Uncategorized

“Global Focus has changed our church 180 degree’s, now then entire church is focused on The Mission, and almost everyone is participating.” This was the testimony of one of the Global Team lay leaders at Vida Nueva B.C. in Arequipa, but it is also the sentiment of the pastor Vargas, and many church members. This past week I was able to mentor them in the last module of our missional process. Thirty of their leaders came together for 2 days to learn how to help every member of the church find their Kingdom assignment and live their lives missionally.

As a result of Global Focus’s impact in this church, their young people and adults have started local several missions project reaching people locally, they are participating in missions in other areas of Peru and South America, and now they are taking as church their first cross cultural missions trip to work with Peruvian workers that we helped to send to North Africa. Another first for Vida Nueva is that at the end of this year, they will launch their first family as cross cultural workers to Southeast Asia to reach mslms and do church planting. Now pastor Vargas is mentoring churches in other parts of Peru and Pastor Caruachin is mentoring churches in Bolivia this week and also and other parts of Peru. God is mobilizing His church in Latin America to help finish the task of reaching the nations.

Xochitl just returned from Cuba where she, our pastors wife, Susie Hawkins, and other ladies were able to teach at a conference for pastors wives. Xochitl was able to teach from the book of Ruth about a woman that put God in first place.

Pray for our daughter Nayeli, she is in Germany this week where at the International Prayer Counsel in Herrnhut, Germany. This is where the Moravian revival started centuries ago.

Jason Carlisle, who is the IMB Hispanic mobilizer has done a tremendous job at mobilizing Hispanic churches here in the U.S. to some difficult places. Every year he organizes Enlace Global in Richmond, VA and this year also in Houston, TX. I was able to be with them this year, and enjoy seeing all God is doing. I was also able to teach on how Latin American churches can adopt and reach other ethnic groups. The good thing was that my class was not just theoretical, but through the Global Focus missional process, I was able to show them how many Latin American churches are doing exactly that! During this meeting we were able to commission a new worker from an area Houston Hispanic church to work in Senegal.

A few weeks ago I went to Havana with pastor Jesus Guillen to help facilitate sending of a family from Cuba to Senegal to work with our Venezuelan team there. After 2 attempts to board the plane and being rejected by the Cuban authorities, the third time they were allowed to board the plane and they arrived this past Monday in Senegal. I was able to spend some time with them along with David, a trainer in the “Four Fields” church planting method on Skype teaching them biblical principals about church planting. Pray for them and the Venezuelan team that is serving their, they have already started several discipleship groups and house churches.

Last week I was able to preach for my good friend Steve Flockhart at New Season Church in Metro Atlanta. This is one of the first churches to partner with our ministry when we started. We had one young woman confess publicly her faith in Christ and many decisions to live missional.

This weekend I was in Morristown, TN at a Hispanic church; Iglesia Bautista de la Gran Comision (Great Commission Baptist) and take their leadership through the Global Focus seminar for 6 hours on Saturday, and then preach on Sunday were we had 3 come to faith in Christ, and dozens surrender their lives to missions.

This small Hispanic church is now sending their first cross cultural worker to the unreached!

This week my wife and I are in Mexico, and this weekend we will continue to mentor Getsemani Baptist Church of Puebla, with pastor missionary Bruce Bell (who is the founder of Miramonte Baptist in San Salvador 45 years ago).

So the question is, what does all of this say? How does it change our current perception of missions and of the church? Number 1; God is working, drawing men and woman to Himself in the mslm world. In some of the hardest places, most difficult circumstances, God is not limited by fear of danger, or political attitudes.

He is about His glory, and He is constantly inviting us to join in with what He is doing. Participating is not just our commandment, it is our extreme privilege.

Number 2: That God is using Christians from economically depressed areas to show us that He does not need our money, our large budgets, our well planned strategies; that all He really needs is our willingness to obey and participate in His mission around the world. That the mission field, is quickly becoming the mission force and He is raising up a new generations of workers to send out.

Although only heaven will reveal all of the results of this project. The truth is many of the decisions are still yet to be made. We believe that the initial results are just the beginning of what God is doing. We were able to distribute over 7,000 “books” and micro chips. Many of these “books” and micro chips will be read in a more secure and private setting. God’s Spirit will begin to draw men and woman from this particular closed country to Himself.

Many of the micro chips will be copied and given to other family members and friends, and in the future there will be new followers of Christ, discipleship groups and house churches form.

But what God did on the streets last week with our team was astounding, we saw over 35 people come to faith in Christ, and at the end of the week, 2 followed in baptism!

The last day the team we partner with rented a tour boat and invited the people from this country to come and a special 4 hour tour. There were so many people that showed up that they boat was already 50 over capacity, so our team gave up our spaces

On the boat where many believers from this country ready to engage in spiritual conversations, and even a 15 minute presentation of the Gospel story. Praise the Lord another 7 people came to faith in Christ on the boat!

Brasil is pivotal in many aspects; it is South America’s largest country; one third of all Latin American Christians live in Brazil. God has done a tremendous work in this country in the last 100 years. Today they have more than 50 million evangelical believers, and many of their churches are already sending out missionaries. The difficulty we have had in Global Focus was the language. Last year I had the Spanish version of Global Focus mobilization process translated into Portuguese, so now we are able to work in this great country using the same process that is mobilizing hundreds of churches in the Spanish speaking world.

Since I do not feel that I am able to mentor churches in Brazil, because of the language and frankly time restraints. We have decided to from the beginning it is best to train facilitators that want to be able to mentor churches in Brazil in the Global Focus missional process. For that reason I was able to make a strategic alliance with OM, and train their staff. This past week I was able to spend an entire week training the OM (Operation Mobilization) team in Sao Jose dos Campos in the process we use to mobilize churches all over Latin America

Since Portuguese is similar enough to Spanish, and I had the material in front of me in Portuguese, and even though I had a translator next to me, I did not have to use him very often.

(Either the people of Brazil are very smart, and used to listening to Portuguese spoken badly, or God gave me the gift of tongues….. I think it was the first.) I am very excited not only about the possibility of helping the Brazilian churches mobilize even more their own people on mission with God, but very excited about this new partnership. I realize the only way to grow our ministry is to continue to train even more facilitators and work through partnerships like this one.

I was also able to spend half a day teaching future workers that are going out from OM to the nations. It was a joy to spend this time with these young people that have dedicated their lives to work in missions. I was able to share with them what God is doing, and a little on how to work in the mslm world, and how God could use them there.

rom the offices of OM in Sao Jose dos Campos, we were able to go to Sao Paulo, and there I was able to start the mentoring process (with the entire OM staff present as well) with the Redeemers Chapel of Sao Paulo, an Evangelical Free church.I will continue to mentor this church and teach the OM team at the same time on how to mentor churches.

This past Sunday I was able to preach at this great church as well, and challenge them on becoming an Antioch church. Pray for them as they are starting this missional process, and their interest in taking it to the rest of their denomination.

Yovanny Alvarez is another Global Focus facilitator, in Venezuela. He has been mobilizing several local church and baptist associations in Venezuela. This last week he was able to continue mentoring the Iglesia Bautista Jesucristo el Camino in the Global Focus missional process. Even though they are not a large church they have already sent two families to North Africa.

God is using Global Focus in an incredible way in Venezuela in spite of some of the most difficult economic situations, they are beginning to send workers to the field.

Pray not only for the churches involved in the Global Focus process throughout Latin America, but for our facilitators that are helping to mentor and challenge these churches to go far beyond what they thought possible.