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Showing posts from April, 2009

CPM 101

As I am going about the business of networking with missionaries and pastors from around the world, the concept of church planting movements is new to many of them. Although cpms have been happening around the world for nearly 20 years, and David Garrison's initial booklet was published 10 years ago, still the concepts and stories of what God is doing is new to many in the Lord's work. Recently I have met with pastors, missions leaders, indigenous leaders, missionaries, and educators who were only vaguely familiar with the concepts surrounding cpms . And yet we believe, that in the last 20 years, over 100,000 churches have been planted in Asia and Africa because of cpm principles. (The numbers are probably much higher than that, but I limit myself to the particular movements that I have some connection with, through networking with some of the leaders). I have told some of the stories associated with these movements and have seen leaders show interest in these moves of G

Pursuing Much Fruit

John 15: 5 says "I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me." The words of Jesus in this passage are some of the most powerful, to me, in the Gospel record. The goal of my life is to produce fruit for the Lord Jesus Christ in the multiplication of disciples and churches to the Glory of God. For years the desire to see fruit of the Gospel has been a driving force in my life. The primary question for me has been, how can I best serve the Lord and produce the most fruit for Him. For me this quest has gone through several stages in my understanding. First, it was an understanding of bringing souls to Christ through missions and evangelism. That explains where I was when we started our organization in 1988 and named it "World Missions and Evangelism". Later, as we gained experience in missions, we focused on leadership seminars for pastors and leaders and for a time on larg