t partner with everyonewho comes asking to develop a partnership with us. Healthy partnerships take time todevelop. I believe that all ministry isbased in relationship and all relationships are based on trust and trust growsas we collaboratively minister together with those who share like values.

That is why we are working to develop missionally aligned and strategicpartnerships in close to 20 countries in Africa right now and our goal is tohave over 100 partnerships in the next 10 years. In many of these countries we have multiplepartnerships in various geographical areas and in a variety of different typesof ministries. In addition, God has beenusing our staff and national partners to initiate connections between churchmovements in several countries to help them see how they can work together tobe more effective in seeing ministry grow in areas where their missional valuesalign. In Liberia today 6 differentchurch movements are working together to equip and send church plantingmissionaries to the unreached people in Liberia and surrounding countries. They are doing training together, strategizingtogether about where each group will focus their church planting efforts andeven raising money for each other to help expand ministry!

Missionally aligned and strategic partnerships are one ofthe keys to the rapid advance of the Gospel. We are on the lookout for the 100 key partnerships that we believe Godhas for us in Africa so that we can see the Gospel rapidly and deeply impact the continent.

Immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine...

2012-01-17T11:11:00.000-08:00

As our Africa Division LeadTeam has been praying over ourvision to “see the Gospel transform lives, communities, and institutions acrossAfrica by the power of God’s Spirit” we have become increasingly aware that theonly way this will be realized is by a major move of God across thecontinent. The seemly endless brokennessthat we face everywhere we minister is something that either presses us intogreater faith or into increasing cynicism about whether things in Africa willever change. I can understand why peopleI know who have invested their lives in Africa for decades and deeply love thepeople there are hesitant to embrace a vision of not only individual livesbeing changed by the Gospel, but seeing whole communities impacted. After all, missionaries came to Africa decadesago and the growth of the church there today is in many ways unprecedented, yet little seems to change related to thecorruption, violence and brokenness that we see everywhere on the continent. However, my study of the scriptures and mypersonal journey of faith have led me to deeply long for God do someextraordinary things by the power of His Spirit through the lives of His peoplein Africa.

A few years ago TJ Addington, Executive Director ofReachGlobal, shared from his heart with our leadership that he was asking theLord for 100 million people to be impacted by the Gospel in the next decadethrough 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 samevision with our staff and national partner leaders in Africa. The challenge so deeply touched the hearts ofour African brothers that they spent time late into the night praying,worshipping and talking about what their responsibility was as African churchleaders to see a significant number of these 100 million people be fromAfrica. It led them to launch an indigenousAfrican missionary equipping movement they have called ReachAfrica. God is using them in powerful ways to seethis becoming a reality in Africa today!

Our ReachGlobal Africa Division LeadTeam prayed aboutwhat our “faith goal” should be and the Lord clearly led us to the first of our10 Year Goals, which is to see 25 millionpeople impacted by the Gospel in Africa. As I began to share this with our staff and partners I saw a couple ofimmediate responses. Some were grippedby the challenge and immediately embraced the call to both pray hard and workhard to see this rapid expansion of the Gospel take place. Others looked at it as a “pipe dream” so farout 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 evermeasure it to know if we had reached it.

The purpose of this “faith goal” is not to have somethingto carefully measure and track in order to gage how close we are coming toreaching it. Rather it is something thatI believe is essential to keep us on our knees asking the Father to pour outHis Spirit and to use the efforts of our staff and partners to radically impactAfrica. I know that if God doesn’t movepowerfully we won’t get anywhere close to this goal. Yet, I believe with all my heart that 25million people impacted by the Gospel in a decade may well be too small anumber if God moves in dynamic ways through His church in Africa. The good news is that we are already seeing Goddo some things in this first year of our 10 year goals that have astoundedme! God is more than able and we arecommitted to being both faithful and faith-filled to see significant Gospelimpact take place in Africa.

I am asking you to join me in praying that God would begracious and allow 25 million people to be impacted by the Gospel in the nextdecade through ReachGlobal staff and partners in Africa. I want to see this happen not so that our goalscan be met, but rather so that His name will be praised and so that worshipwill ring out from Africa to bless the heart of God. I am praying the Apostle Paul’s prayer fromEphesians 3 for Africa:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole familyin heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious richeshe may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, sothat Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, beingrooted 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 knowthis love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure ofall the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask orimagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory inthe church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!Amen.

A vision or a dream......you decide......

2012-01-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

There is a natural follow-up to the two questions that I raised in my last post on the importance of having a ministry vision that is worth committing your life to see accomplished. It is a simple question, "What steps do we need to take to make sure that this vision becomes a reality?" You see, a vision without a plan is simply a dream. However, a God given ministry vision along with goals and a ministry plan born out of prayer and worked out in dependence on the Spirit of God can make a huge impact for the Kingdom of God.

Over the years I have seen a number of ministry visions die because they were in reality nothing more than dreams. These ideas and opportunities were passionately held by ministry leaders, yet they weren't realized because there weren't "tracks to run on" in order to see the ministry vision move forward.

The ReachGlobal Africa Division LeadTeam and I have been working over the past year to develop what we call a "Ministry Compass" that includes 10 Year Goals pointing toward our Vision Statement; 3 Year Goals that move us toward the 10 Year Goals; and 6 Month Tactical Plans that move us toward the 3 Year Goals. In addition, each one of our 6 Month Tactical Plans have a name(s) beside them indicating who on our team is responsible to move it forward. Everything has "line of sight" to the Vision Statement and our efforts are moving things toward the accomplishment of our overall 10 Year Goals. Our team meets every 6 months to review our progress, evaluate our overall goals and set out the next 6 Month Tactical Plans. This process is making a HUGE impact to help our vision not get stalled out and become simply a dream, but to truly make an eternal difference in the lives of people.

In the next several posts I will be sharing our 10 year goals and giving you some of the background behind our thinking in developing them. Let me be very clear that these goals are born out of prayer and are being worked out in dependence on the Spirit of God. We are convinced that unless the Lord of the church is guiding us and empowering us we won't see much of eternal value happen. However, we believe that transformational things will start to happen when we are humbly listening to the Lord, making adjustments along the way as He leads, and depending on the empowering of His Spirit as we go.

Our Vision is to see the Gospel transform lives, communities and institutions across Africa by the power of God's Spirit!

Compelling Vision

2012-01-05T15:50:00.000-08:00

In my more than 30 years of full-time ministry I found myself at various times asking two extremely important questions. The first one is, "What is the vision that is driving the ministry forward?" The second is a follow-up, "Is this vision compelling enough for me to go all out for?" Unless we can articulate the answer to these two questions I am afraid that those of us leading ministries can easily slip into something that settles for less than God's best for what He has called us to do. This is essential to me right now as I am at a point in my life where the clock is ticking and the years I have left to invest my life in ministry are far less than they were when I started. I want to make my life count the most for the Kingdom of God as I serve Him and His church.

Over the course of the past year our ReachGlobal Africa Division LeadTeam has been prayerfully crafting a vision statement that captures what we believe the Lord is asking us to commit our lives to in ministry in Africa. After a good bit of prayer and discussion God led us to commit ourselves to this vision:

To see the Gospel transform lives, communities, and institutions acrossAfrica by the power of God’s Spirit

This vision was born from the conviction that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only hope for the continent of Africa! Unless we move to disciple people toward obedience and not simply knowledge as well as toward genuine transformation and not simply the accumulation of more information we will not see the impact of the Gospel in changing individuals, families, communities, and even entire nations. I believe with all my heart that God's deepest desire is to see Gospel transformation radically impact Africa!

Would you join me in praying that God would do this to His glory in Africa! I believe as He does it in Africa it will ripple out to the rest of the world.

What is God doing in Africa through ReachGlobal?

2012-01-03T19:36:00.000-08:00

God is opening up amazingopportunities in multiple places in Africa

· Evangelism and church planting among the leastreached people

· Transformational holistic ministries touchingpeople’s lives with the love of Jesus

· Raising up a generation of Godly leaders

· Partnering with African national churchmovements to see a generation of indigenous African missionaries and churchplanters equipped and deployed all across the continent

ReachGlobal has missionarystaff living and ministering in six countries. The two primary areas of focus for our staff is evangelism & churchplanting among unreached peoples and training & equipping a generation ofAfrican leaders, church planters and missionaries.

ReachGlobal also partners withAfrican national church movements and like-minded African ministries in 16countries, which gives significant opportunities to multiply ministry by comingalongside the indigenous churches in each country.

We are extremely thankful forall that we have seen the Lord do in the past year. Over 1,000 African pastors,leaders, and church planters from 10 African nations have gone through anintensive Multiplication Church Planting Workshop to prepare them to plantchurches among some of Africa’s least reached peoples. Church leaders frommultiple African denominations have committed themselves to strategically worktogether to identify the least reached people around them and send churchplanting missionaries to reach them with the good news of the Gospel.

God hasraised up a new Equipping Team of ReachGlobal Staff in Tanzania in East Africa. They are seeing amazing doors open for them to come alongside the church toequip a generation of leaders and equippers in multiple East African nations.Ministries among refugees in West Africa have led to many coming to Christ andthe planting of churches among some of the least reached peoples in theregion. A number of new missionaries are coming to multiple countries in Africato serve in a wide variety of ministries.

These are just a few of the things we have seen God do in the past year. Ourvision to see the Gospel transform lives, communities, and institutions acrossAfrica by the power of God’s Spirit is beginning to be a reality!

New Initiatives for a New Year

2012-01-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

God is at work stirring in the hearts of a generation of leaders in the African church to see African missionaries and church planters identified, equipped and sent to the more than 260 million unreached Africans. We want to be a part of seeing that happen. One of our key goals over the next several years is to see four multi-cultural missionary equipping centers established in Africa. They will be strategically launched in the east, west, central and south regions of the continent in partnership with ReachAfrica.

Last month I was in Monrovia, Liberia in West Africa to speak at the graduation of the first group of 20 leaders to complete an intensive four month Missionary Equipping Course at the West Africa Missionary Equipping Center that ReachAfrica and ReachGlobal are launching there. What a joy it was to be able to see the passion for missions in the hearts of these African leaders and to be able to challenge them to take the baton and run the race well in reaching the unreached in Africa with the transforming message of the Gospel. I wish that you could have been with me to experience this new dynamic of God's work in West Africa as He is raising up a generation of deeply committed African church planting missionaries to see the Gospel spread and healthy churches planted among all the peoples of that region.

Please join me in praying for these leaders and for the hundreds of other African leaders who we are seeking to equip as this generation's African missionary movement!

Why do you do what you do?

2012-01-01T11:53:00.000-08:00

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven." Matthew 6:1
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As I read these words from the lips of Jesus I find it is far too easy to simply apply them to the Pharisees of Jesus' day and to shake my head at the "dead religiosity" of the religious leaders of that time. Doing things for "show" and not genuinely from the heart was certainly a problem of the religious leaders of Jesus' day, but what about my life?

In doing my study on this verse I came across a powerful description of hypocrisy, which defines it as simply "doing right things for wrong reasons." I spent some time this morning looking back at my life of more than three decades in ministry. It was an interesting walk down memory lane of twenty-four years of pastoral ministry in two incredible congregations and six years of leadership in one of the most dynamic mission agencies in the world.

What I saw was a track record of working hard to do the right things, which is a very high value for me. (After all "responsibility" is one of my top five strengths on the StrenghsFinder.) However, when the Spirit of God shined His "motive search light" deep into my heart I found too many times when I did the right thing, but for the wrong motive. These wrong motives were often more about me and how people looked at me than they were about genuinely serving and loving people with the selfless love of Jesus. That means according to our definition I can rightly be classified as a hypocrite. Ouch! It really hurts to admit admit that! Yet, unless I admit it, confess it and ask the Lord to fill my heart with the right motives I will find myself continuing to do the right things for the wrong reasons.

Why not take time today and ask the Spirit of God to shine His "motive search light" into your heart? You may find He wants to deal with some important things in your heart like He did in mine.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T18:44:00.000-08:00

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

It’s Christmas Day and I find myself thinking a great deal about these powerful words from John 1:14. The truth that the all powerful God of the universe would humble Himself to come and live among us is more than I can really fathom. This profound demonstration of His love for us should certainly lead us to worship.

On this Christmas Day I find myself even more committed than ever to do what it takes to see the Gospel transform lives, communities, and institutions across Africa by the power of God’s Spirit. Genuine collaborative partnership with other like-minded Christ followers in this task means more to me than words can express!

I pray that you are enjoying a most blessed Christmas 2011 and that you will see God’s hand at work over and over again in the New Year.