World Impact and the Honduras Project (and announcing the next WME World Missions Conference)
The Honduras church planting movement project is moving forward this year with much work and activity of our Honduran team. I called it "boots on the ground" work in a blog in April. A team of 4 will be going down to visit the project in July. It will include myself in order to do on the ground strategy work with Randy Travis, our team leader. Also, Ben Holloway will be making his 2nd trip to our Honduran project. Ben is an evangelist who does much international work and is helping us network and connect with other churches and groups in the US and abroad. Brian Shelton will be coming from Oasis Christian Center in Paducah, KY. Oasis is one of our partnering churches, and is the leading supporter of the Honduras project to date. Finally the team will be rounded out by Larry Hardin, who is a WME missionary to Kenya. Larry and his wife Barbara, have a tremendous ministry there which leads a multi-campus Bible training center. It was with them that we helped conduct a leadership conference last October, including some training on CPM principles. Larry will be looking at the Honduras project in terms of future CPM impact for Kenya.
The point I want to make is that this trip will be an example of how the Honduras project is not only impacting its own locale, but is also positioned to have worldwide impact. The Honduras project is touching hundreds of lives in Central America, but also has the opportunity of breaking new ground in the Latin American context. In the past, church planting movements have been multiplying in Asia and Africa, but nothing of that level has been seen in the Latin American, Roman Catholic context. Our project is seeking to see doors opened here as well.
To illustrate the importance of this, let me quote from a recent article in Missions Frontiers magazine. This magazine, which is the flagship publication of the U.S. Center for World Missions in Pasedena, California, is the go to publication for what is on the cutting edge of world missions work. In the January/February 2010 issue there was an article entitled "Fanning the Flame" which was a report from a November 2009 meeting of the Ethne to Ethne network where 350 global missions strategists met to discuss the state of world evangelization. Here is a portion of the article by David Taylor that relates to church planting movement strategy and Latin America:
"In one way or another, every strategy group in
Ethne is seeking to contribute to the goal of seeing
movements to Christ among all the world’s least reached
peoples. At the synergistic core of this global
collaboration is the Church Planting Movement
(CPM) Strategy Group. Represented in this
group are leaders involved in, or connected
in some way to, dozens of movements among
unreached peoples that are
bringing millions to faith in
Christ, and seeing hundreds of thousands of churches
planted in a relatively short period of time. Because so many breakthroughs are
taking place now among major unreached peoples, one of the dilemmas faced by this
group is how to document the breakthroughs so that others can learn from
what is happening. As a result, a special research
group has been proposed to identify, validate and
describe in-depth every known church-planting
movement.
Interestingly, the Latin Americans at the Ethne
2009 gathering had a difficult time grasping the
concept of church-planting movements as they are
developing in frontier mission areas today. That’s
probably because church planting in Latin America
has generally followed a traditional model that was
based on buildings and professional clergy. But
most church-planting movements today are house church
based and lay-led, which is why they are able
to grow so fast. It is as if the Holy Spirit has taken
the Chinese model and blown it all over the 10/40
Window region! For this reason, COMIBAM,
which is the major mission movement in Latin
America (and a co-sponsor of the Ethne meeting
in Bogota), is seeking to invite CPM trainers to
teach Latin agencies, leaders, professors and prefield candidates about what God is doing through
these movements."
I hope that you can see from Taylor's article, that what is happening with the CPM strategy in Honduras is very important and has the potential to affect all of Latin America and the world.
WME's world vision is why we are involved in the Honduras project. Our vision is for a Biblical Church Planting movement to emerge in Honduras that literally fills the whole country with multiplying churches and that brings the gospel to every person in every people group present in Honduras (all 24 of them). But not to stop there, may the HCPM multiply into all of Central America, and be an example CPM to all of Latin America. And even more, may the HCPM both send out Honduran missionaries to other countries (including the 10/40 window) and serve as an example to other CPM projects worldwide, until closure is brought to the great commission (Matthew 24:14). That is our vision!
Thus we are networking and learning from CPM leaders worldwide. June 5-19 I will be traveling to San Jose, California, to learn from and share with leaders of CPMs from Asia and Africa. In July our team of 4 will be learning and strategizing in Honduras. In September, the Lord willing, I will be doing some initial training for potential cpmers in India. I am believing for 2010 to be a year of world impact.
In that spirit, let me announce the next World Missions Conference of World Missions and Evangelism. WME has not held a special conference for a few years, and we were recently invited by Pastor Larry Starnes to have our next World Missions Conference in Paducah, Ky at Oasis Christian Center. Please mark your calendars now, for this great time in 2011. More information will be given in the next several months as planning goes forward, but for now plan on joining us:
World Missions and Evangelism
World Missions Conference
April 8-10, 2011
Oasis Christian Center
Paducah, KY.
We will look forward to seeing all our readers there.
The point I want to make is that this trip will be an example of how the Honduras project is not only impacting its own locale, but is also positioned to have worldwide impact. The Honduras project is touching hundreds of lives in Central America, but also has the opportunity of breaking new ground in the Latin American context. In the past, church planting movements have been multiplying in Asia and Africa, but nothing of that level has been seen in the Latin American, Roman Catholic context. Our project is seeking to see doors opened here as well.
To illustrate the importance of this, let me quote from a recent article in Missions Frontiers magazine. This magazine, which is the flagship publication of the U.S. Center for World Missions in Pasedena, California, is the go to publication for what is on the cutting edge of world missions work. In the January/February 2010 issue there was an article entitled "Fanning the Flame" which was a report from a November 2009 meeting of the Ethne to Ethne network where 350 global missions strategists met to discuss the state of world evangelization. Here is a portion of the article by David Taylor that relates to church planting movement strategy and Latin America:
"In one way or another, every strategy group in
Ethne is seeking to contribute to the goal of seeing
movements to Christ among all the world’s least reached
peoples. At the synergistic core of this global
collaboration is the Church Planting Movement
(CPM) Strategy Group. Represented in this
group are leaders involved in, or connected
in some way to, dozens of movements among
unreached peoples that are
bringing millions to faith in
Christ, and seeing hundreds of thousands of churches
planted in a relatively short period of time. Because so many breakthroughs are
taking place now among major unreached peoples, one of the dilemmas faced by this
group is how to document the breakthroughs so that others can learn from
what is happening. As a result, a special research
group has been proposed to identify, validate and
describe in-depth every known church-planting
movement.
Interestingly, the Latin Americans at the Ethne
2009 gathering had a difficult time grasping the
concept of church-planting movements as they are
developing in frontier mission areas today. That’s
probably because church planting in Latin America
has generally followed a traditional model that was
based on buildings and professional clergy. But
most church-planting movements today are house church
based and lay-led, which is why they are able
to grow so fast. It is as if the Holy Spirit has taken
the Chinese model and blown it all over the 10/40
Window region! For this reason, COMIBAM,
which is the major mission movement in Latin
America (and a co-sponsor of the Ethne meeting
in Bogota), is seeking to invite CPM trainers to
teach Latin agencies, leaders, professors and prefield candidates about what God is doing through
these movements."
I hope that you can see from Taylor's article, that what is happening with the CPM strategy in Honduras is very important and has the potential to affect all of Latin America and the world.
WME's world vision is why we are involved in the Honduras project. Our vision is for a Biblical Church Planting movement to emerge in Honduras that literally fills the whole country with multiplying churches and that brings the gospel to every person in every people group present in Honduras (all 24 of them). But not to stop there, may the HCPM multiply into all of Central America, and be an example CPM to all of Latin America. And even more, may the HCPM both send out Honduran missionaries to other countries (including the 10/40 window) and serve as an example to other CPM projects worldwide, until closure is brought to the great commission (Matthew 24:14). That is our vision!
Thus we are networking and learning from CPM leaders worldwide. June 5-19 I will be traveling to San Jose, California, to learn from and share with leaders of CPMs from Asia and Africa. In July our team of 4 will be learning and strategizing in Honduras. In September, the Lord willing, I will be doing some initial training for potential cpmers in India. I am believing for 2010 to be a year of world impact.
In that spirit, let me announce the next World Missions Conference of World Missions and Evangelism. WME has not held a special conference for a few years, and we were recently invited by Pastor Larry Starnes to have our next World Missions Conference in Paducah, Ky at Oasis Christian Center. Please mark your calendars now, for this great time in 2011. More information will be given in the next several months as planning goes forward, but for now plan on joining us:
World Missions and Evangelism
World Missions Conference
April 8-10, 2011
Oasis Christian Center
Paducah, KY.
We will look forward to seeing all our readers there.
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