After all of the events, we met again on Sunday to finish off our Global Celebration to challenge the church to give it’s first Faith Promise Missions Offering. Vida Nueva is a church of about 250, and for their first Faith Promise they have nearly $50,000.00 for Global Missions! But what is even more exciting is that on Sunday evening when we took up the “Life Commitment” cards, we had nearly 80% of the church say they were going to take their first missions trip this next year, and 24 surrounded their lives to full time cross cultural missions!
Why does something like this happen in Peru and other parts of Latin America? Several reasons; Vida Nueva is now totally focused on God’s Mission which includes Jerusalem (Arequipa) but also Ends of the Earth.
Now missions is not a program or committee of the church, it is their main focus of everything they do. So now almost everyone is involved in one way or another in missions! Another reason is that missions is now personal. They personally know missionaries, they have stayed with them in their homes, they have eaten with them, talked with them, prayed with them. So the natural response of a church totally focused on God’s Mission, and missions in now very personal is that they give more liberally and even sacrificially. That is what Connect Global – Global Focus is doing in 11 countries in Latin America! That is why we believe that the Global Focus Missional Process will help us see an even greater movement of God by Latin American churches to the nations, and specifically to unreached people groups!