World Missions & Evangelism, Inc.

Announcing WME Mission Conference: April 13-15

2012-02-05T20:27:00.004-06:00

Announcing the 2012 WME Missions Conference.

Theme: Taking Back the Fight

When: April 13-15, 2012

Where: Oasis Christian Center
3232 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001-8122

Speakers:
Rev. Syvelle Phillips, Founder, Evangel Bible Translators
Rev. David Parish, President, World Missions and Evangelism

Conference Hotel:
Pear Tree Inn
5006 Hinkleville Road
Paducah, KY
270-444-7200
$54.99 per nite Special Conference Rate
Mention the Oasis Christian Center Mission Conference when making reservations.

A limited number of rooms will be provided at no cost to missionaries. If interested in this benefit, call the WME office and say you would like special missionary lodging. 270-527-9445.

Please call the WME office to register for the conference:270-527-9445 or dparish9@cs.com

Make Plans To Attend Missions Conference 2012

2012-01-31T11:27:00.002-06:00

Why Honduras?

2012-01-23T13:06:00.010-06:00

"Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth." -Archimedes

Why is WME focused on the nation of Honduras at the present time? World Missions and Evangelism has ministries in many nations as we showed in a recent blog (January 12, 2012). In that post, we wanted to highlight that WME is impacting many nations and that our vision is for the whole world. But it is also true that our church planting focus has narrowed in the last few years to this CPM project in Honduras. Why is that? I thought that in this posting, I would share how we think Honduras is pivotal in a Whole World strategy.

I. Poverty: Moral, Spiritual, Economic, and Educational
Honduras is a poor nation in so many ways. Honduras is a nation of many needs. Jesus told us that "Blessed are the poor" (Luke 6: 20) and Honduras is one of the poorest nations in the world, and especially in the Western Hemisphere, if we are talking about Economic Poverty. But Honduras is also one of the poorest nations in terms of Education with a very high illiteracy level. And then Spiritually, Honduras has much poverty. Although "Christianized" as a nation, the vast majority of the nation has not followed the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. And Honduras has a number of people groups that are desperate for the gospel. And finally there is the Moral poverty. 1 week ago the United States required all field personnel of the Peace Corps to leave Honduras. That meant that all 158 workers flew out last week. The reason: a wave of murderous violence. Honduras now has the distinction of having the highest murder rate in the World! It's current percentage is number 1 in the world, and as a way of comparison, it is 4 times Mexico's murder rate, which has received continual attention this last year or so! This is because of the drug/gang violence that has overtaken the nation. Indeed, 2 pastors that were about to receive CPM training with our materials were killed in the violence last year. The combination of Economic, Educational, Moral, and Spiritual poverty has converged in Honduras into a Perfect Storm of Need!

II. Position: The Center of the Center.
I pointed this out in a blog article a bit over a year ago. Honduras is the literal Central Nation of the Western Hemisphere. Its geographical location puts it in a position of influence for all of Latin America. There is North America and there is South America, and in the middle are the 7 nations of Central America. In Central America, there are 3 nations on the north and west and 3 nations to the south and east, and in the direct center is Honduras. You cannot travel by land from South America to North America without going through Honduras, and this accounts for some of the reason for the drug wars that are now happening there. The central location of Honduras makes it a kind of Bulls eye in the battle for the soul of Latin America. For good or for bad, what is happening in Latin America is amplified in Honduras. And vice versa, what happens in Honduras can be amplified in all of Latin America. Honduras is centrally located to affect all of the Western Hemisphere.

III. Potential: The Epicenter of World Change!
Flowing from the first 2 observations, Honduras is literally pregnant with potential for the Kingdom of God. Because of its centrality, as the "poverties" mentioned above are engaged and defeated in Honduras, the dominoes of dominion will begin to fall in the surrounding Central American countries as well. As the stronghold of economic poverty is broken in Honduras, they will begin to be broken in wider concentric circles. As illiteracy is erased in Honduras, knowledge will be released in larger proportion as well. When the violence of the drug trade is confronted and defeated in Honduras, the illegal traffic of drugs will have a setback in the whole hemisphere. When multiple church planting movements are released in Honduras, they will cross national boundaries both north and south and affect all the way from Canada to the tip of Chile and Argentina! You may say this is a dream and I say Yes it is ...a dream and a vision of the Kingdom of God moving forward and every people group in this hemisphere reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ!

And I will take it further. Not only Latin America will be affected, but all the world. Already there is the beginning of a world missions movement from Latin America. Latin believers are already moving to different places in the 10-40 Window to take the gospel. When the Honduran/Central American/Latin American Church Planting Movements multiply exponentially, they will not stop here, but will become a vast Sending Platform to seed CPMs in the farthest reaches of the world!

The mathematician Archimedes was right: Give us a place to stand....a place to start....a place of need that becomes a place of potential....and the whole world will be moved before it is done!

Please Pray for Honduras: Now is the Time to Move Forward

2012-01-16T20:16:00.002-06:00

Big news has come from Honduras today. Here are portions of the article from the Associated Press:

"All 158 Peace Corps volunteers in Honduras left the country on Monday, weeks after the United States announced that it would pull them out for safety reasons.

The region is plagued by gang violence and Honduras is considered to have the highest murder rate in the world. Honduras President Porfirio Lobo said Monday that the Peace Corps volunteers had been affected by rising crime, but neither he nor U.S. officials have cited specific attacks as reasons for the withdrawal.

A recent U.N. report said Honduras and El Salvador have the highest homicide rates in the world with 82.1 and 66 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively, in 2010. Guatemala had a rate of 41 per 100,000 last year. All three are more than double the homicide rate of 18 per 100,000 in Mexico, where drug violence has drawn world attention."

As the darkness is seeming to grow in this country, the fact is that the Light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is shining in a new way in this country. Through the efforts of the Honduras Church Planting Movement Project of WME and the work of those who have been trained and trained others, 159 new churches have been planted in Honduras. I was struck by the fact that 158 Peace Corps workers left, but the HCPM project has seen 159 churches planted! God is moving and the Light shines brighter in the darkness.

At this critical time, the Honduras project needs prayer more than ever before. Please pray for all missionaries and Christians who are working in Honduras. Pray especially for the HCPM team and workers in the CPM process: Adiel, Jacobo, Carlos, Oscar, Mario, Daniel, and Beto as well as many others who have been trained. Pray for safety: Carlos was robbed at machete point in the last couple of weeks, but was unharmed.

Pray for the CPM training that will be happening in La Ceiba on February 16-19. Many new church planters will be equipped. The whole Honduran team will be involved in this training as will Randy and Keith Travis, David Parish, and Caleb Gentry. Anthony Fouts will also be coming from the US for the training. Please cover this event in prayer for protection and for God's power and word to be communicated effectively toward the result of multiple church planting movements.

In spite of the dangers, now is the time to move forward. Our friend, Missionary John Mattica posted these words on facebook today: Interesting occurrence today: the Peace Corps has left Honduras. The last of their people flew out today. Sited reason: too violent. Now it's up to the missionaries to move in and fill the void. Anyone interested?

A Look at All that WME is Doing!

2012-01-12T14:57:00.002-06:00

I want to use this blog post to share the big picture of all that WME is involved in worldwide. World Missions and Evangelism is a missions sending agency that has missionaries and missions projects in Central and South America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe. WME serves 25 missionaries and or missions projects and these missionaires are involved in helping further the work of the Kingdom of God in a variety of ways. Here are a few areas in which WME missionaries and projects are involved:

Central America and South America:
1. Educational projects in Bolivia and Columbia
2. Children's ministry and Orphan care in Honduras and Costa Rica
3. The Honduras Church Planting Movement Project (159 churches so far!)

Africa:
1. 2 Bible Colleges in Kenya. (Missionary Leadership for these schools)
2. Orphanage in Kenya
3. Evangelism, Children's ministry, Church leadership and Benevolent ministry in: Zimbabwe, Kenya, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Sudan.

Asia/Pacific
1. 3 WME missionaries focused on the Peoples Republic of China.
2. Church Planting in the Philippines
3. Preparation for Unreached Muslim People Group outreach in Brunei and Indonesia.

Europe
1. A powerful university student ministry in France targeting international students from many countries.

Our blog is focused on the CPM work in Honduras, because that is the primary church planting project at this time. But in addition to the churches being planted in Honduras, 212 additional churches have been planted over the last 11 years in India, Indonesia, South Africa, Swaziland, and Romania. Adding Honduras to that gives a total of 371 churches planted through WME's church planting projects! Final preparations are being made this year to deploy our missionary to the Muslim people groups we are targeting in the Indonesia area.

So this note is to let you see the BIG PICTURE of all that WME is doing and involved in. Thousands upon thousands of people have been, are being, and will be impacted by all of the ministries that are a part of WME. Please keep it all in your prayer. Thanks so much for all of your support.

THE YEAR OF BREAKTHROUGH TO VICTORY

2012-01-01T00:03:00.003-06:00

In this first blog for 2012, I want to share a prophetic article that was published on the Elijah List Email on December 8, 2011. I feel that it really speaks to where WME is right now, especially in relationship to the Honduras Church Planting Movement project. In 2011, I felt strongly that we should call the theme for the year, The Year of Moving Forward. In fact, “Moving Forward” was the theme for our Missions conference at Oasis Christian Center in Paducah, KY last April. And it really was a year of moving forward, and indeed the work “Breakthrough” really applies, because in this year the breakthrough to a beginning Church Planting Movement happened. At the beginning of the year we had results of nearly160 Discovery Bible Studies, but now 12 months later there are 159 churches and another 85 ongoing DBS groups. A year ago we were impacting perhaps 2,500-3,000 people, but today the churches and DBS groups may be impacting around 6,500 people. It was a “Moving Forward” and “Breakthrough” year for sure!

As WME looks to this new year, we are expecting the CPM to continue and new CPMs to begin in Honduras and Central America. We are planning a major training for several denominations in La Ceiba, Honduras during February 16-19. We are planning on giving assistance to new trainings for pastors and leaders for the new churches that have already been planted. We have been invited to return to Oasis Christian Center for another Missions conference April 13-15. The theme this year will be, “Taking Back The Fight”. Our prayer for this year is that 2012 will move beyond the Breakthrough that has been experienced in 2011, into God’s Victory for Honduras, Central America, and the World!

“Lord, Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done, On Earth As It Is In Heaven!”

As you read Arleen’s word, you may feel that this is a word for your and/or your ministry as well. Arleen Westerhof is from the Netherlands in Europe. She is the founder and facilitator of the Netherlands Prophetic Council and is the co-senior pastor of the church God's Embassy Amsterdam together with her husband Dick.

Arleen Westerhof: Advance from Breakthrough into Victory

Isaiah 61:3b-4 They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of His splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

As we get ready to move into 2012 it's already clear that it's going to be an important year for the Church. God, through His Holy Spirit, is saying: "SHIFT! The new is here. The season of the outpouring of My Spirit has begun. The prophets have been prophesying this for many years, and, ready or not, it's here.

The Clouds Part and Clarity Comes

The past five to seven years have been a very uncomfortable time for many churches and individual Believers. The ground under our feet has shifted, and we have struggled to discern the new thing that God is doing. In 2012 the fog is going to clear. Believers will find themselves at the edge of the wilderness looking out over the Promised Land. It will be a time of great joy and celebration as we realize that the time of our wilderness wandering is over. Many will receive new strategies from Heaven as God lets them see how they are called to take the land.

Isaiah 48:3, 5a I foretold the former things long ago, My mouth announced them and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass...Therefore I told you these things long ago; before they happened I announced them to you.

Relational Shifts

Relational allegiances, some of them long-standing, will shift as people move out of places with an inward-looking orientation to places with a Kingdom emphasis. This will be a deliverance for many. There will be an acceleration in relationships cutting across network and denominational lines as more and more people choose to resolve their conflicts and misunderstandings for the sake of the Kingdom.

Fear

Fear of change, however, will paralyze many. Having tasted, they will make the opposite shift, preferring the wilderness to the new and often unknown challenges of moving into and taking the land. We cannot, however, afford to choose this option. The revival we've waited for has started and going back into the wilderness will only result in it passing us by – yet again.There are giants in the land that need to be driven out.

Deuteronomy 9:1-3 "Hear, O Israel. You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities that have walls up to the sky. The people are strong and tall – Anakites! You know about them and have heard it said: "Who can stand up against the Anakites?" But be assured today that the LORD your God is the One who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; He will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the LORD has promised you."God is raising up those with the spirit of Joshua and Caleb.

Numbers 14:7-9 ..."The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the LORD is pleased with us, He will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them."

Deuteronomy 1:35, 36 "Not a man of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your forefathers, except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly."

Picnicking on the Border

This will happen because many of us have not yet realized that breakthrough (revival) is not the victory. Breakthrough is a position from which we advance on toward the victory (reformation and transformation).In January 2010, during a period when our church was fasting and praying for 40 days, the Lord gave me a vision. In this vision I saw many Believers standing on the border between the wilderness and the Promised Land. They were celebrating. They had made it through the wilderness and were ecstatic. They worshipped and they praised God. Signs and wonders were prevalent. They spent time admiring the Promised Land from the border and talking about how wonderful life would be now that they had reached it.I was surprised, however, when the Lord let me see the situation on the border several years later. Memorials had been built on the border to commemorate the great work of God, in addition to many churches. Some of these were thriving. The people, however, were still on the border.In the end, a whole generation lived and died on the border without ever entering the land which still lay before them. They had confused breakthrough with victory and had failed to occupy the land. This is a caution to us all in the new season that we're in.

Move Forward to Victory!

God is saying to the Church – "It's time to cross over the border and move forward from breakthrough into victory." Several years ago Ana Mendez came to Amsterdam to do spiritual warfare against the spirit of prostitution. Within six months the places where the prostitutes work started shutting down. A year later Ana was back. As we talked she emphasized the need for Believers to buy up these places so that they could never again be used for prostitution.In order to occupy we're going to need money. While some may continue to receive anonymous envelopes with cash in answer to their prayers, the cloud has shifted. 2012 will be year in which God will re-emphasize the truth of Deuteronomy 8:18: "But remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms His covenant, which He swore to your forefathers, as it is today."Great wealth will start to be transferred into the hands of Kingdom-minded Believers whom God has prepared for this task. In the past there have been enough scandals involving high profile Believers who have fallen prey to Mammon. This time, however, things will be different. Only those who have defeated this giant in their own lives will be entrusted with these finances at this level.

A New Breed – The Priest-King

Even in the current Kingdom paradigm we still make a distinction between those with a kingly anointing and those with a priestly (full-time ministry) anointing, between those who are called to pray and those who are called to go and to do. This dividing line will be blown to bits as God raises up a new breed – the Priest Kings. They will be those called to both pray and to do.Apostles and prophets will be raised up who have the wisdom, strategy and grace to mentor and disciple people who can lead corporations as CEO's, entrepreneurs, heads of communities, states and even nations. Apostles and prophets will not just plant and build churches, but they will have the structures for managing and rebuilding ruined cities and nations. Prophets will serve in government, helping to structure the educational policy of nations, etc.2012 will mark the beginning of the Church's finest hour. While the world sinks into panic as the economic crisis worsens globally and great societal unrest is unleashed, the Church, with the new breed of Priest-King in place, will shine and finally be able to walk in the Kingdom authority and power that God has always intended.

Year End Giving

2011-12-26T10:22:00.002-06:00

Thank you so much for your continued prayer and support. As 2011 comes to an end, we reflect on this great year of BREAKTHROUGH and look forward to 2012 being a year of VICTORY!

This is your last chance to make your tax deductible donations for 2011! Any and all gifts are appreciated!

You can send a check to:
World Missions & Evangelism
PO Box 790
Benton, KY 42025

OR
Simply click the donate button and give using your credit card or Paypal account! IT'S THAT EASY!

Just make sure that all checks are postmarked on or before December 31, 2011.

Thank you again for all that you do! May you and your family be blessed exceedingly, abundantly, above all that you ask or think!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-20T11:21:00.000-06:00

I hope that all is well with you and your family this Christmas season. I know this time of year can get hectic. Whether you're stuck in traffic on the way to grandma's house, having the whole family over to your house, or wondering where to start on the kid's extensive Christmas list, try not to forget the reason we celebrate this time of year!
JESUS THE SAVIOR IS BORN!
This year while you are in the mindset of giving, do not forget to give to the one who was born for the sins of the world!
He came to this world so that we could know God and have eternal life! His mission is our mission!
Can you give a donation this Christmas to give the best gift to Jesus?
Your gift will help us to minister to the lost in Honduras. You can give online by clicking theMake A Donation button or by check to:
World Missions & EvangelismPO Box 790 Benton, KY 42025
Please Give This Christmas!
Blessings,
David Parish

From Breakthrough to Victory!

This year has been a remarkable year for the Kingdom of God! The theme of this year at W.M.E. has been Moving Forward, but we never imagined how far forward God intended to move us this year!
The Church Planting Movement is growing, multiplying, and THOUSANDS of disciples have been made! In 2011 we have seen our project in Honduras become a full-fledged Church Planting Movement with 159 churches planted this year alone.
2011 was a year of BREAKTHROUGH!

However, many times we confuse breakthrough with the victory. The breakthrough is only the beginning of what God is planning to do in and among the people of Honduras. God freed the Israelites from slavery, parted the Red Sea, provided food and water in the wilderness, until they finally reached the Promised Land. This was the breakthrough they had been waiting for! But because they did not press on to the victory, many never saw what the Lord had already given to them.
2012 must be a year of VICTORY!
"Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, 'Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.'"
Numbers 13:30

Charity Begins at Home, But It Does Not End There!

2011-12-11T09:15:00.013-06:00

"Charity begins at home." Sir Thomas Browne, 1642

"You shall be My witnesses BOTH in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." Jesus Christ, 30 AD

A phrase that I have heard many times in my life is, "Charity begins at home." It is uncertain where this quotation came from (although a form of it is attributed to Sir Thomas Browne, an English doctor, from 1642). However this phrase has become popular and when I did a google search for the meaning of this phrase, I found the following:

"You should take care of family and people close to you before you worry about helping others. I don't think our church should worry so much about a foreign relief fund when there are people in need right here in our city. Charity begins at home. If you really want to make the world a better place, start by being polite to your sister. Charity begins at home."

I find that this is the meaning of the phrase in common understanding. And I find that many of God's people glibly say such things, not realizing that they are not quoting the Bible, and in fact are saying something that is unbiblical.

Not that the words, charity begins at home, are entirely wrong. Of course, charity, and all other Christian virtues begin at home. But the common understanding of the phrase actually means to most people, "Charity ENDS at home".

Take the meaning of the phrase that I copied and pasted from my google dictionary search, 3 paragraphs up. In every case the phrase is understood to mean that the needs of people in my family and community must be completely taken care of before we even "worry about helping others". We should not "worry" about "foreign relief" as long as "there are people in need right here in our city".

Let me respond this this kind of thinking. First of all, if we wait till there are no more needs in our communities before we engage in the great commission internationally, then I can say with certainty, we will NEVER do it! There will always be needs in our families, our communities, our nation etc. So if we say we cannot do anything about foreign missions till all those needs are met, then foreign missions is over. This cannot possibly be a right or Godly point of view.

But it is worse than that. It is a directly unbiblical attitude that is disobedient to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the wisdom of the world, but not Biblical truth.

Our Lord Jesus Christ not only gave us the Great Commission, He even gave us some specifics. In Acts 1:8, partially quoted at the beginning, He said that we will be His witnesses,
"Both" in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the furthest parts of the earth. The clear meaning of this is NOT, First Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, and then the uttermost parts! Rather it means that we are to engage in all these regions in our work of the great commission. We are not to ignore home missions or our own families. Of course not. But neither are we to ignore the lost and unreached around the world. We are to do it all, simultaneously!

As a matter of fact, that is exactly what happened, from the day of Pentecost onward. Most people think that the church started in Jerusalem and then spread to Judea and Samaria and only began "foreign missions" after the ministry of the apostle Paul started. While the overall pattern in that understanding is true and shown in a study of the book of Acts, the fact is that even on the day of Pentecost, there were people present from all over the known world, and these people went home after the feast and the gospel and the church spread widely, years before Paul was even saved, much less began his own mission. The book of Romans in our Bible is an example of Paul writing to a church years before he was ever in that city. Years before any apostle visited the city of Rome, a thriving church was there and Paul was able to write to a mature church. Who started this church? Only God knows, but it was probably a result of the people who went forth from the day of Pentecost! Foreign Missions actually began on the very first day of the church!

It is true that we all have to start somewhere, and our own lives, families, and communities are the obvious beginning points for us. But let's not wait till all the needs are met at home, before we launch out to work with, pray for and give toward reaching others, especially the least reached in our world.

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, BUT IT DOES NOT END THERE.

Take a Tour of the WME BLOG

2011-12-02T19:42:00.003-06:00

Dear readers of the WME blog:

I want to thank you for the time you take to read the articles that are posted here and for your prayers and support for the Honduran Church Planting Movement Project. In this post, I want to share with you several new features that we have on the blog.

In addition to the articles (This is the 141st post since we started in 2008), there are a number of new features.

First: VIDEOS
A number of new videos are on the blog. If you will look to the immediate right of this post you will see a video called " A Church Planting Movement is Beginning in Honduras". This video is a brief summary of what is happening and that is probably where everyone should start.

Then if you scroll down and look at the right hand side of the blog, you will find 7 new videos that explain the CPM strategy in Honduras in depth, and give pictures and information about the project. By watching the initial video at the top of our page and then these 7 short videos (most of them are around 5 minutes or less) you will have experienced an indepth report, and a crash course on CPM strategy!

If you go a little bit further down you will find 2 short Youtube videos. These show what the project was like in the first year of launch, 2008. 1 shows several scenes from the training as well as some other early ministry in Honduras by WME missionaries. The other is a humorous look at how we trained our Honduran team to ride motorcycles....when we began not a single one had ever been on a motorcycle, but today they travel to many areas this way!

Finally, if you scroll down almost to the very bottom of the blog you will find 2 more videos. 1 is from veteran Asian missionary Jim Yost, who shares how the CPM strategy can affect the younger generation in the United States. The last video is David Watson, who is the pioneer of the CPM strategy and the mentor of WME's work in this area. He is talking about how CPM can happen in the United States. For those who minister in North America, these 2 new features are very important.

Second: PAYPAL: A NEW WAY TO DONATE TO THE HONDURAS PROJECT
Looking back at the top of our blog and to the right, just under the first video, you will find a Paypal button. You can use this to donate to the HCPM project. Please pray about being a financial supporter of this work. The need is great and the fruit is being produced for the harvest.

Third: Contact Number, Pictures, Website link, Prayer points, The Blog Archive of all 141 Articles!
As you scroll down the right side of the blog you will find all these things.

Fourth: UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUP OF THE DAY FOR PRAYER
If you scroll down to the bottom of the blog, just beneath the very bottom video of David Watson, you will find information about an unreached people group. This is a prayer focus and there is a new UPG posted each day. Visit our site daily to find the Unreached People Group that many Intercessors are focusing on that day and join in the chorus of prayer for them.

Well that's it, all the new feature (and a few older ones). Please come by our blog and visit regularly!

Blessings to you.

God's Kingdom Advances as a Process, not an Event

2011-11-28T08:06:00.006-06:00

One of the hardest things for us to get used to is the fact that God's work, God's Kingdom, advances as a process and not an event. We are very "event" oriented. We want 1 big breakthrough, 1 big service, or 1 big revival that saves the whole nation. While God can do anything, He rarely works that way.

The Israelites crossed the Red Sea in a day, but there was still a 40 year process to get to Canaan (although it was only supposed to be a 2 year process!).

When Elijah confronted the prophets of baal on Mount Carmel, he had a miraculous event. Fire fell, the people shouted that Yahweh was God, and in a little while, the rain came! But in the next chapter (1 Kings 19) Elijah is depressed, running from Jezebel, and praying to die! Because he found out that 1 event, no matter how great, won't get the job done! It took the rest of his own ministry, the ministry of his successor Elisha over a 40 year period, the kingship of Jehu, years later, and the judgement work of the king of Syria, Hazael.

Even with the full coming of God's Kingdom there is process involved. Jesus will come back and establish His Kingdom. The 2nd coming is an event! But it is followed by a 1000 year process called the Millenium and that is followed by the final rebellion, the final judgement, the white throne judgement and only then the new heavens and new earth! Just think about it, even the 2nd coming initiates a more than thousand year process that finally and eternally establishes God's Kingdom (1 Corinthians 15: 24-26). (I'm a pre-millenialist, but even if you are not, it is irrelevant to the main point!)

The failure to understand the Process aspect of God's Kingdom advance leads to failed strategies in evangelism and mission, as well as a lot of disappointment. We need to think more like the farmer, who knows that there are times of preparing the ground, times of sowing, times of cultivating, and times of reaping. And also that none of us can do it alone. We must have partnering/catalytic strategies to accomplish anything. Paul planted, Apollos watered, and God gave the Harvest.

But didn't Jesus say that the fields were already ripe for Harvest? Yes he did, in a Samaritan village, in John 4. He did not say that every field in the whole world was ripe. Some places were so unripe that He told His disciples to dust off their feet and keep moving! (Luke 10).

In different parts of the world, there are places that are already ripe (like the Samaritan village and parts of Israel in the ministry of Jesus). There are other places where there is the need for ground preparation (access ministry) and sowing, and cultivating before they are ready. If we have a single event kind of ministry (whether a crusade, a personal evangelism system, etc.) we will succeed in some places where others have prepared the ground, and fail miserably where there has never been the sowing of seed.....and when we do, we will rarely attribute the failure to the actual cause. (That evangelist did not have the anointing this time, they did not pray enough, the existing church in that nation has too much (fill in the blank) or too little (fill in the blank). It is like driving a giant reaping machine to a field where nothing has been planted and the field is full of boulders, and complaining that nothing was harvested because the manufacturer of the machine did not make it right!

That is why I believe that the most effective strategy that I have encountered is the Church Planting Movement strategy or as it is beginning to be called, Exponential Disciple Making strategy. It is all about process. The strategy recognizes that seeing the Gospel advance in a nation or people group is going to take time and that time is going to involve clearing the ground (access ministry), sowing the seed of the word (the discovery bible study process) and cultivation (mentoring and relationship building) and then, sometimes after several years of work, the harvest (disciples made and churches planted....and then sometimes Exponentially!). And it also recognizes that it is an Organic Process, not a Mechanical Process. A church planting movement is a living thing and life is only given by the Creator. CPM does not automatically happen anywhere just because certain principles are used. CPM only happens where God by His gracious Word and Spirit produce it!

How will understanding Process change the way we do ministry? How about here in the United States? I have heard the question many times, will CPM work in the U. S. ?
Here is another question to ask: Are our event oriented strategies actually working in the U. S. ?
They certainly can build big ministries, but in the last 40 years, has America been discipled? Is our culture more or less like Jesus?

The question then, is How would the Process approach to discipling a nation look in the U. S?

Some of my friends will be addressing this question in a special conference in January. I encourage you to follow this link and check it out: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e5catcrd43ab5a75&llr=fyaadobab

One thing is for certain: God is working in the world today, and His Kingdom is advancing. Many leaders are embracing a long term Process to see the nations discipled, and there is no doubt, it is going to happen.

Happy Thanksgiving From WME: We have much to be thankful for!

2011-11-22T11:13:00.003-06:00

PRAISE REPORTS AND PRAYER REQUESTS

Psalm 126:2Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them."

This scripture seems appropriate today. God is truly doing amazing things in Honduras! Our hearts are filled with joy and thanksgiving to God for what He is doing.

A Church Planting Movement has begun. God birthed a vision for a church planting movement in Honduras in our hearts in 2006. After nearly 2 years of preparation, the Honduras Church Planting Movement Project was launched in mid-2008. The 3 and ½ years since then have been times of hard work, sacrifice and even persecution. There have been surges forward and setbacks!

But to summarize here, we are defining a Church Planting Movement as a rapidly reproducing movement of churches planting churches within a people or population. This is measured in different ways, but the definition that we are using is at least 100 churches, 3 generations deep (meaning planting a church planting that plants a church that plants a church), within 2 years or less.

That has now happened and continues to happen in Honduras. We have just received reports that the159th church has been planted there as a result of this project and that there are 3 generations of churches….and that the specific movement is less than 2 years old. Praise be to our God! In fact 98 of the churches have been planted in the last 6 months! God is moving and I believe that your prayers have been a great and important part of what God is doing.
AND IN OTHER NEWS! JUANITA TRAVIS RECEIVED HER VISA AND SHE AND KEITH ARE IN THE UNITED STATES RIGHT NOW! This is a battle that has been going on for multiple years and we are so thankful for this answer!

Definitions: The other day someone asked me what a DBS was, and how it related to the reports of churches. What is the difference between a DBS and a church. Here are some definitions.

DBS: A Discovery Bible Study made up of unbelievers, those who have not yet accepted Christ as Savior.

Church: A group of people who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and are meeting together around the word of God and following the commands of Christ.

A DBS is a “Pre-Church” group. Once people come to Christ in a DBS, a church is born. When a village or community is first entered, a Person of Peace is sought out. This is someone who has influence to allow the beginning of a DBS in his home or somewhere so that people in his circle of influence can study the word of God together. Check out the several videos at www.wmeinc.blogspot.com to find out all about how these things work. To date, 159 churches have been born. We think that around 5,500 people are involved in the churches and perhaps close to 1,000 more people are in DBS groups presently. (We were reporting a combined total of around 3,700 people just 6 months ago.)

PRAYER REQUESTS:
1. This week we are asking for prayer for the Whole scope of the HCPM project. Please pray for the Key leaders in Honduras: Beto, Adiel, Jacobo, Daniel, Mario, Oscar, and Carlos. Pray for the strategy team: Randy and Linda Travis, Keith and Juanita Travis. Pray for the staff at the WME office in the US: Jenny Demumbree, Lindsay Harlan, David Parish, J. T. Parish. Pray for health and protection for all of these and their families. Pray for wisdom and anointing and special leadership from the Holy Spirit for all of these people as they work toward seeing the CPM in Honduras move forward.

2. Pray for all the people and leaders involved in all the churches and discovery Bible studies. Pray that all of the new believers will grow in knowledge and obedience to the Word of God and that those who have not become followers of Christ yet will do so very soon. Pray that the churches and DBS groups will multiply across the nation of Honduras.

3. Pray for the preparation of 2 important training events planned for February 2012 in 2 regions of Honduras. Pray that the seed will be sown and that many others will begin in the work of cpm because of it.

4. Pray that the workers in the field will find true people of peace who will open the doors of their hearts, families, and villages to the gospel.

5. Pray for a gracious outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the new churches, DBS groups, and villages and families where the gospel is about to go. Pray that God’s Spirit will birth true revival and an exponential disciple making and church planting movement across the whole nation.

6. Pray that at least 5000 new churches will be planted among the general population of Honduras and an additional 3000 churches among the whole Garifuna people group throughout Central America.

7. Pray for the finances and resources needed in order to continue to conduct the project. God is the provider and it is His work. Help us pray for key provision that is needed. There is a very real need here.

8. Pray for David Watson, the pioneer leader in church planting movements who has trained and mentored us in this strategy. He is battling health problems and is scheduled for 4 surgeries before the end of this year (depending on his recovery time from the first surgeries.) Please pray for his total healing and recovery.

9. Pray for all the new churches and especially for the pre-church Discovery bible studies. Especially in the DBS areas there is much religious persecution and pressure. Threats are made against the people in the studies, not necessarily physically, but much pressure to go back. Pray for all these people like the early church prayed in Acts 4:23-31. Pray for God to work in a mighty way so that even by signs and wonders His work will go forward and that people will be emboldened to continue with the DBS studies and become obedient followers of Jesus.

THE 5 DECISIONS REVISITED

2011-11-12T11:08:00.007-06:00

Jesus is the greatest leader in history. He is God in the flesh and He humbled himself to die for us. One of the most powerful scriptures in the Bible is Philippians 2: 5-11. Here it is:

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Over 10 years ago, I preached a sermon at the church I pastored that impacted a number of people. I have preached that message around the world to leaders. It was called "5 Decisions that will Change your Life" .....or something like that!

I had an experience where one day I declared these 5 decisions. When I told others, many told me how inspired they had been by them. Here they are:

1. I will not Quit!

2. I will not Fail!

3. I will not Die!

4. I will not Fail Morally!

5. I will not Slacken the Pace!

The message was not unbalanced even though some of the decisions seem to be, because I balanced some of the phrases with other concepts. Nonetheless, this set of decisions has helped encourage me and others to keep going through tough times.

Now however, as the years have passed, I think that I need to put down some corollaries that I have been learning the last 10 years or so. I think these are the result of new experiences and more mature reflection.

Jim Collins has written 2 business management books that have been very impacting to me. I recommend them both. They are "Good to Great" and the brand new "Great by Choice". In them he talks about a model of leadership that is characterized by both Passion (my words, he calls it professional will) and humility. The greatest leaders are people who have unfathomable drive and passion, but also tempered with a humility that truly never focuses on self. That combination (lots of people and leaders have some of 1 or the other) is truly rare in most leadership circles, regardless of the context.

This combination has never been seen in any human being to the degree that it was in Jesus Christ. He is our model of leadership, servanthood, purpose, mission, and life. In light of all this, here are some additions to the 5 decisions.

1. I will Not Quit: Except for the wrong things. I will quit those. I will stay open to change and new learning. When I discover that I am pursuing a wrong goal.....or even a "good" goal that is not a "God" goal or a Great goal....I will quit. I will be willing to follow God toward His mission. But on that mission....I will Not Quit!

2. I will Not Fail: That is ultimately.....I will make mistakes, many of them, and be willing to change when I discover them. There is much trial and error in my life....I am far from perfect. But when I fail in something, I will go back to the drawing board and "fail forward". I will learn from failure and go forward!

3. I will Not Die: That is prematurely! I trust in God's power to protect and heal me. I will take wise precautions and not live recklessly. But I will be willing to lay down my life for Christ and His mission, knowing that He and His Great Commission are worth dieing for! One day, should the Lord not return in my lifetime, I will die and see Him face to face.

4. I will Not Fail Morally: I will keep this as my decision, but I also will be open to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and many times He shows me that I have words, attitudes and actions that do not please Him. His standards are far higher than mine, and I have failed him countless times. I will confess my sins and He is faithful and just to forgive my sins and to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. I will also repent of a "morally superior attitude". I will devote the rest of my life to helping people who have fallen morally to get back up. I will be a restorer, not a judge.

5. I will Not Slacken the Pace: But I will definitely take times to withdraw for a season, as Christ did. I will seek Him and His wisdom. I will take time to learn and counsel with others. I will need His refreshing Spirit and His Word's wisdom to infuse my life. I will enjoy the journey!

For what its worth, I think these refinements on the decisions may be of help to some.

Passion and Pacing.

Drive and Humility.

Focus on the goals with unrelenting commitment, and forgetting self and a sacrificial spirit.

Leadership the Jesus way.

THE ROAD TO BREAKTHROUGH

2011-11-11T21:27:00.004-06:00

In 2008, when I started this blog, I wrote a timeline of the launch of the project. I am reproducing part of that blog here and have added to make it up to date. Breakthrough is happening, but here is a story of the road to breakthrough. God is doing a wonderful work, and any progress is only to His glory and power. We have done a lot of trial and error in the last few years, but the Lord of the harvest has been working His plan all along, through, with and sometimes in spite of us!

Here is a timeline of what has been done to launch this project.

September 2006: David Parish and Randy Travis take intensive training in C.P.M. principles from David Watson in Dallas. The H.C.P.M. concept is born.

October 2006: Randy does research on C.P.M. principles.

November-December 2006: Randy Travis, Keith Travis and Richard Crowder make exploratory trip to Honduras to assess the need and geographical place for H.C.P.M. project.

January 2007: Randy develops initial strategic plan and presents it to David Parish. It is presented to the Board of Directors and the project is approved. Initial launch is projected for the middle of 2007.

March 2007: The decision is made to send Randy and his family to lay the foundation of the project while funding for project is developed.

April 2007: W.M.E. hosts C.P.M. training for missionaries. David Watson trains several missionaries and examines H.C.P.M. strategic plan and gives recommendations which are very helpful.

June 2007: Randy, Linda, Keith and Juanita Travis move to Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras. Residence is established and they begin developing training curriculum and preparing the base.

November-December 2007: Randy, Linda and Keith travel to the United States for the World Missions and Evangelism Conference. While in the U.S. a water well drill is obtained for access ministry. This, along with clothes and other supplies, are shipped to Honduras by missionary Darrel Dakin. The final strategic plan (budget and timeline) are decided.

January-April 2008: The Travis family travels back to Honduras. The base is prepared and the Church Planting team is chosen after extensive interviews and prayer.

April 29, 2008: Church Planting Team arrives at the base.

May-June 2008: Intensive training of church planters. They are taught to ride motorcycles for access into mountain villages. All C.P.M. principles are taught and the team prepares spiritually with much prayer. David Parish visits the team near the end of June and training is finished.

June 25-July 2008: Team does survey trips to plan outreach and then takes a week-long break to visit families. The teams reassemble and deploy the week of July 21.

July 23, 2008: Team enter villages searching for persons of peace. The project begins in the field.

August-November, 2008: The team works very hard. Wells are drilled. Potential persons of peace are identified. Discovery Bible Studies begin. October brings devastating floods to Honduras and the team works in very difficult conditions.

December, 2008: Approximately 25 Discovery Bible Studies have begun, but they are struggling. David Parish comes to Honduras as do David and Paul Watson, who travel to Honduras to meet and train the team. During the training, the team is taught a better way to see the Bible studies organized, and begins to understand some of the CPM tactics in a better way. After the training Parish and the Watson's return to the US, and at the end of the month, Randy and Linda Travis come back to the US. David P. and Randy meet for a few days to process what they have now learned from the Watsons and to make some tactical adjustments.

January-February, 2009: Randy and Linda Travis return to Honduras and begin to implement several tactical adjustments in the strategy. This leads to both a major rearrangement of the team, as well as experimenting with recordings to aid the DBS studies because of high illiteracy.

March-May, 2009: The tactical changes begin to prove successful. 1st and 2nd generation DBS studies begin. By the end of June, there are 73 studies in the 5 departments where the project is working.

June, 2009: A short term team from Cave Hill Independent Church of God, as well as Daniel Slayden, Ben Holloway, and David Parish, travel to Honduras and conduct a series of access ministries including well drilling, school supply distribution to children in a variety of places, and painting a poor school. The outreach is very successful and the members of the team are blessed. The group returns home excited about what God is doing. By month end, it is discovered that the number of studies are now 73, having tripled since beginning of the year.

June 28, 2009: The government of Honduras is overthrown. The nation lives on the brink of civil war for the next 5 months and full stability is not reestablished until the next president is installed in January 2010. Curfews, riots, conflicts, road blocks and violence become both a danger and a reality in different parts of the country. June 30, the Travis families are chased by a mob and escape only by a gracious deliverance of God. David Parish tells the Travises to leave now. July 1, Randy and Linda, and Keith and Juanita Travis cross the border into Guatemala. Keith and Juanita stay for the next several months in southern Mexico where they spread the cpm vision. Randy and Linda drive to the USA.

July-October, 2009: 2/3rds of the Honduran team are stuck on the eastern side of the country, because they were there on a short break when the overthrow occurred. Travel restrictions hinder a lot of the work during this time. Randy tells them to spread the concept of cpm where they are. Meanwhile, David Parish learns of a new kind of technology called the Megavoice machine that may be useful for the recorded studies. The decision is made to not waste the time, but to use the Travis' time in the USA to get the studies professionally recorded. A Mexican believer who has been involved in gospel recordings and who Randy had discipled years before, flys to the US. Tommy and Linda King in Mayfield, KY open their hearts to the project and the recordings are made at Tommy's studio. Almost the entire month of August is devoted to editing the studies which end up being the 24 Level 1 DBS studies and also the Level 2 studies. In September, Randy travels briefly back to Honduras by plane and Richard Crowder drives his truck from the US to Honduras carrying much recording equipment to mass produce the recordings for use in the DBS studies. These begin to be used widely. In a short few months hundreds of the recordings are distributed and many DBS studies begin. However, we would later learn, that because of the problems in travel and follow up, the team was not able to really mentor the new groups and most of the new studies did not endure.

November, 2009: A pivotal moment. Randy flys to Honduras again. This time he conducts a training in the eastern part of the country where the 2/3rds team had been working a great deal. At this training a key leader receives the teaching with eagerness. We call him, "Beto" and this man will prove to be one of the most effective implementers of cpm strategy we have ever met.

December, 2009: "Beto" begins his first DBS as a training DBS for leaders. 8 new leaders are trained who will be very effective workers.

January-February, 2010: The government situation in Honduras completely stablizes and Randy's and Keith's families return. When they get back they see the toll that the last few months have had on the project. The difficulty in travel and the lack of ability to mentor has reduced the project to less than 40 DBS groups in the west. Reports from the east with "Beto" are better, but the project seems to be in a difficult and uncertain position.

March-June, 2010: The team dusts off, regroups, learns about mentoring in more effective ways and pushes forward. David P. spends much of June in California with the Cityteam organization and learns key insights on mentoring which can be passed on to the team.

July, 2010: David leads a small team back to Honduras and they encourage the team and are encouraged to see the progress being made. Reports at this point show that there are nearly 90 DBS groups in the west (and possibly 70 DBS groups in the East). (Also due to Keith's work in southern Mexico and a January training trip there there are some DBS groups in Mexico....this work has continued on and off and we are not counting any of them in our current reports....this may change later).

August-December, 2010: The team tenaciously works the process of CPM strategy. Some areas experience religious persecution. By end of the year, 2 people connected with the overall work have been killed, for unknown reasons. 1 is a worker who was trained in Mexico....killed in Guatemala. Another (killed during this period or not long into 2011) is a participant in one of the DBS groups. The reasons are not, to our knowledge, the connection to the project, but rather just an example of the spiritual warfare involved.

January, 2011: David P. returns to Cityteam in California and receives some additional advice from David Watson. Then he travels to Honduras. He brings with him David Hunt's dissertation describing the Church Planting Movements happening in the Horn of Africa since 2005. Randy, Keith, and David spend extensive time studying this document to glean new principles or tactics and certain areas are addressed to insure that the project is not overlooking critical elements of CPM.

February-March, 2011: CHURCHES!!!!
It is at this time that we learn of emerging breakthrough. Some people are accepting Christ, willing to form into churches. The first baptisms in the project occur.

April, 2011: David and a small team travel to Honduras. A training for 2 groups occurs in the state of Olancho. A leadership seminar for the primary team follows in Santa Barbara, and then another training for 3 groups happens in Trujillo. The trainers are Randy, Keith and David, along with the Honduran team. Those who have been workers in the villages (and they continue in this role) are now becoming trainers of others.
The progress is assessed.
There are 61 churches and over 100 DBS groups ongoing in the entire nation as a result of the efforts. The area where churches are multiplying is very encouraging. It begins to appear that CPM level could be reached by end of year.
"CPM LEVEL: 100 CHURCHES, 3 GENERATIONS DEEP, WITHIN 2 YEARS"

May-October, 2011: Work continues and progresses. This year the primary team is decentralized into different parts of the country (This began earlier this year).
Randy, Keith, and David spend a good deal of June in California at the Cityteam consultation on CPM with leaders connected to 54 countries. Work begins on a 6-7 year strategic plan.

In late June, the 300 Prayer team is formed, and prayer begins to increase for the work!

In July, 3 more men are killed. 2 are pastors who were to be trained in CPM that very day by "Beto", gunned down in shootout between criminals and the police. Another was what appeared to be a key contact in a new department.

Persecution and religious pressure is directed toward many groups and people that are in the DBS groups.

During this 6 month period there is a combination of Planning, Prayer, Persecution, and Pressure. AND MULTIPLICATION OF CHURCHES!
Assessment begins to take place to see what is happening.

November, 2011: Reports of what God is doing are coming in and we stand in amazement.
A Church Planting Movement has begun.
Today we believe that there are 159 Churches. Churches and DBS groups are touching over 6,000 people we believe. Hundreds have been baptized.

131 of the Churches represent a downline of church multiplication 3 generation deep and track back to the training in November 2009. Just 2 years ago.

98 Churches have been planted in the last 6 months, since April!

There is much to do.....it is only the beginning. We are praying and believing for thousands of churches and hundreds of thousands of obedient disciples....but breakthrough has begun!

Please Keep Praying. Please Keep Supporting.

God is doing a great thing in Honduras!

God is Moving!

2011-11-07T08:00:00.003-06:00

This year, 2011, WME has set the phrase "MOVING FORWARD" as its theme. The Lord impressed this to my mind, I believe, very strongly and I wrote about it in the first blog note of this year.

It is hard to believe that the year is now drawing toward a close. Can it really be just a couple of weeks till Thanksgiving? And Christmas and the New Year is just around the corner. And as the year is winding down, we are getting amazing reports from the Honduras Church Planting Movement Project. We have called this the year of "Moving Forward", but all I can say right now is "God is Moving" and praise Him for all that He is doing.

This month we are doing an assessment of what has happened this year and will be reporting some wonderful things on this blog before year end. But as an example, let's just talk about what happened yesterday!

On the home front, I shared about the work at one of our partnering churches, and more than 20 people signed up to be a part of the Prayer Team that we call the 300 Group. (You can join the prayer team by sending me an email at dparish9@cs.com and saying that you want to join the team. You will then get prayer requests from the Honduras work sent to you each week. Pray 5 minutes a day for the work......together, hours of prayer are happening each day for God's Kingdom to advance in Honduras).

In Honduras, HCPM team member Mario was leading a new Discovery Bible Study and 5 people decided to follow Christ! A new church was being born in a Honduras village!

People are praying and others are being saved and becoming disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ!

GOD IS MOVING!

WME wants to be a Blessing!

2011-11-01T14:21:00.004-05:00

I want to take this opportunity to thank you, the readers of this blog, the prayer team for the Honduras Project, and the Financial Supporters of WME. Without you our missionaries and church planting team members could not be taking the gospel of Christ forward into the World. And to show our gratitude, WME wants to be a blessing to you, our faithful supporters.

First of all, let me suggest some ways that WME can be a resource to you or your church. If you do not already receive it, WME puts out a special print newsletter and also a news e-mail letter every other month. This newsletter allows readers to get reports and information about what is happening on the mission field. We also have a special prayer guide that we can mail to you to help focus prayer for the work in Honduras, and we send weekly updates by email each week. If you have not already signed up to receive the e-letter, and be a part of the prayer team, you can join by sending an email to dparish9@cs.com and asking to join the team.

2nd, I would love to come give a report to your church, Sunday School class, prayer group, or any group that would like to know more about the work of WME and the Honduras Church Planting Movement. We can be a resource to pastors, leaders, mission committees and other groups that want to have consultation on enhancing a mission program.

3rd, Our team has a variety of teaching and training events that can be presented to any sized group, from a small group in a home, to a church service, to a leadership group in any ministry or even business. Topics can be taught in as little as 1 session to as much as 4 day seminars. Topics that our team can present include:
1. Disciple Making Movements: Principles and Practice
2. Church Planting Movement Full Training (3-4 days, Multiple Speakers, Multimedia Presentation)
3. The Next Level: Taking your Church or Ministry to Greater Impact!
4. Setting and Achieving Goals for Business or Ministry
5. The Antioch Seminar: Leading Your Church to Change Your Community and the World!
6. What in the World is God Doing? World Missions and Our place in it!

I really hope that WME and our Missions team can be a blessing to you, your family, business, church or group. And we want to hear from you. Perhaps we have not mentioned something that you would like us to provide for you as a prayer or financial supporter. Please share ideas with us of how we can work together more effectively and how WME can be a blessing to you.
You may contact us by phone or email:
270-527-9445
dparish9@cs.com

P.S. Please check out the new videos on the blog at wmeinc.blogspot.com.

It's Time

2011-10-25T08:05:00.007-05:00

I love the early fall of the year. The trees are becoming beautiful, but not yet bare. It is cooler, but the cold of winter has not come. Each fall, usually in October, my wife and I take a weekend to travel to the Chattanooga Tennessee area, where we went to college, met, and lived for a few months after our marriage, 28 years ago. This little weekend is a tradition that we have been keeping for nearly 15 years. Of course, my personal thing is to hit all the bookstores in the area that I know of! Last weekend was our annual pilgrimage.

I found a great book called "Thirty Years That Changed The World" by Michael Green, scholar from Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. The book is a study of the book of Acts and rather than being a commentary, it is a study of how the early church, from Pentecost till the burning of Rome (which Green puts as 33-64 AD), saw the new faith, which we call Christianity in our day, reached almost the whole known world. The book examines early church methods and church life and other factors that might help to account for how the work of God expanded so rapidly in those early days.

That book about "30 years" at the beginning of the Christian movement, made me think about the fact that some models show how that the great commission can be finished in approximately 30 years if multiple church planting movements explode worldwide. I wrote a blog on this subject in 2008 (it can be found in the blog archive). In other words, if today's believers will obey God completely, we can live through another "Book of Acts" time and the work can be done...literally in our lifetimes.

Green mentions some of the cultural advantages that were in place in the 1st Century of the Christan era. Things such as Roman roads, the Greek language's near universality for communication, and even cultural and religious philosophical trends had prepared the world for missionaries of the new faith. Thus transportation, communication, and religious cultures were prepared for the spread of something new.

From that time to this there has never been a time more ripe for finishing the great commission by bringing the gospel the every people group in the whole world. Transportation allows us to be on the other side of the world in 1 day. Communication allows us to talk to our families in this nation while we are in a 3rd world jungle....on our cell phone. And even the new age/religious extreme/terror conscious world in which we live, opens the doors to the concepts that must be shared to make the gospel known.

Paul wrote in Galatians 4:4-5, "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who where under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons."

If Paul were writing of our day might he say, "In the fullness of the last time, God anointed His church to obey the last command of His Son, and they made disciples of every nation and then the end came!"

I want to make this point. Everything that is needed to finish the task has been given to us. We have a finished redemption accomplished by the Lord Jesus. We have a completed Bible, God's whole word, all we will ever need to know to get the job done. We have the presence and power of the indwelling, infilling Holy Spirit to give us all the power needed. We have almost instant travel and communication with almost the whole world. We have a needy, hungry world looking for spiritual reality in myriads of religious ways, all of which are like drinking sand to a thirsty man....desperately needing the water of life. There is nothing lacking but our decision to act.

When the Jews were in danger of destruction in Persia, Mordecai made the danger known to his niece, Esther, who had become the Queen. For her to intervene from her position of seeming safety was to risk everything, even her own life. But with wisdom from God, Mordecai sent her this message.

"Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:13b-14).

Such a TIME as this. The same can be said to us. We are the generation that is alive today. We are the followers of Christ who are assigned to this time. We are the ones who have this power and anointing and the Scriptures and our transportation and communication and "flat world" cultures. To paraphrase Mordecai, if we don't seize the moment and do the job, we may lose what we have ourselves, but God's word will be fulfilled by others. Yet what if we have come to God's Kingdom for such a time as this.

What are we going to do with the influence, positions, relationships, and circumstances of our lives. These are the little "kingdoms" that we as individuals have come to.

What are we going to do with the next 30 years of our lives. (If you don't think you have 30 years left, the question is what will you do with the next 30 days or however much time you have left). We are here now! We are in the Kingdom now!

I believe that it will be done. I believe we will see it. God is moving worldwide in and through His people and the greatest harvest of souls in history is underway. But it is not finished, not even nearly, and if we as God's people will choose to seek God, become full of the Holy Spirit, make the Bible the number 1 authority in our lives and intentionally begin to make disciples, the rest of our lives, however long, will make more impact than all that has gone before!

It's time.

Revival and Mission

2011-10-20T14:09:00.004-05:00

For many years I was a student of revival. It started in the late 1980's when I read a biography of George Whitfield, the great evangelist of the first Great Awakening in the early 1700's. After that, in the early 1990's, my home church experienced a distinct move of God and we called that "revival" and it definitely sent me back to my study to understand and try to experience a real revival. When I was doing a seminary degree approximately 10 years ago, I was privileged to take a class on Revival, and I think it was my favorite class in the whole program. Our text books were the writings of key revival leaders such as Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, and Frank Bartleman (1st Great Awakening, 2nd Great Awakening, Azusa Street Revival).

There is a close relationship between Revival and Mission. Both are concerned with the advance of the Kingdom of God. Both can and do result in people coming to faith in Christ and lives being transformed, and even societal transformation.

The difference, at least logically, is that Revival has to do with people who are already saved, or at least a part of the visible church or Christian community, and Missions is focused on the unreached and unevangelized. In other words, Missions focuses on those who are spiritually dead and need the "resurrection" or the "new birth". Revival focuses on those who are spiritually alive, but asleep to the things of God, and living in some level of disobedience to Him, who need to be "revived" or "awakened".

Today there is a great need for both Revival and Mission. In terms of Mission, our world now has a population that will pass 7 Billion within a few days from this writing, and of those only 2 Billion profess any kind of Christianity.....and of those 2 Billion, less than half would profess a real new birth experience. They are in a kind of religious or cultural Christianity rather than a vital and real relationship with the Living Jesus Christ. Mission must be directed toward the more than 6 Billion lost and unreached people on planet earth who do not have an experience of the new birth. And priority must be given to those people groups and regions, where unless new missional endeavors are launched, the people have little or no hope of ever hearing the gospel. Close to 1.5 Billion have no current possibility of gospel witness!

But for that to happen, there needs to be a Revival among the nearly 1 Billion Christians who claim the new birth. So much of the church is asleep, or perhaps more accurately "hypnotized" by the world and its values. God's people need to be "revived" so that they can be "mobilized" to reach this world with the gospel.

What kind of Revival am I speaking of?

1. A Revival of the Word and the Spirit.
A return to the Bible, the Word of God as the ultimate authority in the lives of believers, and a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to cleanse, change, and empower our lives.

2. A Revival of Prayer.
A return of real concern and burden for a lost world....more than for personal fulfilment and success. More concern for God's glory than for our ministries. A revived prayer movement for World Evangelism is needed.

3. A Revival of Disciple Making.
Multiple movements of people becoming obedient disciples themselves and then making new disciples who are obedient to the Word of God.

Let's pray for ourselves and for other believers. Pray that God will bring a new season of Revival to His people, who will then be launched into the world to reached the peoples still without Christ.

Donate Online to the Honduras Church Planting Movement

2011-10-14T11:23:00.003-05:00

We are excited to announce that you can now donate online to the Honduras Church Planting Movement. Just use the paypal button that is on the blogspot page and you can securely give to help the work that is multiplying in Honduras or other ministries of World Missions and Evangelism. Several of WME's supporters have been asking for the opportunity to give online and we are excited to have this opportunity available.

Just navigate to WME's blog at www.wmeinc.blogspot.com and click on the Donate button. You can give to the ministry this way whether you personally have a Paypal account or not. Just follow the directions on the donation page that comes up.

Thanks to all of our faithful supporters. Through your faithful giving the gospel is now going into over 200 locations in Honduras and 61 churches have been planted....all in the last 3 years. This is good ground in which to sow to see a harvest for the Kingdom of God.

Blessings to you!

Honoring a True Friend and Partner

2011-09-29T14:55:00.004-05:00

Today I recieved the heartbreaking news that one of WME's longtime partnering Pastors has passed away. Brother Pearl Cornett was Pastor at the Cave Hill Church for many years. He and his wonderful wife, Sister Elaine Cornett, have been such a rich encouragement to myself and all the work of World Missions and Evangelism for over 10 years. And the people of the church and the new Pastor who has taken the leadership this last year or so, Pastor Doug Norman, are following in the pathway of advancing the Kingdom of God that has been so faithfully pioneered by Pastor Pearl.

The partnership between Cave Hill and WME began the very first year that WME began its church planting ministries, the year 2000. That year WME helped start the very first CTC training center for church planting in India and the result was 12 new churches within about a year. That very first year, Pastor Pearl Cornett led Cave Hill Church to partner with WME and they have been a powerful help to the process of bringing the Gospel to the unreached and planting churches ever since. Those first 12 churches in India have become 273 churches in India, Indonesia, South Africa, Swaziland, Romania, and Honduras, with an additional approximately 160 pre-church Discovery Bible Studies.....in fact, during these 11 years, the church planting ministry has touched over 500 locations in these countries and I estimate that close to 25,000 people have come to Christ so far. Pastor Pearl and Cave Hill Church have been a part of this from the first project and they are such an important part of all that has happened, is happening, and that will happen! Our hearts are filled with praise and gratitude for this wonderful man of God and these wonderful people.

To Sister Elaine and the family of Bro Pearl, we offer our heartfelt condolences and prayers. We love you all and know that Pastor Pearl is now in the glorious presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of God and the Spirit of God is our comfort.

To Pastor Doug and the entire Cave Hill Church, we offer our love and prayers for God's strength and continued leadership to the bright future that God has for this wonderful people of God. May God bless you all for your love and faithfulness in the work of the Lord.

To our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks and praise for this man of God, his life, ministry, and example to all of us of faithfulness to obey the leading of the Word and the Spirit of God.

Looking Forward

2011-09-25T16:38:00.004-05:00

Randy and Linda Travis have just flown back to Honduras. They have been in the United States since early May and are now back in the nation that they love. Keith and Juanita Travis are also back there after having to make a special trip to Mexico. Please pray for these 2 couples who serve as the strategy coordinator team for the Honduras Church Planting Movement project. They will be traveling across the country of Honduras a great deal in this week, in order to do some important work for WME and the CPM project.

Pray for :
1. Traveling Mercies and Protection and Health for them as they drive many miles.
2. Special favor with officials concerning a Visa issue. They will be at the Embassy on Monday.
3. Wisdom and the right Open doors as they travel to several locations in behalf of the project. We are doing some research to benefit the forward movement of this work in the next several years.
4. Arrangements for a CPM training of a new possible catalytic partnering group in the next month or so.

This year our theme has been "Moving Forward" and the Lord has been gracious to allow the work to really do that this year. This summer has been a time of "Looking Forward". Randy and Keith Travis and I traveled to California this summer and spent 2 weeks with leaders of CPM type ministry that represented over 50 nations. This large group was divided into 11 working groups focusing on different parts of the world and we, of course, were focused on Latin America in general, and Honduras specifically. In our time there and also since then we have been working on a 7 year Strategic Plan for bringing the gospel and a church multiplication movement to the country of Honduras and even beyond. We have put together a goal of seeing over 8,000 churches planted by the end of 2018, and some of the ground work to move to this new level is what Randy will be working on during his travels this week, and in the next month as well. The process of working on this plan is not to set something in stone! Especially in CPM ministry we realize that there is a real limitation in planning because CPM is specifically the work of God Himself, and He does things many times in ways we do not or could not plan. But this process this summer has helped us to "lift up our eyes" (John 4: 35) and begin to pray and anticipate a harvest that is already becoming ready!

Please Continue to pray for this work and especially for the travels of our Strategy team this next week.

Simple Obedience 5: Practical questions

2011-09-20T07:49:00.005-05:00

Here are some questions that we can ask of ourselves to check how we are practicing Simple Obedience. Remember the Great Commandments and Great Commission can be summarized as : Love God, Love People, Make Disciples. But if we unpack the commands themselves from Matthew 22 and Matthew 28 we can examine our own responses to these commands.

LOVE GOD

1. Am I loving God with all my heart? Am I truly "Hearing" the Word of God and allowing it to sink down into the center of my being?

2. Am I loving God with all my soul? Am I truly "Understanding" the Word of God and allowing it to bear fruit in my thinking to the level of understanding what obedience will look like? Is it so deep in me that even persecution or ridicule cannot make me forsake God and His Word?

3. Am I loving god with all my mind? Am I moving from merely understanding to "Obeying" God? (In a conversation with my wife I came to understand that the Mind leads to speaking and acting....actual obedience. Joshua 1:8 illustrates this).

You can see that I am combining the concepts of Simple Obedience with the idea of a "3 Column lifestyle" of which I have written before in this blog...all based on the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4. I think this may be a very helpful way to put Loving God into action!

LOVE PEOPLE

1. Am I loving people as myself Physically? Am I concerned and taking action in relation to the health and provision of people? Does the fact that 4 out of every 7 human beings on earth lives on less than 1500 dollars a year move me to any action?

2. Am I loving people as myself Relationally? Am I concerned and taking action in relation to the emotional health and the family health of others?

3. Am I loving people as myself Spiritually/Eternally? Am I forgiving others as Christ has forgiven me? Am I moved to take action for the salvation and discipling of lost people?

These questions came from the thought that although Jesus told us "how" to love God, perhaps because in our fallen state we would not know how, when it came to loving others he simply says, "as yourselves". So what do I need, what do you need? Physical, Relational and Spiritual/Eternal needs come to mind. I am sure this list is not comprehensive.

MAKE DISCIPLES

1. Am I "Going".....Am I intentionally attempting to make disciples, in my personal relationships, family, community, and world?

2. Am I Making Disciples? Am I looking for persons of peace, developing relationships, and helping people to learn to Discover God's Word?

3. Am I Baptizing new believers? Am I walking in a mentoring relationship with pre-believers as they discover Christ from the Word of God? Am I helping them to connect with believers in the body of Christ and begin a life of obedience?

4. Am I Teaching people to "Obey" Christ's Word? Am I making myself the authority in their lives OR am I presenting myself to them as a fellow disciple/follower of JESUS, and pointing to Scripture as our only authority?

These questions may help us to think in a practical way about the process of Loving God, Loving People and Making Disciples.

Simple Obedience 4: Why the Great Commission sums up the New Testament

2011-09-12T20:22:00.005-05:00

We know that the 2 great commandments sum up the whole Old Testament simply because Jesus said so (Matthew 22:40). So no argument is necessary to establish this, we simply take Christ's word for it.

But I am also setting forth the theory that the Great Commission summarizes the New Testament, and since as far as I know, this is not directly stated in Scripture, I need to take 1 blog to make the case. Here is why I believe this. Each section of the Great Commission can be linked to some part of the New Testament....the following illustrates this.

Matthew 22: 18-20

Verse 18:And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth"
This verse summarizes the 4 Gospels because this establishes the fact that the commission is from Jesus the God/Man whose eternal existence, Deity, virgin birth, perfect life, miraculous ministry, atoning death, and glorious resurrection have just been described previous to this verse. It is because of His perfect obedience and perfect sacrifice that "All authority" was given to Him.

Verse 19: Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
This verse summarizes the book of Acts, because in Acts the early church began to literally obey the specific commands and did so in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 20: Teaching them to observe (obey) all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
This verse sums up all the epistles of the New Testament because the writings of the apostles in the New Testament epistles comprise the further commands of the Lord Jesus through the Spirit of God inspiring the writings we call the New Testament. We are told to obey "all things I have commanded you" and according to Paul this includes his writings! (1 Corinthians 14:37)
"And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age".....the end of the age.....for details see the last book, the book of Revelation.

So from Matthew to Revelation......summed up in this command!

Simple Obedience: Part 3

2011-09-08T11:04:00.008-05:00

We are thinking about the concept of Simple obedience, the idea that the Word of God summarizes God's obedience requirements for His people in 3 commands that we know as the Great Commandments and the Great Commission.

Let me quickly say here that I am not saying that these 3 commands are taught in scripture as the method of personal salvation. We are saved, not by our obedience to any commands....these or any others, but rather by receiving by true faith the gift of eternal life from Jesus Christ our Lord, based on His perfect obedience and His perfect sacrificial death on the cross and His resurrection.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."

So it is by Faith in Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice on the Cross, and in full assurance that God has raised Him from the dead (Rom. 10:9-10) that we are saved. Our works or for that matter and by extension our obedience to these or any other commandments are not able to save us, because in our fallen state we are unable to keep these commands perfectly and so salvation can only come to us by grace and through faith! (See Paul's discussion of this in Galatians 3, especially verse 10 that means that if we do not keep the law Perfectly in every single way, we are judged to be sinners!)

I point this out in order to make it clear that neither church planting movement principles nor any concept of Obedience Based Discipleship or the concept of "Simple Obedience" that I am discussing is meant to challenge the simple facts of Salvation by Grace Alone, through Faith Alone, accomplished by the work of our Lord Jesus Christ Alone, to the Glory of God Alone! In fact if it did, or if any of these teachings did, they would be in error!

No, but rather Obedience Based Discipleship and the understanding of "Simple Obedience" affirms this truth of the Gospel that only through Christ are we saved, and continues on to realize that it is not a contradiction to Ephesians 2:8-9 to continue on to verse 10!
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."
In other words, while we are saved apart from our obedience, we are not saved without reference to our obedience. Indeed, the good works which we will now do in obedience to God's word (summed up in "Simple Obedience", the Great Commandments and Great Commission) constitute God's purpose for our lives and His will for us as His children who He has saved by His grace.

And it should be pointed out that the methodology of Obedience Based Discipleship (teaching pre-Christians to obey God's word as the authority in their lives and leading them step by step to Discover God's requirements and God's answer in Christ through a study of God's word) leads people to see themselves as sinners and respond to Scripture's call to follow Christ as Lord and then begin a life of obedience to Him and His word. Not to mention it is a method that much more closely approximates the discipling methods used by Jesus Himself in the Gospels.

This excursion in this blog is to simply address for those of us who have been saved and discipled in much more traditional strategies the question of whether there has been some doctrinal shift and the answer is that there has not. In fact I would contend that the "Works" vs. "Faith" debate is one that is primarily held among those who in practice use what I call Knowledge Based Discipleship. I will never forget a meeting with some leaders involved in CPM work in Africa where a former Muslim, now Christian leader was asked about the relationship between "Obedience Based Discipleship" and salvation by Grace. Was there a contradiction here?
The African leader was silent for a moment and it soon became apparent that he did not really understand the question! The point is that the idea that our salvation could be by our own works was so foreign to this man, that the question did not even make sense to him. So here was a former Muslim, now follower of Jesus, implementing CPM and Obedience Based Discipleship, but for whom the idea that we thereby earn our salvation was preposterous!

Next time, back to Simple Obedience and its practical implications!

Simple Obedience Part 2

2011-09-01T11:48:00.002-05:00

In Part One, we looked at the 2 great commandments and the great commission and summed them up as: Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. We made the point that from what Jesus said in both cases (you can read it all in Matthew 22:34-40 and Matthew 28: 18-20) it seems that the first 2 summarize the fulfilment of the Old Testament and that the 3rd sums up the New Testament. The most simple way that the requirements of obedience, that are expected of God's people in our present day, can be listed is : Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples.

In coming blogposts, I plan to share some more thoughts about why this is so and ask some practical questions on how we can use this simple idea in our lives, but in this short posting, I just want to make 1 point.

The point is: 1 comes before 2 and 2 comes before 3.

Or to say it a different way, you can't really make disciples of people for the Lord if you don't love those people.....and you can't love those or any people if you don't love God!

Love for God is first in our priority, our list, our strategy, our relationships with others, and our mission. We can't really love others in a Godly way if we don't Love God and on the other hand, we don't love God, if we don't love others. (I John 4:20-21...in fact the whole book of I John is a commentary on this whole concept).

So what does it mean to Love God...Love People...and Make Disciples?
More next time.

Simple Obedience Part One

2011-08-29T08:05:00.007-05:00

Obedience based discipleship is fundamental to all church planting movements. Jesus told us to "teach them to obey all things I have commanded you" in the great commission. George Patterson, who may be considered the "granddad" of the church planting movement trend that has exploded in the last 20 years, wrote about this in his article in the Perspectives reader. Writing about "The Spontaneous Multiplication of Churches" he identified teaching obedience as one of 4 strategies that missionaries should employ in attempting to see a spontaneous movement. And in that category, he identified 7 New Testament basic commands. Those 7 are (1)Repent and Believe, (2) Be baptized and continue in the new life it initiates, (3) Love God and neighbor in a practical way, (4) Celebrate the Lord's Supper, (5) Pray, (6) Give, and (7) Disciple others.

Patterson is a pioneer in this kind of thinking in our day and I am in complete agreement with him. But as I was thinking recently and doing a 3 column study, I realized that it can be boiled down even further. I call it "Simple Obedience" and it can be boiled down to 3 things. (By summing it this way, I am not saying that these things are the only important things, but rather that they sort of "sum up" everything else).

Simple obedience can be summed up in the 3 phrases: Love God, Love People, Make Disciples. Obviously I am combining the "Great Commandments" and the "Great Commission". Here's a thought: Jesus said that the 2 Great Commandments are inclusive enough to hang the whole of the Law and Prophets on them. In other words, every command in the Old Testament boils down to them. And they are still incumbent on us as New Testament believers. And then after His resurrection Christ gave us the Great Commission. I wonder if we might say that the 2 Great Commandments and the Great Commission, taken together, sum up the Whole Bible!

That is enough from me today. Let's just "simply" listen to Jesus.

Matthew 22:37-40. Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

Matthew 28:18-20. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Some Lessons Learned

2011-08-09T11:03:00.004-05:00

The Honduras project has just entered its 4th year. The team entered the first villages to begin looking for persons of peace on July 23, 2008. Today, through both the direct and catalyzed wings of the project, there are over 60 churches and another approximately 160 locations where discovery Bible studies are happening. Somewhere around 4000 people are being impacted we think. The warfare has been intense, souls have come to Christ, leaders are being mentored, at least 5 persons connected to the overall work have been killed violently (3 murdered, 2 in a crossfire with police and drug dealers), there was an earthquake that did much damage, flooding that devastated the country, a government overthrow and 5 months on the brink of civil war, and the Kingdom of God is advancing.

In the process I have learned some things....or learned some things I already knew much better.

1. God answers prayer. I recently found a copy of the original strategic plan that Randy Travis, our strategy coordinator wrote and presented to me in January 2007. I presented this document to the WME board that January and they approved the project. On my copy of this strategic document I had written on April 6, 2007 "Lord, I have a CPM plan, a willing missionary and 2,000 dollars in the bank. " I then asked for additional funds to get launched and closed with these words..."Prayed Prayer of Faith".

I can say that the project has cost more than I asked for, and that the supply was not always when I have wanted it, but I am amazed now, over 4 years later at how God has answered that prayer. He has done things that I could not have even imagined when I wrote those words in 2007....His supply has always been right on time.

2. None of the plans have worked out just the way we foresaw them....but if we had not planned and taken action, nothing would have happened. That is the way it is in warfare. A well known quote from an American General goes something like this: "No strategic plan survives contact with the enemy." That means that we can't be rigid in our planing and our forethought. We plan the work and work the plan, but realize that God is the one who actually does the work, and He does it His way.

Proverbs 16:9-"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps."

3. Some of the breakthroughs have come unexpectedly and in areas where we were not expecting the results to be the greatest. But everything has been in response to continually sowing the seed of the word.
In other words, Consistency in doing the work, and following the principles and refusing to quit when the going is tough or it seems like there are setbacks is key to success.

I have learned more things, but these 3 are impressing themselves on me right now. So here are the principles, restated.

Pray always and expectantly. God Answers Prayer.
Make Plans according to the Word of God and correct CPM Principles. Then see How God works it together. Hold your plans loosely.
Be consistent in Obeying the Word and Sowing the Word. Never give up and Never quit.

Prayer is not a Formula

2011-08-02T21:27:00.006-05:00

Philippians 4:6 is one of my favorite Scripture verses. God's word says:
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

That is an amazing verse. I have thought a lot about this and tried to practice it, and claimed the promise in the next verse, but I don't think I have ever come close to plumbing the depths of this. I am still learning so much about prayer, and I thank God for every prayer He has answered. But I think there is something basic and yet profound about this word. Here are some thoughts on this passage.

1. Don't worry about anything, but rather pray about everything.
2. Handle everything with prayer.
3. Your prayer has 3 parts: Prayer (addressing needs to God), Supplication (earnest pleading from a great sense of need and/or want), Thanksgiving (telling God thanks for what He has done, and even what we expect Him to do).
4. Prayer is not a formula, learned from religion....it is Your requests that You make known to God!

This 4th concept is something that has hit me in a strong way. I have read and studied books on prayer over the years, and listened to and preached many sermons on prayer. I recall teachings I have heard on "Prayer Protocol"......and surely there is much good to be learned from some of this. But it has dawned on me that the Philippians 4:6 kind of prayer is not a "protocol" to be learned, but it is My request, My supplication, My prayer, My thanksgiving, relating to My worry and My need. It is something of Mine, that I am to make known to God!

Prayer is not a formal appointment during which we fill out a standardized form to be submitted by governmental protocol. Jesus has already opened up the door into the Holy of Holies and we are invited to come in "boldly" to the throne of Grace to get help in the time of need! (Hebrews 4:16)

I was thinking about all the people that came to Jesus during His ministry on earth. As I thought about it, I realized that really none of them came by the same "protocol". The centurion sent messengers, lepers bowed down, blind men cried out aloud to get His attention, a woman surreptitiously touched the edge of his garment.....none of them following a pattern set by others, or instructed by Jesus or his disciples. They came to Him in their own way, some boldly screaming, some quietly touching, some bowing, some begging.......but the point is not "HOW" they came, but "WHO" they came to and the fact that they had faith in "HIM"......telling Him, begging Him, thanking Him. The lesson we are to learn, is not HOW they did it, but the fact that they boldly did it, in some fashion, in some way they got to HIM and MADE THEIR REQUESTS KNOWN!

In prayer, the HIM is much more important than the HOW. Get to HIM and ask, seek, knock, pray, thank, worship, make supplication, tell HIM what you want and need! Focus on HIM, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Lords, King of Kings....Very God in the Flesh! He is our answer.

Matters of Life and Death

2011-07-26T13:20:00.007-05:00

I was speaking with one of WME's missionaries earlier today and we were discussing the situation in Honduras. As we talked I reflected again on the circumstances we have just had in the work.

On the last blog post I shared how that 2 pastors that were about to receive CPM training were murdered on the day of the training. This event did not happen specifically because of CPM, that is to say, not because of persecution for the sake of the gospel, but rather as collateral damage in the ongoing drug war in Honduras. Honduras has the number 1 murder rate in the Western Hemisphere (approximately 10 times Mexico, and 3 times Colombia). These pastors were in the crossfire between 2 drug traffickers and the police/military. While this was not "persecution" it certainly was "spiritual warfare".

What I shared with the missionary was the fact that this project is just over 3 years old right now. It officially started in May 2008 when the first workers were trained by Randy and Keith Travis. It seems that though there were many challenges in the first 2 years (remember near civil war for nearly 6 months in 2009) since mid year 2010 the fight has become harder. Since then, 5 people who have been connected in some way to the work have been murdered. 3 of those 5 have been killed in the last month!

The first person was killed in Guatemala, and this was a person that Randy, Keith, and I trained in January 2010 in Mexico. He took a megavoice to begin studies in Guatemala and we have subsequently learned was killed...although I do not know the circumstances. The 2nd person to be killed was a member of one of the DBS studies and his death has been a real difficulty in that particular area of work, something the enemy has tried to use to discourage the others in that particular study. Both of these things happened in 2010.

Then this month, July 2011, the 2 pastors were killed on the day of their training and we just heard that a potential person of peace in another region was murdered.

It occurred to me that this is a sign of increased warfare. Let me put it this way: The project has been ongoing for 3 years and 3 months. In 3 years and 2 months we had seen 2 violent deaths. Then 1 month ago we launched the 300 prayer group and 3 people have been murdered since then. Now, I don't share that to discourage, rather I am encouraged. The prayer level for the HCPM work has seriously increased and we have already seen answers to specific prayers (which are being shared in the emails to the prayer team members!) At the same time, as God's people are increasing prayer and the work is moving forward, the enemy has ramped up his opposition and 3 people have paid with their lives.

So now is the time to keep the prayer going and intensify the prayer cover. Thanks to everyone who is praying, and if you want to join the 300 prayer group send me an email with your name, address, and email to: dparish9@cs.com

What is happening in Honduras is truly a matter of Life and Death. But not just life and death in terms of this life. What we are fighting for is exponential discipling and church planting movements to sweep Honduras and all of Central America resulting in thousands delivered from Eternal Death and brought into the glory of Christ's Eternal Life.

Deadly Attack

2011-07-16T19:27:00.007-05:00

Friends, this evening I write this blog note to ask for special prayer for the WME Honduras CPM project. Recently we have launched our 300 prayer group project, in which we ask people to give 5 minutes a day to pray for the Honduras work. Nearly 150 people are part of this group and we desperately need all of the prayer support that we can get. The spiritual warfare to prevent Honduras from being reached with God's good news has become deadly today as 2 pastors were murdered. One of these men was hosting a cpm training conference that was to begin today and the other was planning on attending the training. This tragic attack has necessitated delaying the training event for a couple of weeks.

Here is a bit of background on what has happened. In the June 16 blog, I mentioned that a partner, that we will call Beto, was planning on entering a new area and conducting a training in cpm in the month of July. This was a first for us because here is an instance where a man that Randy trained in November 2009, and who since then has trained others with the current result of 77 churches/DBS groups was going into a new area to train others. One of our full time workers was going with him to this training, and a special doner had enabled the purchase of some equipment to use at the training. Beto and Mario (our full time worker) were to leave at 3 a.m. this morning to make the journey and begin the training.

Meanwhile the preparations on the ground involved a pastor from Beto's denomination. The training was to be at his church and a pastor from another denomination was also planning on being there. Without going into details, some of which are not clear at this time, these 2 pastors were together and encountered some men who we think are involved in drug traffic. The 2 pastors were shot and killed. Because this was the pastor hosting and arranging the training, the training event has had to be delayed and we are hoping that in a couple of weeks it can take place.

Please pray for those involved in this tragic event.
Pray that:
1. God will comfort and provide for the families and the churches of these 2 precious men of God who are now in our Savior's presence.
2. God will not allow the current work of the Kingdom through these 2 churches to be hindered.
3. The training will happen in due course and that many will be trained and implement cpm principles.....that the result will be people discipled and churches multiplied exponentially in this specific region.
4. Beto will have unusual anointing and wisdom as he ministers to the grieving families. He is there now with them.
5. The men who did this deed would be stopped from further violence and would ultimately come to Christ and be trophies of His grace.

This illustrates more than ever how much prayer is needed in this project. Our teams are working in very dangerous areas. Honduras has the number 1 murder rate per capita in the western hemisphere, mostly because of drug trade and gangs. (The per capita murder rate in Honduras is approximately 10 times Mexico and 3 times Colombia).

I would ask all of my readers to pray and please join the 300 project. To do so only involves sending your email and mailing address to me at dparish9@cs.com.
Each week you will receive up to date prayer requests and also we will mail you a prayer guide with background information about the region and the work.

This evening I was reminded of the time that Jesus was talking about John the Baptist, who would ultimately be killed by Herod. The words that our Lord spoke are no less true now.

"From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force."

In other words, God's kingdom is forcefully advancing into Satan's stronghold of bondage. Captives are being set free. The enemy is reacting violently and sometimes the kingdom suffers violence, but we are moving forward and will be victorious!

"

The Church's Primary Ministry

2011-07-12T09:54:00.003-05:00

Prayer is the primary ministry of the Body of Christ.

I have always believed in the importance of prayer, but recently in California as I was thinking about the serious need to increase prayer for the Honduran Church Planting Movement project, I began to see this concept in a more defined light than before.

1 Corinthians 12 tells us that there are a variety of gifts. Not all will be apostles/missionaries, not all will be teachers, not all will be prophets, not all will minister with tongues (although some will). But regardless of our gifting, we can all obey the Word of God and we can all pray. Not all may be gifted intercessors, but the requests that Paul gave for the church to pray for him and his mission team were to the whole church. (Colossians 4:2-4)

Would you join the 300 Project? We are looking for 300 believers who will pray for the Honduras Church Planting Movement Project for 5 minutes per day. If you become a part of this prayer group, we will send you a beautiful 8 page prayer guide, and also send you prayer request updates to help guide your prayer.

Thanks for joining this important project. Please send your name, address, and email address to: dparish9@cs.com and you will be added to this project.

A very important part of your ministry is about to begin!

The 300 Project

2011-06-25T13:35:00.004-05:00

This blog is to announce a new Prayer Project for WME. I'm calling it the 300 Project and the goal is to get 300 Intercessors for the Honduras and Central American Church Planting Movement Projects.

Recently at the Cityteam Leader's Retreat we (Randy and Keith Travis and myself) were with leaders who are involved in some way with CPM type work in 53 nations. We spent nearly 2 weeks together, and the focal point of the gathering was to develop strategic plans for these works that are in 10 global regions. I was asked to be the team leader for Latin America, and we looked at the world from Mexico to the tip of South America. Our team ultimately only had input from our project (Honduras/Central America), Ecuador, and finally a man working in Brazil. At the end of the time, WME has come away having worked on two 6 year strategic plans (2012-2017) focusing on the general population of Honduras, and also on the Garifuna people group. This people group are only 2 percent evangelical.....98 percent unresponsive. There are 143,000 of them in Honduras. Totally there are about 600,000 Garifuna people spread through 4 countries: Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.

Randy, Keith, and I developed preliminary strategic plans for (1) The General Population of Honduras (Over 6.4 million people), and (2) the Garifuna People Group (600,000 in 4 countries). This was not random choice, because we are already working among the first group, and did an initial training for 2 persons working with the Garifuna in April. 1 Discovery Bible Study has already begun with the Garifuna (although it is in Spanish, and they have asked for a Garifuna language option which we have not developed yet).

Here is where this becomes an issue for prayer and faith. The goal we set in California is 5,000 general population churches and 3,000 Garifuna churches in these regions in the next 6 and 1 half years from right now! Let me be clear.....that will require a miracle of God's power and multiple church planting movements happening over a wide area impacting hundreds of thousands of people!

As we worked on these strategy plans, we knew that our present level of Prayer cover is not even close to what we will need to see happen. So I am rededicating myself to developing a prayer base for this work.

The 300 Project is just a beginning. But we must begin somewhere. I am looking for 300 people who will join to pray at least 5 minutes per day for these outreaches! 5 minutes is not much, one might say, but when 300 people do it.....that is 25 hours of prayer.....every 24 hour day!

Will you join me in being 1 of the 300? God did amazing things with just 300 in the days of Gideon, and He is the same today! If you would like to be a part of the 300 Project, please send me an email at: dparish9@cs.com.
If you give me your name, address, and/or email address, I will send you an initial prayer guide for the Honduras/Garifuna project and include information you can use to inform your intercession. Then every month I will update you on prayer requests from the project as it continues to develop.

At this time there are 61 Honduran churches, approximately 150 Honduran DBS groups, and 1 Garifuna DBS group. The workers are diligently laboring in the harvest field. Close to 4,000 people are being impacted. We are believing for what God is currently doing to be multiplied as people pray!

Update from San Francisco and Honduras

2011-06-16T10:19:00.005-05:00

I am writing from San Francisco where I have been attending a Global Leadership Retreat with leaders of Church Planting Movements and others who are focusing on CPM strategy worldwide. This meeting has been sponsored and facilitated by Cityteam ministries. 53 nations have been represented and the reports of God's work worldwide have been wonderful. The group of perhaps a little over 100 people have been working together and in 10 regional focus groups to pray and plan for the next several years.

Randy and Keith Travis have been here as well and it has been a great time for our strategy team to work on future vision for the Honduras and Central American region. Please pray for us as we leave in a couple of days to return to our work. Keith will be returning to Mexico for a couple of months, and Randy will be heading to Alabama and then will be with his parents for a time in July during which his dad, Leo Travis, will be having some surgery. Randy and I will be conducting a CPM seminar in Alabama in August and then he and Linda will be returning to Honduras, along with Keith and Juanita.

REPORT AND PRAYER REQUEST FROM HONDURAS

While we have been here we have received a wonderful report from Honduras. When we were there in April we saw 1 particular wing of the work that is really bearing fruit. A leader that we have trained in the eastern part of Honduras, Beto (a pseudonym), had seen many come to Christ. He had been trained in November 2009 by Randy and had in turn trained 21 others.....8 of which began cpm work. By April when we were there there were 61 churches, 3 generations deep from that beginning.

We received word that since we left him 2 months ago, 16 new groups have begun and that people have already made commitment to Christ in just 8 weeks.....that is the fastest that we have seen in our whole project to date. The group has a total goal of 120 groups/churches by the end of this year! Beto is planning on going to another department on his own in July and introducing another group of church leaders to CPM using our training materials!

Please pray for this particular branch of the project. There are 3 specific prayer needs:
1. Pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to work in this group of churches and studies so that people are discipled and baptized and multiplication explodes until there is a church planting movement.

2. Pray for resources and favor for this part of the work. There are some key resources that they are in need of (specifically the Megavoice machines and technology), and WME would like to provide it for them as God provides the funds. (Any donations can be sent to WME and preferenced for Megavoice machines for Honduras). Pray for favor with all people, because some opposition has been experienced.

3. Pray for Beto's health. He is a key leader in this branch of the work, and is experiencing some serious health issues. Please pray for complete healing for him.

Thanks for your interest and prayers for the HCPM work. God is doing amazing things through the obedience of His people.

The Work Belongs to God!

2011-05-22T20:01:00.004-05:00

"I want you to understand that it is My Work!"

That phrase resonated through my mind as strongly as anything that I have ever heard from the Holy Spirit. I do not claim any divine inspiration for this word, and as always with anything that is not directly from Scripture, it must be judged (1 Corinthians 14:29). It may have just been my own imagination....but I don't think so!

It was in an intense session of prayer where I was both praising God for the supply of some needs for WME and also praying about present and future needs. The Lord, I believe, began to remind me of how limitless his resources were, and how small our needs were in comparison. But the point that was impressed on me forcefully was that what WME is doing.....is really not something that WME is doing, but it is God's work....something He wants done. And it seemed to me that the Spirit of God was making sure that I got the message.

One of the best classes that I ever took was the Experiencing God class by Henry Blackaby and Claude King. I have mentioned it in this blog in the past, and I must say that when I did that study a little over 10 years ago, I really did not appreciate it as much as I do today. The first reality that is dealt with in that course is: God is always at work around you.

Later when I took training in CPM strategy and began to focus on Luke 10, that principle was reinforced.

John 5:17 says, "But Jesus answered them, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working."

God is the one who does the work in CPM (Church Planting Movements). I remember telling David Watson near the very beginning of our work in Honduras that we were going to "launch" a CPM in Honduras, and I well remember being brought up short by him when he told me, "No you're not....if God does not cause a CPM it won't happen".

This is not a truth that is new to me, and it is one with which I have no argument. But in the practical side of the work, I have (over the last 3 years) struggled with both fear and worry, in both good times and bad and felt the weight of responsibility as though it was on my shoulders. And I do believe that I (and our team in the project) do carry responsibility to work hard, obey scripture etc.

But the Lord gave me a strong word....the work is His! Here is what that means to me in my present understanding.

1. God is the one who does it....He uses people, but without Him nothing happens.

2. God is the one who supplies it....He uses people and means, but the resources are from Him.

3. Whatever results from the work (disciples, leaders, churches, movements) belongs to Him and Him alone.

4. God wants this done......this specific thing in Honduras/Central America and wherever the seeds of the movements go. It is His idea, not mine or our workers or anybody else's!

5. Our vision is too small.....His Vision is much larger than anything we have thought of.

I'll stop there, because I think the Lord will fill this out much more in days to come. But for now, I want to say: Lord, I acknowledge that WME, the Honduras CPM work, and everything else is Yours. Forgive me for worry or fear about any aspect of it, and we look to you for direction for this work of Yours. The work belongs to You, Lord. To You we give all glory and praise!

WME has a new phone number

2011-05-18T13:09:00.002-05:00

Just a note to tell everyone that WME has a new office phone number. We are now at:

270-527-9445

Please note this if you have been using our old line.

Some reports from Honduras

2011-05-01T20:03:00.004-05:00

Dear Reader,
I write this from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. I have been in the country since April 17 and am excited to give you an update on the state of the Honduras Church Planting Movement project. WME's theme for 2011 is "Moving Forward" and it seems that that theme is being fulfilled.

THE TRIP

First let me give a report about this trip. We have moved into new territory in multiple ways on this trip. To begin with, our team has conducted 2 CPM seminars. The first was in the department of Olancho in the city of Juticalpa. Attending were leaders from the Manital de Vida churches (Fountain of Life) and the Christian Reformed Church. For 3 days the team covered basic CPM principles. This training also emphasized mentoring. The training was primarily for those who have already been applying the principles or at least had been exposed to the principles in an earlier training in November 2009. The results were outstanding and we are expecting great reports in the future....in fact our report from the November 2009 training has us in a state of rejoicing. More on that later. The big step forward here was that our primary Honduran team did a lot of the training. Until now, our strategy team consisting of Randy and Keith Travis, as well as myself, have done all of the training. Now our primary Honduran team are becoming trainers, as well as implementers of cpm principles!

Next, we traveled across the country to Santa Barbara in the department of Santa Barbara. Here we conducted a training in three areas for our primary Honduran team. We were joined at this time by Ron Dorris and Frank Wilford from the US. Ron, Frank, and Myself did the training and we worked on the subjects of "Sensitivity to Hearing the Voice of the Holy Spirit" (Frank), "Principles of Teamwork" (Ron), and "Mentoring"(Myself). It was a real time of refreshing, equipping and encouraging for our team consisting of Adiel, Jacobo, Mario, Daniel, Edin, Carlos, and Oscar.

Finally, we traveled across country to Trujillo where we did another basic CPM conference for leaders from the Church of God, Gospel Crusades Church, and Restoration church. This was a completely introductory conference for people just learning about cpm. The reception was wonderful and we look forward to hearing reports in the coming months about how it will be implemented.

Through it all there were great challenges to our transportation and one of the vehicles had several problems. It seemed that the enemy was doing all to keep us from reaching Trujillo. One breakdown was so severe that it would have resulted in fatalities for the team if it had broken during driving on the roads. God's protection was with us, and praise God, there were miracles of supply for parts that were difficult to obtain. Once again we were depending on God's intervention and the prayers of our intecessors.

A CONSOLIDATED REPORT

One of the most encouraging things that we have discovered on this trip is the report of the progress in the work here. Here is a brief numerical consolidated report, including both our direct project and the catalyzed project in eastern Honduras. Numbers are estimates in terms of individuals but are based on direct reports from our team, and interviews with the key leader of the catalyzed projects, confirmed by others involved in the work. The definition of a "church" in this report is that it reflects groups that have had people profess faith and obey by baptism (or are very soon to do so).

Here are the statistics:

Churches planted: 61
Discovery Bible Studies: 105
New DBS about to begin (Persons of Peace thought to be identified): 37
Number of Departments touched (not all have ongoing studies): 10 plus 1 area of Guatemala.
Total churches, DBS studies, and new DBS areas: 203
Number of generations of churches and studies: 3 generations (catalyzed) 5 generations (direct)
Number of people involved in churches/studies: 3,700
Number of baptisms: 270

Praise God for what has happened so far, but we feel that we are only in a very embrionic stage of this work. Continue to pray for CPM to happen in Honduras and for this year to really be the "Year of Moving Forward".

Please remember the US team as we travel home tommorrow!
Blessings to all our readers and intercessors.
David Parish
San Pedro Sula, Honduras

Busy April!

2011-04-11T14:46:00.004-05:00

This month of April is busy busy busy! But all in a good way. We just finished our 12th World Mission Conference at Oasis Christian Center in Paducah, KY. The speakers were myself and Joyce Lynn Kirubagaran of United Evangelical Mission International. The Lord was present by His Spirit, and missionaries, leaders, pastors, and believers were blessed. Thanks to Oasis Church for incredible hospitality. Now, for the next part of April.

On April 17, I will fly to Tegucigalpa and be picked up by Randy Travis, and together we will travel to the Department of Olancho where on April 19, 20, and 21 we will be conducting a CPM training for people from 7 different denominations and fellowships. This is truly a breakthrough time, the kind for which we have been hoping and praying. Included in this training will be people from Baptist, Holiness, Calvinist and Arminian backgrounds as well as both Charismatic and Non-Charismatic churches. Pray that the doctrinal distinctives will be covered by a spirit of Unity and that obedience to the Word of God and discipling the whole nation of Honduras and beyond will become uppermost in the hearts of all. Pray that from all these groups workers will be raised up (Luke 10:2) to become disciple makers and church planters. In this conference there may be some participants who come in from a restricted access country as well, so this conference may impact not only Honduras and the surrounding region, but also beyond the borders of Central America.

From there we will travel to the Northwest of the country and pick up some more team members who are flying in on the 23rd. Then our team will do a special training for our primary church planting team on the 24th, 25th and 26th of April.

Then we will head east along the northern coast to Trujillo where we will conduct another CPM training for another denominational group, including (we think) a leader working with a lesser reached people of Honduras. The Trujillo training will take place April 28, 29, and 30.Pray for leaders to be raised up and eventual harvest to come, along with disciple making and church multiplication. Our team will travel back to San Pedro Sula on May 1 and we fly home on May 2.

Please pray for financial provision for this endeavor, for traveling mercies and health and protection for the short term team, the long term team (Randy and Keith Travis families), the Honduran team, and all the participants in the 3 trainings.Prayer is the 1st Critical Element of all cpm. Please cover this in prayer all month. I look forward to the report that I will give after getting home on May 2.

This is Missions Conference Week

2011-04-05T13:32:00.004-05:00

This is the week of the WME Missions conference. Our Theme is "Moving Forward". We hope that many readers will be able to attend. The Conference is being held at Oasis Christian Center in Paducah Ky. The address of Oasis is: 3232 Buckner Lane, Paducah, KY 42001.

The schedule of services is Registration 6 p.m., Opening Service 7 p.m. on Friday evening April 8. John Peter Kirubagaran of United Evangelical Mission will be the speaker. There will be food and fellowship after the service.

Saturday April 9, will begin with a 10 a.m. service where I will be the speaker. Lunch will be served after the morning session. On Saturday evening, Joyce Lynn Peters, of the Talitha Cumi ministry will be the speaker at 6:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served after the service.

The conference will end Sunday morning, April 10 at the 10 a.m. service at Oasis. A potluck lunch will follow the final service of the conference.

We hope to see you there this weekend.

Please Pray for these events in April

2011-03-25T07:54:00.005-05:00

I want to ask for special prayer in the Month of April for the Honduras CPM project. There will be a very important training trip in the latter part of the month.

On April 17, I will fly to Tegucigalpa and be picked up by Randy Travis, and together we will travel to the Department of Olancho where on April 19, 20, and 21 we will be conducting a CPM training for people from 7 different denominations and fellowships. This is truly a breakthrough time, the kind for which we have been hoping and praying. Included in this training will be people from Baptist, Holiness, Calvinist and Arminian backgrounds as well as both Charismatic and Non-Charismatic churches. Pray that the doctrinal distinctives will be covered by a spirit of Unity and that obedience to the Word of God and discipling the whole nation of Honduras and beyond will become uppermost in the hearts of all. Pray that from all these groups workers will be raised up (Luke 10:2) to become disciple makers and church planters. In this conference there may be some participants who come in from a restricted access country as well, so this conference may impact not only Honduras and the surrounding region, but also beyond the borders of Central America.

From there we will travel to the Northwest of the country and pick up some more team members who are flying in on the 23rd. Then our team will do a special training for our primary church planting team on the 24th, 25th and 26th of April. Then we will head east along the northern coast to Trujillo where we will conduct another CPM training for another denominational group, including (we think) a leader working with a lesser reached people of Honduras. The Trujillo training will take place April 28, 29, and 30.
Pray for leaders to be raised up and eventual harvest to come, along with disciple making and church multiplication.

Our team will travel back to San Pedro Sula on May 1 and we fly home on May 2.

Please pray for financial provision for this endeavor, for traveling mercies and health and protection for the short term team, the long term team (Randy and Keith Travis families), the Honduran team, and all the participants in the 3 trainings.

Prayer is the 1st Critical Element of all cpm. Please cover this in prayer all month. I look forward to the report that I will give after getting home on May 2.

It is all about Jesus!

2011-03-17T07:15:00.004-05:00

Acts 9: 5
And he (Paul) said, "Who are you, Lord?"
And He (Jesus) said, "I am Jesus, Whom you are persecuting."

And....the rest is History!

The man we call the Apostle Paul was changed forever by an encounter with the Resurrected Jesus Christ....who he came to call Lord (God!)

In Disciple Making movements worldwide, we look directly to Jesus and his commands in the New Testament as our guide. But we look also to the Apostle Paul as a key example in how this obedience is done in order to fulfill the Great Commission. In an upcoming book (that I am eagerly anticipating) Neil Cole is going to share the leadership example of Paul in terms of church multiplication movements. It is called "Journeys to Significance" and you can find out about it at his website: www.cmaresources.org

The point I want to make here is that everything Paul did, the leaders he raised, the disciples he made, the churches he planted, came from what I might call his lifelong Jesus intoxicated life. And it all started in a direct encounter on the road to Damascus.

On his way to persecute Christians, and filled with fanatical zeal (the equivalent of a first century Osama Bin Ladin), he met Jesus Christ face to face. He thought that Jesus was a crucified and safely dead religious heretic who's followers were a curse to his people and God's will. He found out that Jesus was....

Alive
Glorified
Sovereign
Lord
God

And it wrecked his life forever, and a glorious wreck it was.

I have discovered that the only thing that can keep me going in God's work is Jesus. It is not my passion for souls....not my obsession with Great Commission Closure....not any kind of religious zeal. In the final analysis our motivation for CPM, disciple making, Honduras, Central America, Unreached Peoples in Indonesia or whatever is A Jesus Christ Wrecked life! It is now, always has been and always will be about Him.

WME's Mission Statement

2011-03-09T11:08:00.003-06:00

Peter Drucker, the well known business and management expert, taught that every business should be able to express its "mission" very succinctly. This has become the widely practiced "mission statement" and I do agree that it is a very important thing. It is vital that any organization be able to tell its "mission" to its various constituents. This is especially true for organizations that are striving to gain partners toward accomplishing certain goals.

WME has expressed its mission, vision, and goals elsewhere (check out our website: http://www.worldmissions.us/ and click on "about" at the top). But in the last day or so, I was toying with a statement that would be 1 sentence and yet fully express what WME is trying to do....indeed what WME feels mandated to do!

Here it is.

World Missions and Evangelism, Inc. exists to Help bring Closure to the Great Commission by Catalyzing Disciple Making Movements Worldwide.

That sentence basically says it all, but I have capitalized certain words to point out the specifics of what is meant.

Help: WME wants to be a proactive positive force in this mission....that is we don't want to either hinder or simply provide nothing of influence toward the mission. Also WME sees it self as "helping" in the sense that we are partnering with the wider "church" and many other persons and agencies to accomplish this. We can't fulfil our mission alone!

Closure: This refers to Matthew 24: 14 and means finishing the command of Christ to the level of seeing every people group on earth be in physical, geographical, and cultural reach of the gospel and a community of believers (local church).

Great Commission: This refers to Matthew 28:18-20 (and other biblical expressions of the same) and is the mandate to "Make Disciples of All Peoples" "Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" and "Teaching them to Obey all of Christ's commands".

Catalyzing: Through mentoring and training, providing resources and encouraging, helping leaders emerge who will engage in this process. Catalyzing stands in contrast to Controlling. WME will never be the "covering" for ministries (the blood of Jesus suffices for that), nor will we establish control, set up bishops or denominational structure etc. We will work with all Bible based Christ followers to help see the task done.

Disciple Making Movements: Movements that multiply in discipling, mentoring, and replicating communities of believers (local churches) have been called many things....most recently most of our work has focused on the concept of "church planting movements". Now we are seeing more clearly than ever that our task is making disciples and when that happens, churches are born and multiply. When we make disciples that make disciples that make disciples, we see groups that multiply, and eventually churches that plant churches that plant churches!

Worldwide: All over the world!

That kind of says it all.

The Fourth Era of Modern Missions

2011-03-02T17:34:00.008-06:00

Have we entered into the 4th Era of Modern Missions?

Dr. Ralph Winter, the founder of the U. S. Center for World Missions and the originator of the Perspectives course, taught that there have been 3 Eras of Modern Missions. When I first took the course in 2005, the section on Missions History was the most intriguing to me because of my personal interest in History. In college, my minor was history and ever since I have been a history buff in many areas. I have spent years studying church history, revival history, and missions history, not to mention various areas of secular history.

After taking Perspectives, it became my privilege to become a Perspectives teacher and I have taught the History of Modern Missions in Perspectives classes in a number of places these last few years. In fact, I will be teaching those lessons again in the Nashville, Tenn. area this weekend.

This lesson centers around Dr. Winter's observation that in the last 2 centuries there have been 3 discernible patterns in missions strategy . He called these "Eras of Missions History" and as I have taught many times, we are living in Era 3.

Each Era is characterized by a distinctive strategic focus (either geographic or sociological) a distinctive leadership base (Europe, America, or Non-Western) a kind of missional structure (denominational, faith mission, or specialist structures) and is illustrated by specific leaders who were instrumental in pioneering these Eras or movements. The Eras overlap by great numbers of years (sometimes a 60 year overlap). Here is a quick breakdown of the 3 Eras:

Era 1: The Era of the Coastlands- 1792 through 1910
European Dominance (meaning most missionaries were from Europe, mainly Great Britain)
Denominational Missions Structures
Geographic Strategy
Key Leaders: William Carey, Adorniram Judson, Henry Martyn, etc.

Era 2: The Era of Inland Missions- 1865 through 1980
American Dominance
Faith Mission Structures (non-denominational or trans-denominational)
Geographic Strategy
Key Leaders: David Livingstone, Hudson Taylor, C. T. Studd, etc.

Era 3: The Era of People Groups- 1934 through the present and into the unknown future
Non Western Dominance
Specialist Structures (Linguistics, Medical, Relief etc.)
Cultural and Peoples Strategy
Key Leaders: Cameron Townsend (founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators), Donald McGavran

I believe that these 3 eras are helpful concepts to help us understand the progress of world Missions in the last 200 years. Now, I am asking if perhaps with the emergence of church planting movements in the last 20- 30 years, we are actually entering into a 4th Era, while still overlapping in the 3rd Era. In order to show what I mean, and in comparison with the other Eras, consider this idea:

Era 4: The Era of Organic Missions- 1990 toward the unforeseen future
No Dominance (Missional, Church Planting, Disciple Making movements emerging among multiple cultures)
Organic Structures: or perhaps no structures. Missional structures with only the necessary organizational features in order to facilitate, but never control the movements.
Multiplicational Strategies
Key Leaders: David Watson, Neil Cole, Alan Hirsch as pioneers and communicators of the paradigm, but in reality the leaders emerge in each movement.....totally non hierarchical.

Only time will tell if we are in another Era, or if perhaps this more Organic focus is a subset of Era 3. Personally I think that we are moving into something qualitatively different. It is a missiology that is being recreated by a more Biblically oriented Ecclesiology. And I think that this is the beginning of what may be truly the Closure Era as we see Matthew 24:14 become a reality in our lifetimes.

World Missions Conference: April 8-10

2011-02-25T11:36:00.002-06:00

This is your invitation to get ready for WME's World Mission Conference which is scheduled for April 8-10 at Oasis Christian Center in Paducah, KY.

This conference will be a time for believers, missionaries, and pastors to fellowship and be inspired to do the work of Advancing the Gospel Worldwide.

The Theme of our upcoming conference is: MOVING FORWARD

Our desire is to see God's work move forward into all unreached areas of the world. Our speakers will be: John Peter Kirubagaran, President of United Evangelical Mission International. Bro. Kirubagaran has been a partner with WME since the mid 1990's and has partnered with WME in planting nearly 200 churches. Beyond this UEMI has planted hundreds of other churches, and has schools and children's homes that are impacting the nation of India.

Joyce Lynn Kirubagaran, will also be speaking. Joyce is Bro. John's wife, and is a dynamic preacher of the Word. She is also the founder of the Talitha Cumi ministry, which is impacting homeless women in India. Aychiluhm Beyene is also scheduled to speak.

The conference will begin on Friday evening, April 8, continue day and night on the 9th and end after the morning service on the 10th. Meals will be served at the Oasis church.

The conference Hotels are the Thrifty Inn and the Pear Tree Inn. A limited number of rooms will be provided for those who have need. You may call our office at 270-527-8369 extension 131 for details on a subsidized room. These requests must be received by March 7, 2011.You may also make your own reservations at:Thrifty Inn: http://www.druryhotels.com/Reservations.aspx?groupno=2103473
Reservations must be made by Tuesday, March 8, 2011 to receive the group rate of 45.99 per nightYou may call Thrifty Inn at 270-444-7200. Mention the World Missions and Evangelism Conference and the group number 2103473

Pear Tree Inn: http://www.druryhotels.com/Reservations.aspx?groupno=2103474
Reservations must be made by Tuesday, March 8, 2011 to receive the group rate of 49.99 per nightYou may call Pear Tree Inn at 270-444-7200. Mention the World Missions and Evangelism Conference and the group number 2103474

We hope to see you this coming April.

Great Seminar in Dallas

2011-02-18T10:21:00.003-06:00

WME conducted a seminar in Dallas this week on an Introduction to Church Planting Movement principles. Thanks to Travis Moffitt and Johnny Moffitt of Worldwide Voice In the Wilderness, and also to Bryan Crowson and the Headquarters staff at the Full Gospel Fellowship of Churches and Ministers, International HQ (The Fellowship) for hosting the seminar. The 2 days went very fast as leaders that are involved in Kingdom work touching Prison Ministries internationally, and other Kingdom ministries in Honduras, Africa, and India spent time in the training.

WME's goal is to both lead a CPM effort in Honduras and in the surrounding Central American countries, and also to catalyze leaders both from Central America and worldwide in CPM principles. This weeks seminar was a valuable step in that direction.

The next CPM training that WME has planned will be in the department of Olancho in Honduras in late April. Any ministries in the Central American region that may be interested in information about that training, please send me an email at : dparish9@cs.com

CPM Seminar in Dallas, February 15-16

2011-02-10T08:07:00.003-06:00

I will be teaching a 2 day seminar on Church Planting Movements in Dallas, TX on February 15 and 16. This seminar is being hosted by the ministry of Worldwide Voice In The Wilderness, that is led by my good friends Johnny Moffit and Travis Moffit. The Seminar will be from 9 a.m to 4 p.m. on both days. Here is the invitation that WVIW has posted:

Come join WVIW and David Parish for 2 days of intensive training regarding GLOBAL CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS. David will be sharing principles that have caused some explosive church growth around the world.

Registration is $30 per person and will include breakfast and lunch both days. You can register via email to Travis Moffitt at travismoffitt@wviw.com or directly on FaceBook.

Feel free to share this invitation with any Pastors, Missions Pastors or Missionaries who may be interested in join us for this exciting training.

I am looking forward to this time with everyone that is able to come to this training.

The purpose of the training will be primarily to serve as an introduction to CPM and CPM strategy for those who know little or nothing about it.

The first day will focus on the definition, history, biblical basis, and key principles of church planting movements. The goal will be to lay a foundation for those who are new to the concept of CPM.

The second day will move from teaching to training, by beginning to apply principles and participate in the kind of learning/training that is replicated in the church planting movements themselves and concluding with practical pointers on getting started. The goal will be to move from knowledge to application in cpm principles.

If you would like more information about this seminar contact me by email: dparish9@cs.com

I look forward to seeing you there.

Non-Cessationist Sola Scriptura: The Theology of CPM

2011-02-05T21:18:00.004-06:00

I believe in a theological position that I call Non-Cessationist Sola Scriptura.

Sola Scriptura refers to the Reformation doctrine that means "Scripture Alone" and that asserts that the Bible alone, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, are the only inspired Word of God and that they are the sole authority for God's people, flawlessly communicating God's will to mankind. The "Sola" or "Only" part asserts that nothing else does this or has this authority....Not Tradition, Magisterium, Hierarchy, Leaders, or Experiences from whatever source....ONLY SCRIPTURE!

Non-Cessationist refers to the concept that God still is active in the world and in the lives of people today in overtly supernatural ways. It says that no activity of God, described in the Bible, has ceased just because that the Bible is now complete. It asserts that all of the gifts, operations, and manifestations of the Holy Spirit described in the Bible may continue to happen to the end of this age according to the will of God.

Some would call this a "Word and Spirit" position and I guess that is a lot simpler to say than "Non-Cessationist Sola Scriptura" but I am trying to be explicit in what I am describing. It appears that many times people embrace one pole or the other of this Word and Spirit continuum. On the one hand, my experience with many charismatic individuals tells me that they give a lot of weight to the Spirit side, and seem fixated on spiritual experiences and "words". They seek after the next experience constantly and seem to let those things become the guiding factor in their lives. On the other hand, I find that a lot of exponents of Sola Scriptura tend toward cessationist positions and deny the supernatural gifts of the Spirit for today.

In the Church Planting Movements that are happening today we are seeing disciples being multiplied exponentially, and in these movements the Key factor seems to be radical obedience to Scripture.....and when this is done God is moving miraculously in signs and wonders including healings and even resurrections from the dead!

What is happening is not so much a "Balance" of Word and Spirit (The Word of God is not Unbalanced and therefore requires nothing to "Balance" it!), rather it is a radical embrace and committment to the Authority of Scripture Alone....AND...a radical embrace of the full present day working of the Holy Spirit in all of His gifts and operations!

Why do I accept both Sola Scriptura (The Scripture Alone as the Authority) and the Present Day Operations of All God's Gifts? Not because of my experience, not even because of the experience of people in the church planting movements! I accept both because the One that is my Authority, the Scripture, clearly affirms both.

SCRIPTURE AUTHORITY: 2 Timothy 3: 16-17-"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work".

CONTINUATION OF HOLY SPIRIT MANIFESTATION: 1 Corinthians 12:4-11-"There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord. There are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills."

These are certainly not the only Scriptures that bear on these things, but they illustrate the point well. By embracing both and excluding or downplaying neither, a theological foundation is laid that underpins the exciting and miraculous multiplication of disciples and churches that is happening today and that I believe is going to continue and increase with exponential impact in the days ahead.

One challenge I can leave with both my reader and myself.
Commit to both. Commit to a Sola Scriptura lifestyle, one in which we see God's written Word, the Bible as the Only Ultimate Authority in our lives, in which we Hear, Understand, and Obey it and exalt it above every other authority, tradition, and experience. Commit to and expect the present day operation of the Holy Spirit in our lives and through our lives to impact others and demonstrate the reality of God's power in the Now!

If we do, we may find that we ourselves are used by God to start new multiplying movements of disciples.

Project Indonesia Moving Forward in 2011

2011-01-30T16:40:00.005-06:00

Our project targeting a specific unreached people is getting ready to move forward this year. Our Missionary, Troy Allen (Pseudonym for security purposes) is planning first steps this year. Here is a recent update from Troy on our status in launching the project with this people.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Hello to all my friends and family,

Thank you so much for your support of helping advance the kingdom at the edges. (Due to security concerns, I do not use my full name, agency identifiers, people group names or specific locations.)

I am excited to be writing my first update letter. There is much to catch you up on. I transitioned from owner/operator of a Paint contracting company to full-time mission preparation. YAY! This marks the first time in my life to live solely on an income of personal donations, and that’s an adventure. Thank you for your support, prayers and generous gifts.

News:

Recently graduated with my Masters degree in Cross-Cultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Currently residing in Paducah, Kentucky, after three years at the U.S. Center for World Missions in Los Angeles.

Started a company for business experience, now selling it.

Learned a lot from a conference about Jesus in the Quran.

Attended another Muslim evangelism conference.

Began raising much-needed financial and prayer support. (Again, thank you to all who have given this year.)

I started a painting company in February. with a friend of mine Louis Rosa, who needs your prayer. In May he was in a terrible automobile accident that left him a paraplegic. Louie (as I call him) has limited use of his arms and can only slightly move his left leg. The doctors said, “If he walks again it's between him and God.” That’s great news because nothing is impossible through Him! Please pray for Louie and his family; he is married and has a three-year-old daughter. Let's pray this man back on his feet literally!

Where I’m Headed:
In 2008 I took a 40-day trip to Southeast Asia, carrying out an ethnographic survey of a remote people group in Indonesia. This was part of a graduation requirement for Fuller Seminary as well as a serving a need of my local agency. Our missions agency has identified and adopted this unreached people group, commiting to reach them for our Savior. The 2008 trip served as the initial contact with the people. As a part of this journey I also ventured over to the Island of Borneo. Many people are unaware of a small M*slim kingdom located there. Since I was in the area on my Indonesian research trip, I stopped in for a four day “vision trip," praying if God would have me minister to the people here on a full-time basis.

Borneo will be the first stepping off point for language and culture learning. After a few years there, we will be able to more effectively minister to the targeted group in Indonesia with a new team. When I first heard of the possibility of joining this new team I was all ears and very excited. A good friend asked me to join this team, and I was honored that he asked. I tell you I hardly needed to be convinced; as he was speaking I just knew this was the door I was praying for.

You see, in Borneo they speak nearly the same language as Indonesia and their cultures are very near to one another. It's the ideal place to learn language and develop a ministry and business model and figure out how to find some semblance of “fitting in” in this new culture. I asked my friend a lot of questions; I asked many questions to his agency and approached my agency with the prospect. The verdict is that Brunei is a great fit in helping me learn and grow as a “sent one” to this part of the world. I have been pointing myself and my life in that direction ever since. My friend has already deployed to Brunei, and I hope to join him and his family as soon as possible.

Everything is in place. The only thing holding me back is funding.

Prayer Points:

Open door into the Southeast Asian kingdom in Borneo. The whole team needs business visas.

Safety for the 7-team members already in place and awaiting my arrival.

Favorable connections with locals. Ask the Lord to show us "People of Peace," those influential community leaders who can help us present the Gospel.

That my support level would reach 100% soon. I'm currently at 20%. Please pray about regular monthly support. I need 36 monthly supporters at $100 per month.

The Sum Up:
In June, I'm planning on attending candidate school...a critical training time for new missionaries. Hoping to launch out in September 2011. If you haven’t already, you will most likely be getting a call about regarding monthly financial support. Thank you all for your prayers and support – it means more to me than you know.

"...behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:10-11)

Peace on Earth and goodwill to men - Peace and blessings to you in this joyous season, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Troy

Send Donations To
WME
P.O. Box 790
Benton, KY 42025

Contact Us:
WME
220 Pugh Rd
Paducah, Kentucky 42003

Dear Reader, Please consider becoming a supporter of Project Indonesia. Join in prayer for a breakthrough with these unreached peoples.

First Steps in 2011

2011-01-26T10:07:00.006-06:00

January has been a very busy month. In the January 2 blog, I called 2011 the year of Moving Forward, and if this month is any indication, it certainly is that kind of year. In fact, I have been "moving" so much that I am only now getting to this blog report. Here is where I've been:

January 9 I spoke at Christian Fellowship Church, WME's founding church, where Senior Pastor Richie Clendenen is doing a great job of leading the church to impact the community and the world. The folks there responded to the challenge to give to missions to see God's work advance. WME appreciates this church, its pastor and its wonderful people. It is so true that CFC has stood in the gap for missions and if it was not for the love and support of this key church, WME could not be doing what it is worldwide. Thanks CFC!

On January 11 I flew to San Jose, California to meet with Cityteam/New Generations and their team for a discussion of Church Planting Movements. We really value our partnership with Cityteam and their leaders, and we are always excited to see and hear what God is doing around the world. I returned home on the 14th, and had 1 night at home.

On the 15th, my wife Patty and I traveled to near Cincinatti to speak at the Cave Hill Independent Church of God in Versailles Indiana. This church is a key partner with WME. For the last 10 years they have stood faithfully with this ministry as we have equipped church planters and engaged in ministry in India, Romania, Indonesia, South Africa, Swaziland, Honduras, Mexico, and Guatemala. Pastor Doug Norman is leading the church forward in impacting both their community and the world. It was also good to see Brother Pearl Cornett, the founding pastor and all our friends at Cave Hill. They stepped forward this year and their faith promises for the Great Commission increased this year. Thanks Cave Hill!

On the 18th, I flew to Honduras for a strategic meeting with Randy and Linda Travis and Keith and Juanita Travis (and Juanitia's sister Magnolia who is staying with them). I also met with our Honduran CPM coaching team (church planters). Seeing Adiel, Jacobo, Oscar, Mario, Daniel, Edin, and Carlos was a real highlight of the trip. Although my stay was brief (I flew home on the 22nd) this was a key strategic time. Randy, Keith and I spent hours together in strategic talks as we look forward to Moving forward in 2011. We also did a very profitable training session with the Honduran coaching team. Here is a brief excerpt of our strategic thinking for 2011:

Core Project: Currently 127 Discovery Bible studies in about in 6 or 7 departments of Honduras as well as Guatemala.
2011 Moving Forward goal: Team is "decentralizing" from the 1 base in Copan to 3 new bases. In the Danli area a new region will be opened up that will also open the corridor into Nicaragua. We expect much expansion this year, as well as church development.
We are planning at least 3 "Equipping Events" in Honduras (In April, August, and November we think). These events will be special trainings focused on skill development and cpm principles for our Honduran team. In CPM, leadership development is primarily through mentoring, but these events will be special equipping times for the team. 1 goal is for our Honduran team to develop beyond implementers of cpm, to becoming trainers and even trainers of trainers.

Catalytic Projects: We will be focused on Current and New Catalytic Partners in 2011 as well. We are working with 1 of our current partners to train some of their leaders in CPM principles, and in coordination with this may be training some leaders from a "restricted" nation as well. New catalytic partners are being developed and several possibilities for this are before us with potential of bringing cpm to other regions, peoples and nations.

WME's overall Goal for the HCPM project in 2011: Become a Catalyst for CPMs throughout Central America and beyond.

So January has been a month of "Moving Forward" as we are taking "First Steps" ahead. To you the reader, prayer partner, and supporter we say thanks and ask for your continued involvement in this year.

2011 THE YEAR OF MOVING FORWARD

2011-01-02T10:54:00.008-06:00

One of the things I did as a pastor for a number of years was to declare a theme for the year. That tradition had its roots in a class I took in 1995, with Dr. Mark Rutland, currently the President of Oral Roberts University. Dr. Rutland was teaching a class on Preaching for the Assembly of God Theological Seminary in a short term 1 week format in Lakeland, Florida, and it was my privilege to attend. During the week of classes Dr. Rutland told the class that he settled on a theme for every year when he was pastoring and encouraged us to do the same. When I returned home, I decided to do just that and for 1996 announced a theme, which we called the Year of Faith. Although not set in stone, it seemed that as I would think and pray about this each year, the Lord would give me a theme to declare each year. I have not done that since I left pastoring, of course, but as last year drew to a close, some words and phrases seemed to come to my attention again and again, and so, for what it's worth I am sharing a theme for WME's mission work for 2011: The Year of Moving Forward.

THE ORIGINS OF THE THEME

It started a few months back when I was talking with some leaders from Oasis Christian Center in Paducah, KY. Pastor Larry Starnes had asked if we could have a WME Missions Conference there in 2011 and when I met with the leaders I suggested that they select a theme for the conference that is scheduled for April 8-10 at their church. A little while later they shared that they liked a theme from a song that they had heard called "Moving Forward" (I have embedded the song at the bottom of the blog for those who would like to hear it). I heard the song and loved it instantly and told them that this would be a great theme song and theme for the conference.

As time has gone by, this theme and other phrases like it have come to my attention again and again in the last months, weeks and days.

Another phrase that is likened to it is "No Retreat". This concept is kind of the flip side of the "Moving Forward" idea. Moving Forward is what we must do, and No Retreat is the reminder of what we must not do.

I am a student of history of all kinds (World History, U. S. History, History of Wars, Church History, Revival History, Missions History....you name it). One of my interests is the U. S. Civil War (1861-1865). The key General for the North was Ulysses S. Grant. As I have made a special study of his decision making and strategies I have come to see that Grant made many mistakes and very costly ones at that (once he made an error in judgement that cost his army 7000 casualties in 30 minutes!). Yet his leadership was probably the critical factor in the North winning the war. And one of the key factors in his personality and decision making was the fact that he seemed to be constitutionally unable to retreat! Whether he was winning or losing, he kept moving foward. If he suffered a terrible surprise attack that was costly (like at Fort Donelson or especially the Battle of Shiloh) he refused to give up and always ordered a counter attack! Or if he was beaten by the opposing army temporarily (as happened more than once when he faced Robert E. Lee directly in the Overland Campaign in 1864) he kept moving forward toward his ultimate goal (Richmond, VA). If he could not go "through" Lee, he would go around him and keep moving forward, thus controlling the context of the war even when he could not win every battle. As far as I can tell, although he made many mistakes and won some and lost some, the one thing Grant never did....never ever...was to retreat! And it paid off at Appomattox.

A few years ago, I feel that the Lord gave me an insight into 5 key decisions that we must make if we will see victory in Spiritual Warfare. Here they are with a bit of explanation of one:

1. I Will Not Quit.
2. I Will Not Fail.
3. I Will Not Die. (Prematurely, before God is done with me)
4. I Will Not Fail Morally.
5. I Will Not Slacken the Pace.

Of course, these decisions can only be carried out by the grace of God, in Obedience to His Word and His Holy Spirit. But the spirit behind these decisions is the spirit of "Moving Forward" and "No Retreat" as we obey Christ's Great Commission.

So there it is. WME has a theme, not only for its April Conference, but for its work for 2011: The Year Of Moving Forward

Lord, with your grace and help, we will move forward in obedience to your Word this year. Open New Doors by your power. Multiply the work in Honduras. To You Lord goes all Glory and Praise.
AMEN.

Last Chance For Tax Deductible Giving for 2010

2010-12-27T13:31:00.000-06:00

Dear Friend of Honduras Church Planting Movement Project,

Happy New Year. Thanks for all your faithful support and prayers this year.

Just a reminder that we are now in the last week of the year and December 31 is our last chance to donate to HCPM and receive tax credit for 2010.

We appreciate all of your prayers and gifts this year. God has blessed in a wonderful way and we are expecting even greater things in 2011. You are an important part of this ministry.

You can give on our cause page online, or you may send a donation by mail to:
WME
P. O. Box 790
Benton, KY 42025

For 2010 tax credit, all gifts must be postmarked by December 31, 2010.

Thanks again and may this be your most blessed Holiday ever!

David Parish

Merry Christmas and Praise Reports from Honduras

2010-12-20T10:05:00.004-06:00

Merry Christmas to all from World Missions and Evangelism, Inc. God has been so good to us this year, and we would like to give praise to Him for His many blessings to us and to those involved in the Honduras Church Planting Movement project. This year the geographic area of where the project was involved has expanded greatly. Last year at this time, Honduras was coming out of nearly 6 months of governmental crisis that had impacted our work as well. Today peace and stability have been reestablished (although the nation still has many problems).

As an example of the works expansion:

3 years ago: December 2007 - The strategy coordinator team was preparing to begin the project, no work had begun.

2 years ago: December 2008 - The team had begun work in 5 departments of Honduras, but with no multiplication yet.

1 year ago: December 2009- The work had been hampered by nearly 6 months of government crisis, but the project was working both directly and catalytically in 6 or 7 departments of Honduras and a seed was being planted in south Mexico (much of it because of necessary relocations of the team caused by the crisis).

Today: December 2010 - The direct project has operated in 9 departments of Honduras (out of 18 total, half of Honduras) and has crossed over into Guatemala (the team that has been working there has crossed a river 29 times 1 way to get to the region where we are working!). The catalytic project has operated in 1 department of Honduras and a large number have been trained and begun Discovery studies in South Mexico.

Our Discovery Bible studies are in many villages and some are 4th generation studies.

Here are some testimonies from studies that have been sent to us by Keith Travis, the assistant Strategy Coordinator for HCPM. This was written by our Honduran Team Member Oscar:

Santa Barbara, October 2010
As we went out to different villages selling medicine one day we came across a colonia called the Samaritan. We went up to a house offered our medicines and a man came out to meet us. We began to talk to this man and he told us that his name was Ines. He began to tell us that he was a coordinator in the catholic church. He said that he wanted to be our friend. We then told him that apart from selling medicines we also liked to study the Bible and that we would like to study with him if he was interested. He said he not only wanted to study the Bible with us but that he wanted to start his own studies with new families. In each one of the studies he has started there are around 16 people coming to them and they have their Bible study every three days. Praise God.

Santa Barbara, November the 8th 2010
Don Ines had presented me to David. They invited me to a Bible study that Don Ines had started at David's house. We went to the Bible study and they started the study. In the Bible studies there is a question that is always asked. The question is : is there someone in the community that has a need that we as a group can help them with? The next question is: who will you share with at least one thing you have learned in this Bible study today? There was someone at the Bible study that was sick so we helped them that week. For the next study we went to Domingas house. There where 17 people that showed up to have the study. David lead the study since his application to the second question in the first Bible study was that he was going to lead a group in the Bible study. In the study that David led there is a question that is always asked at the beginning of a study. The question is :is there anyone that would like to thank God for something He has done for you this week? David said: I have been in bed sick this week but thanks to Oscar and Esteban and the Bible studies I received healing so I encourage you to continue having the Bible studies.

Asacualpa, Santa Barbara June 2010
Don Tino was in the park getting ready to go to a village where he lives. I saw him, walked over to him, and began to talk to him. He asked me what I did for a living. I told him that I sold medicine and that I would like to go to his village to sell my products. He said that would be good but how would we meet up with each other? I told him that if he wanted to give me his phone number that I could call him when I got there. I called him every day for the next few days. He was always nice to me on the phone. I went to his house on Saturday. We spent the day together and he invited me to stay the night. The next time I came to his house it was the same. This time I took my things out to sell something to him and he saw the megavox. He thought it was a radio and asked me how much the radio cost. I told him that if he was interested in what the radio had to say that we could listen to it. So he gathered his family together and we had our first Bible study.

Sapotal, Santa Barbara May 2010
Don Luis attended us and shared his testimony with us. He said that he had been terribly sick and in bed but thanks to our visits he was healed by way of the Bible studies and that he is thankful to Oscar and Esteban for bringing the Word into their home.

These testimonies illustrate some of the ways that Discovery Bible Studies are started, how some persons of peace have been found, and how God is working in the studies with 2 testimonies of healings.

Praise God and thank all of you who have prayed and given to see this work go forward.

Will CPM work in the United States?

2010-12-16T08:34:00.005-06:00

I think that the most frequently asked question I have had as I share about the Honduras project and CPM is "Will CPM work in the United States?"

Here are some thoughts on that subject.

1. My first answer is yes. Someone might say, why are we not seeing cpm here yet then? My response is that we need a bit of historical perspective on this. Let me put it this way: 50 years ago, there was not cpm anywhere on the planet earth. I am not saying God was not working. There are always places of kingdom advance and revival and great harvests. 50 years ago we were talking about "Revival" and "Church Growth" and "People Movements", but not "Church Planting Movements".

According to David Garrison's intitial books, a Church Planting Movement is:
a rapid and multiplicative increase of indigenous churches
planting churches within a given people group or population segment.

Using this as a very general definition (one that is currently being revisited and will be refined as time goes by) what we are calling CPM or things very close to them were not being seen anywhere until 40-50 years ago.

Then with the emergence of the Chinese House Church Movement, things very near to this definition began to happen. However, because of the special circumstances of the Chinese movements (communism, persecution etc.) these were not particularly seen as instructive for strategy, but more of a special move of God in some very unique circumstances.

It was not until the 1990s when the CPM occurred in India and some other places and were reported by Garrison's booklet and the term Church Planting Movements was coined, that these principles began to be viewed in a strategic way. Remember that book was published in 1999, and the more thourough study was not released until 2004.
Then beginning in 2005, a focused intentional attempt began in Africa to introduce these principles, with the result that over 10,000 churches have been planted there within the last 5 years.

Looking at it this way we might extrapolate:

Pre 1970: No CPM
1970-1990: CPM in the form of the Chinese House Church Movements
1990-2000: CPM in Asia primarily (mostly India)
2000-2010: CPM explodes in Africa

Might we suggest that the future might include:
2010-2020: CPM emerges in the Western Hemisphere (South, Central, and yes, North America).

My point is that it is way too early to determine what will or will not work in the US in terms of CPM.

2. My second response to the question is basically to question the question. Is this the right question to be asking? I think it is basically a typically American question (What Works? rather than What is Right?)

We must remember that the CPMs that happened in Asia in the 90s and the principles that emerged from these movements did not happen because the leaders were following a "model" that promised "CPM" or anything else! In fact I don't think that CPM is a "model" of mission. It emerged as certain leaders gave radical committment to the Bible as the Word of God and decided to "Obey" it. Radically.

The people who were involved the beginning of those CPMs did not envision CPM when they began. They were trying to start 1 church! They were trying to simplify the process of discipling people to remove all Christian cultural baggage and only teach obedience to the Word. When Western and Christian Cultural contexts were removed and simple obedience to the authority of the Bible was introduced, what we have been calling CPM began to happen....spontaneously. It is only now, in hindsight 20 years later, that we look at the "results" of Biblical Obedience and ask if it will "Work" here.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say we should do it whether it "Works" or not. We should return to Biblical Obedience and the Functional Authority of Scripture and we should Make Disciples and Teach them to Obey all things Christ Commanded. We should engage in Radical Biblical Obedience with the intention to disciple people.

After all, American Church leaders have been searching for what "works" for decades and trying all kinds of approaches and spending Billions of dollars doing it. The result: Check out this report that came out this week from George Barna.

http://www.barna.org/culture-articles/462-six-megathemes-emerge-from-2010

He lists 6 Megathemes that are emerging as the state of religious faith in the US at the present time:
1. The Christian Church is becoming less theologically literate
2. Christians are becoming more ingrown and less outreach-oriented
3. Growing numbers of people are less interested in spiritual principles and more desirous of learning pragmatic solutions for life
4. Among Christians, interest in participating in community action is escalating.
5. The postmodern insistence on tolerance is winning over the Christian Church.
6. The influence of Christianity on culture and individual lives is largely invisible.

This is the result of the American Church quest for What Works of the last 40 years.

I would propose that we stop our quest for the latest widget, and get back to radical Biblical Authority and Obedience. Regardless of the results, they can't be worse than the results we are getting right now!

3. The truth is that the beginnings of CPMs may be at the seed stage in the US already. I am aware of some work in certain areas, especially in California, that while perhaps not CPM yet, may be moving in that direction. Neil Cole's books and network may be moving in that direction as well.

So my answer is : Yes, I think it will Work in the US. But we must be driven, not by theories and models. We need to focus on what an Obedience based discipling process will look like in the "cultures" in the US and then leave the results to God.

More News from Honduras.

2010-12-14T12:58:00.004-06:00

I want to thank everyone who prayed for Mario, one of our church planting coaches. We put the prayer request out online and a number of people prayed for him. Here is what happened:

Mario and Paco, one of our 2 men CPM teams (Luke 10), specifically the team we call team 4, has just been deployed into a new department of Honduras. They are based in the city of Danli in the department of El Paraiso. They are just beginning the process of looking for persons of peace and making the relational contacts that will result in new Discovery Bible Studies.

On December 13, Mario was on his motorcycle and was the victim of a hit and run incident. A truck hit him, knocking him from the motorcycle onto the road. The truck then sped away. Mario hit his head on the road and for a while, bleeding from the nose and mouth, looked to be possibly seriously hurt. His teammate Paco got him back to their home and gave him some medical attention, then they contacted our Strategy Coordinator, Randy Travis. Randy is at our base, many hours from Danli. Randy instructed Paco to get Mario to a hospital, which he did. After some tests and medication, Mario was sent home and is doing better. He has a slight concussion as his only reminder of the incident. The motorcycle suffered what we think is about 400 dollars damage. Praise God for his goodness in preserving Mario's life.

Please pray for all our teams as they travel in very hazardous conditions to bring the life changing Word of God to people who as yet have not received it.

Finding people of peace

2010-12-06T13:26:00.003-06:00

Here is a testimony from one of our Honduran team members. This is as current as it gets. This happened in November. This is one of our most effective 2 person cpm coaching teams, 2 Honduran brothers named Jacobo and Adiel. Jacobo is telling this story:

One day in the month of November Jacobo and Adiel were in a village called Cosiris, of San Juan , Department of Intibuca. I, Jacobo, was working on my motorcycle when I noticed a young man named Hector, walking towards me. I left what I was doing and rose up to meet him. Hector was a salesman from a village in the department of Lempira.
I immediately began to talk with him about the Bible studies we do and began to explain to him how they work. I trained him on the spot on how to do the Bible studies with the Megavox. I then gave him a Megavox. After talking to him for a good long time he invited us to his home.
So for two hours we road the motorcycles on horrible, horrible roads until we made it to his village. As soon as we arrived some people rushed out and began to say you guys are sent from God. No one else knew that we had talked to Hector about the Bible studies. A group began to gather and I said would you like to have a Bible study. They said yes. So enough people showed up that we were able to have our first Bible study with them. Twelve people came to the Bible study. We had a really good Bible study. This was how it all begin with them.

This testimony of finding a person of peace (Hector) and beginning a Discovery Bible Study is an example of how God is opening doors in the HCPM project.

Pray for the workers Jacobo and Adiel, the Strategy team, Randy and Keith Travis, and the people of peace (like Hector) as well as the people in this new DSB.

As the Lord leads this Holiday season, consider giving a financial gift to help the HCPM project move forward. Gifts can be sent to:
WME
PO Box 790
Benton, KY
ATTN:
HCPM Project

Get Ready Now for WME's World Mission Conference

2010-11-29T08:57:00.005-06:00

This is your invitation to get ready for WME's World Mission Conference which is scheduled for April 8-10 at Oasis Christian Center in Paducah, KY. This conference will be a time for believers, missionaries, and pastors to fellowship and be inspired to do the work of Advancing the Gospel Worldwide.

The Theme of our upcoming conference is: MOVING FORWARD

Our desire is to see God's work move forward into all unreached areas of the world.

Our speakers will be: John Peter Kirubagaran, President of United Evangelical Mission International. Bro. Kirubagaran has been a partner with WME since the mid 1990's and has partnered with WME in planting nearly 200 churches. Beyond this UEMI has planted hundreds of other churches, and has schools and children's homes that are impacting the nation of India.

Joyce Lynn Kirubagaran, will also be speaking. Joyce is Bro. John's wife, and is a dynamic preacher of the Word. She is also the founder of the Talitha Cumi ministry, which is impacting homeless women in India.

Aychiluhm Beyene is also scheduled to speak. Bro. Ayche is a leader of church planting movements in the Horn of Africa that is impacting literally thousands and changing the face of that region of the world. His testimony and teaching will light fires of passion in all who hear him.

The conference will begin on Friday evening, April 8, continue day and night on the 9th and end after the morning service on the 10th. Meals will be served at the Oasis church.

The conference Hotels are the Thrifty Inn and the Pear Tree Inn. A limited number of rooms will be provided for those who have need. You may call our office at 270-527-8369 extension 131 for details on a subsidized room. These requests must be received by March 7, 2011.

You may also make your own reservations at:

Thrifty Inn: http://www.druryhotels.com/Reservations.aspx?groupno=2103473
Reservations must be made by Tuesday, March 8, 2011 to receive the group rate of
45.99 per night
You may call Thrifty Inn at 270-444-7200. Mention the World Missions and Evangelism Conference and the group number 2103473

Pear Tree Inn: http://www.druryhotels.com/Reservations.aspx?groupno=2103474
Reservations must be made by Tuesday, March 8, 2011 to receive the group rate of 49.99 per night
You may call Pear Tree Inn at 270-444-7200. Mention the World Missions and Evangelism Conference and the group number 2103474

We hope to see you this coming April.

God bless you abundantly,
David Parish

Center of the Center

2010-11-18T10:44:00.005-06:00

To all the blog readers, my apologies for the delay in an update. I am just now getting back to the blog after the trip to Honduras. We (businessman Caleb Gentry and I) had a marvelous time in Tegucigalpa. We went to participate in a conference of missionaries in Tegus.

I was able to share CPM testimonies and some principles on Friday and Saturday of last week. Missionaries representing 8 ministries were present and several have expressed interest in further information on CPM. This was our first effort to begin an informal network or consortium of missionaries/ministries that would be interested in being catalyzed in CPM principles for the ultimate goal of multiple CPMs in Honduras and Central America. Thanks to all our prayer base members who held this time up to the Lord.

On Saturday morning, our first session was a prayer time for Honduras and Central America. The participants spent time calling out to God for revival and the reaching of this region for the Kingdom of God. During the prayer session, John Mattica, a missionary/pastor in Tegus, who was the convenor or the conference, drew a map on a white board and showed how that Honduras is the Central nation in Central America. What I mean is that geographically, there are 7 nations in Central America and 3 are to the west or north of Honduras and 3 are to the south and east of Honduras. On the west side are Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador, and to the east and south are Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. In terms of Land travel, you have to pass through Honduras to get from 1 side to the other. So of 7 nations, Honduras is right in the middle, the Center.

Then considering that Central America is, of course, in the Center of North America (Canada, USA, and Mexico) and South America.....means that in that sense...Honduras is the Center of the Western Hemisphere. (Of course the Western Hemisphere includes numerous island nations as well). The point is that as the group looked at the board and prayed and talked, some of us got an understanding of the strategic nature of what happens in this small nation of Honduras. Our prayers and focus is growing from what happens in our project and our ministry and even our region, to our larger region (Central America) and our whole western hemisphere, and our whole world.

Honduras, the context to which our initial focus has been called, is one of the neediest, if not the actual neediest nation in this region....in terms of both physical and spiritual poverty. We feel God has led us to draw a bullseye of grace on the map of this Center of the Center place. Our prayer and goal is nothing less than the total discipling of Honduras for Jesus Christ, in such a way that it ripples out in ever larger ways till all have heard and every nation and people in this hemisphere has recieved the gospel, and had the opportunity to be an obedient disciple of the Lord Jeus Christ.

This meeting in Tegus has opened new doors, forged new relationships, encouraged our faith and enhanced our vision for what is possible in terms of Global Church Planting Movements. Our committment to do whatever it takes to see this happen has never been greater.

Pray in November

2010-11-01T08:11:00.003-05:00

The month of November is here and our HCPM project continues to move forward. There are 2 specific areas where we need our intecessors to focus this month as God opens doors for the advance of the work.

On November 11, I will be traveling to Tegusigalpa, the capital of Honduras, to speak at a conference of Missionaries. Workers from around Honduras will be gathered to be encouraged and taught. This will be the annual conference of the Fellowship in Honduras (connected with the Full Gospel Fellowship of Churches and Ministers, Intl. based in Dallas TX). The director, missionary John Mattica, has been a long time friend. Also traveling with me will be businessman Caleb Gentry, who will be looking at ways business can assist mission in Honduras.

The conference and the subsequent speaking opportunity will be on the 12th through the 14th and then Caleb and I will be traveling home. So you can see that it is a very quick trip, but I hope a very significant one. During the conference I will be sharing some basic CPM principles and I would ask you to pray that God will touch hearts and open doors for strategic partnerships which can be catalyzed in order to see CPM spread throughout Honduras and Central America.

Simultaneously, around the 15th of the month, Randy Travis will be moving 2 of our primary project team members into another department, El Paraiso, to the town of Danli to begin a new beachhead in our project. This will be the beginning of work in a 9th department of Honduras. Pray for these team members, Paco and Mario as they begin seeking persons of peace in this department.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support. We believe that we are in Honduras "for such a time as this". God is about to do a mighty work and your prayers are an important part of this.

My Top 5 Recommendations for CPM reading

2010-10-27T10:08:00.005-05:00

One of the things that has characterized my life is reading. One of WME's missionaries, Michael Goodnight, was here at our office this month, and we were talking about hobbies etc. I told him that my only hobby was reading. I am an inveterate reader.

But until fairly recently, there were not many books that would really explain CPM strategy, results, and theory. That is probably because most people involved in CPMs are active practitioners rather than academics. Thankfully, the dearth of literature about cpm is beginning to change and here are my top 5 recommendations for those who want to know more.

1. David Watson's blog: www.davidlwatson.org I want to start here because there is such a wealth of information here that you can launch from here to learn almost everything you want to know. David Watson is, I think, the leading practitioner, trainer, and mentor in CPM. His work 20 years ago with the Budjpuri in India was really foundational to CPM as we are working with it today.

2. David Garrison's blog: www.churchplantingmovements.com This website may actually be a better introductory portal for the person who knows nothing or next to nothing about what CPM is. Garrison is the author of both the booklet, "Church Planting Movements" 1999 (available for free download at his website) and the more extensive "Church Planting Movements" 2004 (available for purchase at his website). This website will cover a bit of a broader spectrum in terms of CPM. You may start here, but please go further.

3. Dave Hunt's 2009 doctoral dissertation: "A Revolution in Church Multiplication in East Africa". It is available for download at: http://www.davidlwatson.org/2010/07/23/a-revolution-in-church-multiplication-in-east-africa/

This is perhaps the most in depth study of cpm principles available. Highly recommended.

4. Neil Cole's books: Neil talks of Church Multiplication Movements. Some differences in approach from the above will be found, but this is very valuable reading. Here are the books I recommend: Organic Church, Organic Leadership, Church 3.0

5. Alan Hirsh books: Especially "The Forgotten Ways" Hirsch is a fascinating thinker and this book gives a larger Historical context for CPM and Missional movements. More properly belonging to the "Missional" category, it has much to say to the cpm strategy.

I challenge the readers of this blog, and the supporters of WME and the HCPM project to dig into these books and online resources. Doing so will give you a greater understanding of what we are doing in Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.

Moving Forward

2010-10-18T08:43:00.003-05:00

The Honduras CPM project is moving forward. I was just visiting with our Strategy Coordinator, Randy Travis. The project is moving into new territories as our team works diligently to take the Discovery Bible Studies into new geographic areas.

Let me explain our 2 main thrusts into Honduras and then share how far the impact of the HCPM project is reaching as we have entered the last quarter of the year. The HCPM project is divided into 2 complementary strategies: The Direct Project and The Catalytic Partners. The Direct Project involves our team that was recruited and trained in the department of Copan in 2008. Beginning in late 2006, WME had laid the groundwork for this outreach for nearly 2 years. From September 2006 through July 2008, out strategy coordinator team had formulated the strategic plan, gained training, developed our access ministry tactics, obtained the location in Copan for our training base, and recruited and trained our Honduran team. They launched into the village areas in late July 2008. That Direct Project is continuing and having far reaching impact. Beginning in the late summer and fall of 2009 the Catalytic Partner aspect of the HCPM project began, as our team (during the time of the government troubles in Honduras) shared with others in the Olancho area the CPM principles. Eventually another denominational leader came for training and that wing was launched. Then in January and February of this year, another group was trained for Catalytic partnership in South Mexico.

Here are the departments and regions in which these various aspects of the work are now conducting DBS groups.

Direct Project: The Honduran Departments of : Copan, Intibuca, Ocotepeque, Santa Barbara, Lempira, Cortez, and Colon. Also the Direct Project has now crossed the border and is conducting DBS groups in Guatamala.

Catalytic Partners: The Honduran Department of : Olancho (2 different catalytic groups). Also a group in South Mexico.

(For your info, a department in Honduras is equivilent to a state in the US)

To sum up, the HCPM project is currently working directly and catalytically in 8 departments of Honduras (out of 17 total in the country) and also in Mexico and Guatamala. Currently our best estimate is that this involves over 200 DBS groups occuring now. These are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation groups.

I just wanted to give a brief update on where the work stands at this date. Please continue to pray for the HCPM project.

The Battle For the Bible

2010-10-06T10:18:00.003-05:00

About 30 years ago there was a bestselling book called "The Battle for the Bible" by Harold Lindsell. It was a powerful defense of Inerrancy. Let me state my position on this....I believe in an inerrant and infallible Bible as the Word of God and if any other in- words are invented that suggest a strong position on the authority of the Word of God, I will believe in that too! I agree with Jack Taylor, who in one of his books said that he held the strongest view of the authority of scripture that he knew of. The enemy of our souls has been fighting the Bible for many years, but has completely failed to stop the unstoppable Word of God.

However the Battle for the Bible is not just a theological battle concerning inerrancy or infallibility. The main Battle for the Bible has to do with its effect in our lives and in the Kingdom of God's advance on the earth. In CPM, and in reality in all aspects of the Christian Life, the Bible's authority is critical.

Last Sunday, my wife and I were visiting in one of WME's partnering churches, Oasis Christian Center in Paducah, KY. Pastor Larry Starnes brought a powerful message based on the temptation of Christ in Matthew 4: 1-11. As he was preaching, I began to see the temptation of Christ in a different light. This temptation is given in detail in Matthew and Luke and in brief in Mark's gospel. As the sermon came to an end, it dawned on me to see if the 3 temptations could be looked at in any way as parallel with the "soils" of the parable of the sower.

For a bit of review, you might check out Mark 4: 1-20. There were 4 soils on which the sower sowed the Word. As I have pointed out many times in previous blogs, these soils represent ways the Word is treated. Briefly the first soil did not "Hear the Word". The 2nd soil did not "Understand the Word" and the 3rd soil did not "Obey the Word". The final soil did Hear, Understand, and Obey the Word and brought forth a harvest 30, 60, and 100 fold. This is the essense of how the Word is to be treated and forms a critical part of CPM strategy as well. It is also the pattern of the 3 Column Bible Study and the Discovery Bible Study that becomes the nucleus of a new church.

At the risk of being a bit "1 track" I tend to see this pattern in other places in the Bible as well. And most recently it was in the temptation story of Matthew 4: 1-11.

The First Temptation: Command these stones to become Bread.
Jesus' response: It is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God"

Principle 1: The Battle of "Hearing the Word" or operating from other inputs. Jesus makes it clear, that it is "by every word....from the mouth of God" that he functions. Jesus wins the battle by "Hearing the Word".

The Second Temptation: Throw yourself from the pinnacle of the Temple, because of a misinterpretation of Psalm 91.
Jesus' response: It is written again, "You shall not tempt the LORD your God".

Principle 2: The Battle of "Understanding the Word" or twisting it for ends other than the Word intends. Satan takes a scripture out of context and uses a misunderstanding to try to force Jesus to disobey God. Jesus wins the battle by correctly "Understanding the Word".

The Third Temptation: Worship me and I will give you all these things.
Jesus' response: It is written, "You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve".

Principle 3: The Battle of "Obeying the Word". Satan at this point offers Jesus the world's authority and riches (corresponding very much to the 3rd soil) if Jesus will disobey the First Commandment---You shall have no other gods before Me. Jesus wins the battle by choosing to Obey the Word, regardless of consequence!

I think that we are essentially all tempted in the same ways. The real battle is the Battle for the Bible.....will we Hear it, or listen to other guidance. Will we Understand it, or misinterpret it to fit our fleshly desires and agendas? Will we Obey it, or disobey to make an easier way for ourselves on our journey.

The good news is that the Victory is in Hearing, Understanding, and Obeying the Word!

A Cup of Water

2010-09-24T15:56:00.002-05:00

Mark 9:41- "For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward."

Reading this passage the other day was very enlightening. I had always looked at this saying (and the parallel saying in Matthew 10:42) as showing how the smallest ministry to someone would be rewarded by the Lord. I am not denying the truth of that concept by any means. However, for the first time, I looked at the context of this saying of Jesus in Mark. Here is what was happening.

The disciples of Jesus noticed someone casting out demons in Jesus' name and this person was not part of their group. He was an "outsider" to the 12 disciples. John came and reported to Jesus that they had told this man to stop doing that, "because he does not follow us". (Ironically, just a little earlier in verse 28 of this same chapter, the disciples asked "Why could we not cast it out?")

Jesus replied to them that they should not forbid the man, because "he who is not against us is on our side". The very next verse is the text at the beginning of this blog. "For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward."
It just struck me that this is the context for this saying. Jesus is not talking about a cup of water ministry in the church...as a ministry of his disciples. He is clearly talking about outsiders....and clearly is talking about an outsider giving a cup of water to a disciple "because you belong to Christ".

This is another picture of the Person of Peace principle. This person does not lose his "reward". It does not say that the person is "saved" by this work of giving a cup of water, but he will be rewarded. This is a person of goodwill who is (by God's grace) favorable to someone who obviously belongs to Christ (through conspicuous spirituality?) Perhaps this person's reward is now being the person of peace who hears the word of the gospel and becomes the believer who's household becomes the core of the church.

Although not this exact example, one very close to it might be Cornelius, who was a God fearer, and even as a Roman Centurion, used his influence to help the Jewish community of Caesarea. This person who ministered to the people with alms and prayed to God was "rewarded" with an angelic visitor who told him to send for Simon Peter. Then Peter was prepared with a vision, and finally the word of the gospel from Peter and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Cornelius birthed the church in his house.

Practically speaking, here is one (of many) principle of how to identify a person of peace in a community. Who is the person who gives you a cup of water after becoming aware of your conspicuous spirituality. The person who shows favor to you for being a Jesus follower and becomes sensitive to your needs may be opening the door for relationship with himself and his household.

Here is an example of how CPM principles open us to a new realm of understanding Scripture.

Pray for Traveling Mercies for HCPM team

2010-09-10T10:34:00.002-05:00

Dear Friends,

Prayer is critical to the success of every Church Planting Movement. Once again, I want to encourage all our readers to become a part of the HCPM intercessory team by connecting directly with our prayer coordinator, Tom Geerdes. You can join the prayer team by sending an email to : geerdestom@yahoo.com and telling him that you would like to be a part of the WME online prayer chain. Thanks so much for your prayers.

It seems like September becomes a time of travel for our team members each year. Please remember us all for traveling mercies in the next few weeks especially. Here are our plans at present.

Randy, Linda, Keith, and Juanita Travis have driven from Honduras to South Mexico in the last few days where they will be involved in giving more training in cpm principles to the folks there. Then on the 16th of this month, Randy, Linda, and Keith will be flying to the US for a month in order to rest a bit and handle some business, as well as a time of strategic planning with myself. Keith will be flying back to Mexico first, and then Randy and Linda will follow on October 20 and then they will all be driving back from Mexico to Honduras.

Richard and Pat Crowder will be leaving around the 11th to drive from Alabama to Honduras. They will be ministering for a couple of months in children's ministry in Honduras. Pray for them to have health, safety, and blessing as they reach kids for Christ.

Please remember all of the Honduran team who are continuously traveling over trecherous roads in Honduras to mentor leaders and help with the Discovery Bible studies. Pray for Adiel, Jacobo, Daniel, Adam, Mario, Esteban, Oscar, and Paco as they travel on foot, by public transport and on motorcycle.

I will be traveling a lot over the next few weeks as well. To Morton's Gap, KY to share with one of our partnering churches, Vinyard Worship Center this Sunday the 12th. Then to Dallas, TX Sept 17-19 to share cpm principles with another mission organization. Down to Nashville, TN on the 22nd to be a part of a missions lunch focusing on an upcoming training for reaching Muslims for Christ. Then to Detroit, MI Sept 23-25 to meet pastors with a new fellowship of churches and introduce them to WME and the cpm strategy. I really appreciate all of your prayers as I travel.

Thanks be to God for our faithful prayer team.
Blessings,
David Parish

Obedience is the Key

2010-09-07T17:51:00.003-05:00

John 7: 17- "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority."

Jesus was teaching in the temple at the Feast of Tabernacles and some people marveled at His teaching and were wondering if he really had the authority to say what he was teaching. His response was that if anyone was willing to actually do God's will, they would have the insight into the teaching itself. I have found that that principle is true today as well.

I think that one thing that has happened in my life, which has been a pleasant surprise since I began to focus on becoming an Obedience Based Disciple, is that I have come to actually Understand parts of Scripture that I previously did not, or perhaps have gained a deeper understanding of some parts that I may have only had an inkling of earlier. Especially the 3 Column Bible study method has impacted not only my actions (the ultimate goal) but also my understanding.

I have been a student of the Word of God for about 40 years (I started reading the Bible when I was 8 years old, and yesterday was my 48th birthday!). I have a B.A. in Bible and Theology from Lee University and a M.A. in Practical Theology from Oral Roberts University. I was in full time pastoral ministry for 25 years, 14 of those as a Senior Pastor, before launching out into full time service with WME in 2009.
My special gifting (at least I thought it was) was teaching and preaching the Word, and I really thought that I had some skill at hermenuetics. Biblical interpretation was my bread and butter.

Then just 4 years ago, I really began to see the difference between obedience based discipleship and knowledge based discipleship. To hear, understand, and obey the Word gradually became the focus of my Bible study, and not primarily to read, understand and proclaim it. Don't get me wrong, I believed in obedience and tried to practice it, but as OBD gradually replaced KBD in my life I began to see the real difference.

And the most delightful surprise has been....a sense that I am now understanding things in the Word that previously were murky to me. I am now in an ongoing 3 column study of 1st Corinthians, and as I am relating in terms of obedience to the text, not to mention seeing the instructions in the direct light of a cpm project in Honduras, I am understanding things like never before in the text. Just today as I 3 columned I Corinthians 11: 23-26, it seemed that I got a greater understanding of what the Lord's Supper had meant to those Corinthians in the 50s AD....and what it can mean to me, and hopefully soon to new believers in villages in Honduras.

And if I understand Jesus in the text at the beginning of the blog, the key is not that we perfectly perform. This is not some works based perversion of God's grace. Jesus said that our understanding is enhanced by being willing to do His will. It works kind of like this I think: I choose, set my will to obey His word > I come to understand His Word more accurately > I actually obey and implement His Word in my life.

Think how this would revolutionize many believers' lives. Think of the impact on Christian marriages, families, businesses, ministries, churches. Think of the impact of these believers in our world and culture. I am suggesting that a greater impact on our pagan American and western culture would be made by believers obeying the scriptures than by preaching at the culture.

At any rate, I am suggesting that Obedience Based Discipleship to the Bible, the Word of God, is not just a critical element of all Church Planting Movements. It may very well be the key to understanding the very meaning of much of the Word, and its living out may be the key of reaching our culture at home.

Join the Honduras Prayer Team

2010-08-17T10:14:00.002-05:00

This is one of the most important announcements we have made with respect to the Honduras Church Planting Movement Project. We are asking for people to join the prayer team for the HCPM. In every Church Planting Movement in the world, prayer is the most fundamental critical element. I have stated in other blogs that prayer is the first critical element on every list I have ever seen. As our team works diligently in Honduras, they are in need of intense prayer cover. Here is how you can be a direct part of what is happening.

I have appointed Tom Geerdes, one of WME's board members, to be our Prayer Coordinator. He will be in contact with Randy Travis, our Strategy Coordinator on the ground in Honduras. He will be receiving prayer requests from the team and passing them on to our prayer network members via email and in other ways. Tom hopes to find local prayer coordinators in partnering churches as well. These local church prayer coordinators can help mobilize their church to provide prayer cover. We hope to develop some special Bible studies to help people become better intercessors.

If you would be willing to become a part of the prayer team for the Honduras project, you can contact Tom at : geerdestom@yahoo.com

I hope that the Lord will lay it on the hearts of many readers to become involved in this way. Please pray for the health of our team members. Our Strategy Coordinator, Randy Travis has been having some health challenges and one of our Honduran workers, Adiel, has been having some severe back problems. Let's agree for the Lord to heal them. Thanks so much for your prayers.

7 Facets of God's Worldwide Purpose

2010-08-03T10:15:00.003-05:00

The book of Romans ends with these words:

"Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith--to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen." (Romans 16:25-27)

The epistle of Paul to the Romans may be the richest vein of Gold in the whole Bible. Rediscovery of its truth has been the cause of Revival and Reform throughout the history of Christianity. But in my study of this book over the years, I have not spent near as much time in the 2nd half of the book as in the first half. And even in the 2nd half, I have tended to ignore the last chapter (mostly greetings etc.).

But not long ago, as I read the last 3 verses of the book, I began to realize what a powerful statement of God's purpose with which the Apostle closed this letter. It really sums up everything in such a way that I am truly amazed that I have not spent more time in contemplating it.

First of all, it is God centered. It is a closing praise to Our sovereign God. He is "the everlasting God" and He is "alone wise", and to Him belongs "glory...forever".

Second, it is Centered on Jesus Christ, our Lord, 2nd person of the Trinity, God in the flesh. He is the subject of the gospel and preaching. Glory goes to God "through Jesus Christ". I might comment that Glory only goes to God through Jesus Christ! In fact, No one, ever, for any reason, has any access to the Father except through Him! (John 14:6).

Third, this benediction focuses on what it takes to "establish" us. This word in this place seems to summarize the totality of God's purpose in our lives. Not only does it incorporate preparing and securing us for Heaven, but it also covers making us fit to live on earth in this life and includes our obedience to God.

Fourth, these truths constitute the "gospel" and the "preaching of Jesus Christ". The essence of the message of Christ is involved here.

Fifth, this truth is revealed in Scripture. Scripture is the place where this is now revealed to us, and thus must be our source of information about the things of God and the authority to which we submit and render obedience. The gospel and preaching of Jesus Christ is "according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known". This mystery has been revealed through the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, dynamically demonstrated by the power of the Holy Spirit, and infallibly documented in the Scriptures.

Sixth, this revelation is sent forth for missional purpose to "all nations". The great commission is inherent in God's total purpose. In fact, this "commission" is really the "commandment of the everlasting God". Make no mistake here, fulfilling God's Mission of taking His gospel to all peoples is no less than: THE COMMANDMENT OF THE EVERLASTING GOD.

Seventh, the result that God is desiring among all nations is "obedience to the faith". This is not a mere assent to the gospel, but a faith that produces obedience to God and His word. We are saved by Faith. We are justified by Faith. Our works have nothing to do with obtaining salvation. But true salvation produces a life of obedience to God. It is here that we can see the importance of Obedience based Discipleship.

I know of no scripture that incorporates these vital elements of God's purpose any better than this. This confirms what we are learning in Church Planting Movements around the world. God's Kingdom expands among all peoples as Obedient Disciples are made to Jesus Christ. The Authority of the Word of God and the Operation of the Holy Spirit are all that are needed to begin. Discipling peoples in this way can really be called "Gospel Planting Movements" and constitute the "Preaching of Jesus Christ".

Multiplication, Mentoring, and Sustainability

2010-07-22T10:53:00.003-05:00

At this time, there are 3 things that we are focusing on in the HCPM project. They are Multiplication, Mentoring,and Sustainability.

MULTIPLICATION

Our first priority is multiplication of Discovery Bible studies in Honduras and Latin America. We are doing this in 2 ways. First we are focusing primary attention on the primary project area in Western Honduras. Here is where our team is located and doing the work. We have studies in 6 Departments (states) of Honduras. We have somewhere around 85 studies here. Most are first and second generation studies, and some are third generation studies. Our team consists of a Strategy Coordination team (Randy and Linda Travis, Keith and Juanita Travis), and 9 full time Honduran workers. The Honduran workers are Church Planting Coaches, who are engaging in access ministries, finding persons of peace, beginning first generation studies, and mentoring leaders to begin 2nd gen studies and beyond.

The 2nd way we are multiplying is that we are catalyzing other groups to begin DSBs as well. We have 2 groups that we are catalyzing in Olancho in Eastern Honduras. One group has about 14 studies, and the other group has 76 studies. Randy will be traveling back to Olancho in August to follow up with the larger group and provide training for them. In Southern Mexico, we are mentoring another group that has (we believe) about 72 groups going. Randy will be traveling there to do a 3rd training with them in September.

Altogether we think there are around 245 groups in all 4 sections of the work.

MENTORING

Mentoring is our 2nd focus at this time. It is soon moving to become our primary focus as our team members begin to spend most of their time mentoring the new leaders in the studies. We want to establish solid and viable mentoring chains as the studies multiply to many generations. I was recently in California at the Cityteam offices for a consultation with leaders of many CPMs and CPM projects. One of the main areas of focus was on mentoring and this was very timely for the HCPM project. Just after that, I traveled to Honduras and shared with our SC team what I had learned about the mentoring process and they are beginning to implement principles of mentoring (actually, they had already begun to focus on this).

SUSTAINABILITY

Looking toward the future, we are now studying and researching the issue of sustainability. By this I mean ways in which the HCPM project can become more self sustaining in terms of resources and not dependent on outside funds. Presently our project is Totally dependent on our outside funding, but ultimately the movement must be able to resource itself. Both Randy and I are looking into aspects of this and are especially studying Micro finance and Social Business theory. Pray for us as we research this important topic. We hope to find viable ways to do this in the coming years that will be appropriate for the Honduran and Latin American context.

If I could say it any better, I would.

2010-07-14T10:12:00.002-05:00

Finally....back to the blog. I just returned from Honduras and saw a very encouraging picture as I met with our team there. The last year has been a time of ups and downs, breakthrough and warfare in the Honduras Church Planting Movement project. Currently we have a direct, Commissioned project that our team is leading in Western Honduras, and 3 other groups that we are attempting to indirectly Catalyze in both Eastern Honduras and Southern Mexico. Numbers are constantly in a flux, but we believe that there may be as many as 239 Discovery Bible studies happening in all 4 groups. That is about 83 groups (either begun or about to begin) in our primary project, about 14 groups with the Olancho full gospel churches, about 70 groups with the Christian Reformed churches, and about 72 groups (some are training groups with believers) in Southern Mexico. (Remember, numbers are constantly subject to change. Sometimes a study begins but does not endure, meanwhile more studies are being birthed constantly).

Our primary project team consists of Randy and Linda Travis (Strategy Coordinator), Keith and Juanita Travis (Missionary and assistant on the SC team), and Four 2 person teams. The teams are Adiel and Jacobo, Daniel and Adam, Oscar and Esteban, and Paco and Mario. These are some of the finest people I have ever met or had the privilege to work with. These men of God are trained and diligent in application of CPM principles.

Our team that went down consisted of myself, Ben Holloway,a missionary evangelist who is a great blessing to the HCPM project and who is helping WME with support raising for the project, Brian Shelton, a minister from Oasis church, the leading sponsor of the HCPM project and Larry Hardin, Missionary to Kenya who is researching CPM principles for application to his work in Africa. We were able to teach our team some important principles, strategize with Randy and Keith, our SC team, and visit 3 of the Discovery Studies. We are amazed at the doors God is opening, and I want to ask our readers to pray now as never before for breakthrough into these needy communities.

Now in closing on this blog, I want to share with you an article by Neil Cole that has just been posted on His website. It deals with a principle that I have been thinking of addressing: Church Planting Movements are really not about Church Planting. They are about Jesus, His Kingdom and Making Disciples in Obedience to His command (Matthew 28:18-20). So often as I use the term Church Planting Movements to describe what we are doing I realize that the words communicate something that is really not what we are involved with. I remember my conversation with a mission leader who, after I spent about 30 minutes or so describing our work, said to me something like, "Good. Maybe your organization can give us money to build church buildings". He had clearly not understood anything I had said, but it was not his fault. The term "Church Planting" is already filled with meaning (as is the word "Church").

CPM is about Making Obedient Disciples to Jesus Christ. Church Planting is basically what Jesus does in response to that.

Here is Neil's article. If I could say it any better, I would.

Dr. Wagner's Cart has been Pulling the Horse for Too Long by Neil Cole

Posted on July 12th, 2010

For years missional leaders have repeated the refrain articulated by Dr. C. Peter Wagner that "The best means of evangelism under the sun today is church planting." I myself have even quoted Dr. Wagner in some of my earlier resources. This statement has become a banner for church planting in the US for the past 20 years.

The reason given for this statement is that new churches tend to be hungrier, evangelistically speaking, than their more established sisters. The very survival of the new church depends upon her outreach ability, so the people are more motivated to do evangelistic work. Statistically this is proven to be true as well. New churches do win more converts than long standing ones, but does that make the quote right?

In the past few years I have come to realize that Dr. Wagner got it backwards. We need to make a shift in our missional understanding:

The best means of church planting under the sun today is evangelism (gospel sowing).

You see, we have a great many people starting churches today but not necessarily doing any true gospel work. There are a number of fast growing churches that simply draw Christians from other churches to form new ones. I do not believe that such a practice is indeed the best form of evangelism or of church planting--but it can still fly the banner quoted by Dr. Wagner.

No, we must get back to seeing church as a fruit of evangelism not the other way around. The Bible never commanded us to plant a church or even instructed us in church planting. The gospel (the good news of the intimate reality, redemption and rule of Jesus daily) is the seed we plant, not a church. If we sow the gospel much, we will reap many more disciples and a whole lot more churches will be started as well.

Of course we must also shift to a more holistic understanding of the gospel and the kingdom of God than we have had. Simply throwing out a lot of tracts or shouting at people on a megaphone is not likely to reap spiritual disciples or churches. Jesus brought the kingdom with him to the people who needed it most in a very incarnational and transformational manner. That is what He instructed us to be about.

Stop planting churches, start planting Jesus. Don't build churches, that is not your job or mine. Jesus said, "I will build my church." What He told us to do is to "Preach the gospel," and make disciples (or followers) of Jesus. To risk being cliche: the horse must come before the cart. The seed must come before the tree, and the fruit will follow. Plant Jesus, and let him start the churches. Frankly, He is better at it than we are anyway.

Thanks Neil. Blessings to all and I hope to blog more regularly now that I am back in the office for a while.

Between Trips

2010-06-23T10:33:00.002-05:00

To the readers of the blog, apologies for the delay in an update. I have been traveling a lot and actually am in between trips right now. Here is what is happening.

On June 4, Eric (one of our WME missionaries focused on our project in Indonesia) and I traveled to the Atlanta area to attend a conference on Islam. We were powerfully impacted with reports and information about what God is doing to reach people of Muslim background. I travelled from there to California on June 5 and was there until June 19. Here about 30 people focused on church planting movement strategy worldwide gathered for 2 weeks of strategy, Bible study, and prayer. This meeting represented partnering organizations who are focused on cpm in the nations and reported amazing things from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and even the United States. Altogether, the group reported over 12,000 churches planted in the last 5 years. Praises to God and celebration for what He has done abounded. The meetings and individual discussions were especially valuable for me and the Honduras project.

On June 30, myself and 3 others will leave home for a trip to the Honduras project itself. This will be a strategic trip where we will visit, observe, strategize and encourage the team. I would ask for prayer for this trip, that it might be safe and that the strategic goals will be met. On the short term team will be myself, Ben Holloway(Missionary Evangelist), Brian Shelton (from Oasis Church), and Larry Hardin (WME missionary to Kenya).

Thanks to all our readers and intercessors and supporters for your help. Your prayers are vital to the work in Honduras and the fruit that God is producing in lives there.

Spiritual Warfare and Missions

2010-06-01T13:32:00.004-05:00

Jerry Rankin and Ed Stetzer have come out with an outstanding book called "Spiritual Warfare and Missions". This book fills a real need in the Missions community. It is published by B&H BOOKS and is a sequel to "Spiritual Warfare" by Rankin. Rankin's first book on this subject is an outstanding look at the warfare of every believer, filled with examples from the mission field. In this new book, Rankin and Stetzer are focusing on the areas of warfare that are specifically related to Missions. They identify 8 strategies of Satan to undermine the World Mission enterprise.
1. Keep Nations Closed to the Gospel
2. Keep People Groups Hidden from Our Awareness
3. Persecution of Believers and the Church
4. Convince Christians Missions Is Optional
5. Erode the Authority of God's Word
6. Distort the Call of God
7. Erode the Faith of God's People
8. Destroy the Spiritual Vitality of the Church

I am still reading this book and am being enlightened and inspired by it.

Interesting enough, Spiritual Warfare is actually one of the critical elements of CPM, and it is one that I have written about before. It is number 20 in the list of 21 that I shared in the March 4 blog. It is a critical element that we don't have to pursue (along with number 15, Persecution). The enemy is more than happy to provide all CPM projects with critical elements number 15 and 20. We intentionally pursue the other 19 elements. Our job with these two is simply to be prepared and to respond appropriately when we do encounter Persecution and Spiritual Warfare. But that is the point, we must be prepared and know how to handle those times.

For most of my Christian life (including the majority of my 27 years of full time ministry)I have functioned out of a default attitude of considering Spiritual Warfare to be something strange and that I did not understand. It seemed to me that the Devil was a terrorist who attacked randomly. Although it does seem that way sometimes, the truth is that the enemy of God is operating according to his own strategy.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2: 11-"so that we may not be taken advantage of by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his intentions."

His intentions! Satan has intentions! That word makes me think of a plan or a strategy. And that strategy is an opposition to God's plan and intentions. To fail to understand God's Purpose and Mission is to fail also to understand the Devil's strategy. In a strange sense, God and the Devil are on the same page. And Christians who are clueless about God's purpose are almost always clueless about the Devil's strategy....and flabbergasted at his tactics and his merciless hatred.

In the Liberal churches the enemy has caused people to think he is a myth.

In the Conservative churches the enemy has caused people to think he is real, but on the other side of the world.

In the more Charismatic churches or churches that have experience with deliverance he tends to seem spooky and random. But even most of them have little understanding of his "intentions".

In my own experience, I was well versed in spiritual warfare I thought. And then in the year 2000 our ministry began to intentionally train church planters and began a program that resulted by the end of 2008 with the planting of 212 churches. It was in that very year that we began that I found out more about Spiritual Warfare than I ever wanted to. Over the next several years I experienced warfare on the level that I really did not know that the Lord would allow! And I was almost disillusioned about it. I must say that meeting CPM leaders from 2005 onward and hearing some of their stories of warfare was a real encouragement.

Revelation 12: 12 says that when the enemy sees that he has only a short time left to work, his fury will be great. I think we are in those days now as the mission of God is increasing and filling the earth.

In light of the time in which we are living and in light of the mission with which we have been entrusted, let's be prepared for the Warfare that will be faced. How can we be prepared? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Get serious about the authority of the Word of God and dependence on the Holy Spirit. This is no time for "sin management", but rather it is time for Obedience based discipleship.

2. Let our priority be on God's Mission. Matthew 24:14 will come to pass and it is God's agenda on earth today. It is also that which the enemy is fighting. Let's not be ignorant of his intentions.

3. Put on God's armor (Ephesians 6). In Rankin's first book on this subject, he gives a new perspective on this that Christ Himself is the Armor....focus on Christ and your position in Him.

One thing for certain, God's side is the winning side. The last chapter's of the book of Revelation make it clear that:
GOD IS EXALTED
SATAN IS DEFEATED
JESUS CHRIST IS LORD!

Absolute Confidence and Total Dependence

2010-05-26T10:36:00.003-05:00

In the works that God is doing worldwide that are resulting in church planting movements, there are 2 characteristics that I think are very prominent. They comprise one of the critical elements of cpm, namely, the authority of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit are all that are needed to begin. I have called this the 1:8 factor and based it on Joshua 1:8 and Acts 1:8 which demonstrate the vital importance of the Word and the Spirit respectively.

The Word (Scripture) and the Spirit of God are the source of authority and power in every church planting movement (and according to a new video, The unreached: Did you know? that can be accessed on Youtube, there are 20 plus cpms in India, 20 plus cpms in China, and 16 plus cpms in Africa). By focusing on the Word and the Spirit we are looking at the principle from God's side: it's His Word and His Spirit.

But let's look at it from the human side. From our perspective, we need attitudes of Absolute Confidence and Total Dependence.

At first those 2 things look contradictory. If I talk about a person of Absolute Confidence I am thinking about someone who is bold and strong. A person who exudes absolute confidence is the kind of person we want to follow, the kind of person who takes charge in a crisis. It is the kind of person Rudyard Kipling wrote about in his poem called If:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

On the other hand, there is the person of Total Dependence. Total dependence seems to bespeak weakness. Someone who can't stand on his own. Someone always needing help. In missions, we often hear of the curse of "dependency". This is when the indigenous church is never able to fully support itself and is always needing outside help to exist. None of us want to be needy or Co-dependent (we have a pop psychology title for everything).

But one of the counter intuitive things about the things of God is that in relation to God's work, those who remain Totally Dependent on Him are the ones who are actually Absolutely Confident in this world.

Let's start with Absolute Confidence. The Absolute Confidence that we must have is that The Bible is the Word of God, it is totally true in what it affirms and we are to hear it, understand it, and obey it. Faith is placed in God and His Word. That kind of confidence in the Word of God is fundamental to anything we do.

A few years ago I was reading a book by Paleontologist Kurt Wise. It is a tremendous book called "Faith, Form, and Time" and deals with the Creation/Evolution controversy. Wise is a Paleontologist with a Ph.D from Harvard, and who studied under the leading evolutionist of the 20th century, Stephen Jay Gould. And he is a born again Christian who believes that Genesis 1-3 is literally true. (I heartily recommend this book!). As I was reading it, it was forcing me back to the first chapter of Genesis. Probably no part of the Bible has been attacked with as much fury as the first chapter. As I was reading this once again, I thought I heard the Spirit's voice whisper to me, "If you can believe THIS, you can move mountains". I thought of the words of Jesus in Mark 11:22-26 and realized that the key to faith that moves mountains is to have Absolute Confidence in the Bible, the Word of God.

In the last few years, as I have become acquainted with some of the key leaders and catalysts of church planting movements, this is a characteristic I have noticed. Absolute confidence in the Word of God, not only in terms of belief, but also in terms of obedience.

In the second place, there is Total Dependence. Total Dependence is leaning completely on the Lord, especially the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Total Dependence leads us not to launch out on ventures on our own, but to be prayer saturated people who hear from God (via the Word and Spirit) before we move. The first critical element of cpm in every list I have ever seen is prayer. Prayer is the greatest sign of Total Dependence. It acknowledges that as Jesus said, without Him we can do nothing. To the degree that I act without praying, I am acting without dependence on Him.

These 2 responses, Absolute Confidence in the Word of God, and Total Dependence on God's Spirit through prayer and fellowship are critical to fulfilling our mission, whether it is overseas, at home, or merely living the life God desires for us.

I encourage my readers to join me in a commitment to Absolute Confidence and Total Dependence.

World Impact and the Honduras Project (and announcing the next WME World Missions Conference)

2010-05-16T16:01:00.006-05:00

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.

Moving into Mid-year

2010-04-30T09:45:00.003-05:00

Here is a preview of some of the things we'll be involved in this spring and summer as the year 2010 progresses. I will be doing a lot of traveling relative to church planting movement work in the next several months.

May 1-3 I will be in the Minneapolis area to speak at a church about WME's mission work with a dear friend who I have known for many years, Pastor Gary Palermo. I am looking forward to visiting with he and his family and meeting the people at the church where he pastors.

May 17-18 I will be in Denver with the board of directors of UEMI on which I serve. UEMI is the ministry of John Peter Kirubagaran who has been a longtime partner with WME and with whom we have worked together in various projects over the years, resulting in the planting of nearly 200 churches.

We are looking forward to being with Cornerstone Bible Church for a missions service on May 23. This wonderful church in Crofton, KY and its pastor, Kris Page, is a great encouragement to me and a blessing to the Work of WME.

June 4 and 5 will be the "Jesus in the Quoran" seminar near Atlanta. I will be attending this important training with Eric, our missionary that is helping WME target the "B" people group of which I wrote in an earlier blog this month.

June 5-19 will be a special time of networking and learning with leaders of numerous church planting movement projects around the world. I will be flying to San Jose, California to be a part of 2 weeks of meetings with these leaders who are all connected to the Cityteam and New Generations organizations.

July 1-7 is set aside for a quick trip to Honduras to connect with Randy Travis and our whole HCPM team. Plans are for a few men to travel with me there and we will be observing the work and progress of the project and doing "on the ground" strategy work.

Finally, looking toward the end of the summer, in mid September I have been asked by our longtime friend, Moses Choudary, to conduct a CPM training for about 200 of his best leaders. Bro. Choudary has led a powerful ministry in India for nearly 30 years. His ministry headquarters are in both Hyderabad and Vijayawada and impacts hundreds of churches and thousands of people. I really believe that this training has the potential of being one of the most significant that we may be doing. Please pray for this training and if you would like to give a gift to help cover the expenses of this important work you may send it to:

World Missions and Evangelism
P. O. Box 790
Benton, KY
42025
Attn: India CPM Training

Thanks for all your prayers and support for all of these events and travel.
David Parish

Honduras News

2010-04-20T13:03:00.003-05:00

In this blog, I want to give a quick update to our readers on the Honduras project and the situation in Honduras. As you know, last year was a very trying time for the nation of Honduras. For 5 months, Honduras passed through a political crisis that at times looked as if it would take the country to the brink of civil war. Meanwhile, the work of the Honduras CPM project continued. So here is a report on the state of the nation and the state of the HCPM project.

The National Situation.

The following report is from our friends in the Cornerstone foundation, another tremendous ministry in Honduras. They have explained the situation is a very succinct way.
"On the 27th of January (2010) the day agreed to in the Tegucigalpa Accord, Porfirio Lobo Sosa was inaugurated as president of Honduras. He granted amnesty to Mel Zelaya and others for their political crimes (e.g. treason). The criminal charges (fraud, corruption, etc.), however, still stand. But the day of the inauguration, Mel Zelaya was flown to political asylum in the Dominican Republic.
Since that day President Lobo has been striving to mend relations with the countries which have rejected this legitimately elected government, while Zelaya has become more and more ensconced int he radical left wing of Latin American politics. On 12 March, Hugo Chavez announced that Zelaya has been declared "Chief Political Consultant for Petrocaribe for the Process of Strenthening the Political Independence and Defense of Popular Democracy in Latin America and the Carribbean." Petrocaribe is an energy consortium based on Venezuelan oil and is completely controlled by Chavez. Via Chavez, it has direct ties to OPEC and to Hezbollah and FARC. The leftist nations of ALBA are apparently proposing Zelaya as the next President of the Organization of American States.
Honduras has a long way to go, as well as many enemies around the world now. Honduras was badly injured politically and economically for standing up for its constitution and standing up for the rule of law. But it is still standing. Thank you for praying. Please continue to pray for and support Honduras."

The good news is that since the election and inauguration of President Lobo, the crisis in Honduras has alleviated. Because of that our full team has now all returned to Honduras full time.

The Honduras Church Planting Movement Project

During the crisis months, our Honduran workers continued to begin new discovery Bible studies and as we have reported began to do work in the state of Olancho as well as the 5 western states. In September and November, CPM trainings were held for new volunteers and workers. In January and February, CPM trainings were held in south Mexico as well. Some were trained who are also ministering in Guatamala. The results are:

Somewhere around 450 Discovery Bible studies were started altogether. Approximately 60 of these are in south Mexico (about half of these are with believers). Some may have begun in Guatamala, although we do not have a report from there. In Honduras, Discovery studies were begun in probably 400 homes, in hundreds of villages in 7 States. About 100 of those studies (an estimate) are works in cooperation with partners that we have trained.

As we are now moving forward in 2010 our goal is to continue multiplication of studies and perhaps enter an 8th state later in the year, while focusing primarily on our main project area in western Honduras. It is a year of much "boots on the ground" work. Our main goal is to see the studies in western Honduras bear fruit in new believers, obedient disciples and groups becoming multiplying churches. This will involve much work in the area of follow up and mentoring. To accomplish this over such a wide area has required our primary team to enlarge and so Randy Travis, our strategy coordinator, has been working to train some new workers for our primary Honduran coaching teams.

Here are some updated prayer requests for the HCPM project:

1. Pray or the peace and stability of the Nation of Honduras.

2. Pray for open doors for cpm work and for new persons of peace to be found.

3. Pray for the work in Western Honduras.
a. Our American missionary team
b. The Honduran coaching teams (who mentor the emerging leaders of studies)
c. The existing Discovery studies (to facilitate persons becoming discipes).
d. The studies to become basic groups of believers (churches).
e. The studies to multiply.

4. Pray for the work to grow and develop and multiply with the partners we have trained in: Eastern Honduras, Mexico, Guatamala.

Thanks for your continued prayer and support.

A Perspective From History

2010-04-14T08:38:00.003-05:00

Occasionally I teach one of the classes in the Perspectives course. To my readers I would like to highly recommend the Perspectives Class that is sponsored by the U. S. Center For World Mission in Pasadena California. It is really the most life changing class I have ever taken, and it is a privilege to be able to teach one of the lessons. The lesson that I have taught several times is lesson 7 that concerns missions history in the last 2 centuries. I am both inspired and fascinated by the history of the Church and especially by missions history. There is much to be gained from the study of history and in this blog I want to take a generalized look at the entire history of the Church in terms of the structural elements that determine the capacity of the church to multiply.

In March, I wrote about the "Obstacles to Church Planting Movements". In that series of 3 blogs we were addressing the hindrances to CPM in the western context, specifically in the USA. I identified 3:
1. The waning authority of Jesus Christ in the Church.
2. An organizational, not organic paradigm of the Church.
3. Man's control vs. God's control.

Now, I'd like to take those 3 concepts and turn them from negative analysis to positive description. In those 3 obstacles, what we are really seeing is:
1. The Central Source of Authority(for doctrine and practice)
2. The Structural Paradigm for the Church
3. The Leadership Model for the Church

What I am suggesting is that the New Testament Church could be described on those 3 measures as having:
1. Christocentric Authority
2. Organic Structure
3. Organic/Servant Leadership

To go much deeper on what is meant by these three phrases, I would first recommend the 3 blogs on "Obstacles to CPM", and then would recommend 3 books that go into much more depth on these concepts. For Christocentric Authority my recommendation is Alan Hirsch's book, "The Forgotten Ways". For Organic Structure I recommend Neil Cole's book, "Organic Church". For Organic/Servant Leadership I would recommend Cole's companion book, "Organic Leadership".

With that as a foundation, let's look at the sweep of church history for the last 2000 years as to how these elements have (in general) been applied in the church and what has been the result.

I am postulating 7 eras of Church History.

I. The New Testament Era: 30-100 AD
a. Christocentric Authority
b. Organic Structure
c. Organic/Servant Leadership

I think that the early church began with this Biblical model in place and that partially explains the massive growth of the church from Jerusalem into the Roman Empire in a world shaking way, in spite of the persecutions faced.

II. The "Fathers" Era: 100-300 AD
a. Christocentric Authority
b. Organic Structure
c. Institutional Leadership

In the next 2 centuries, the Church continued to have phenomenal growth in the face of many severe persecutions. Alan Hirsch believes that by just after 300 AD, there were as many as 20 million believers. This is because, I believe, that this era continued in the main with the pattern received from the Lord and the Apostles and encoded in the New Testament. However, on the 3rd element, change crept in. It was in this "post-apostolic"era that leadership transitioned from Organic to Institutional. There were good reasons for this, especially in the midst of rampant heresies and persecutions, but much was lost as well.

III. The Constantinian Era: 300-500 AD
a. Christocentric Authority
b. Institutional Structure
c. Institutional Leadership

During this period, (after the emperor Constantine "converted" in 313) a new structural pattern became prominent in the Church. Church buildings and governmental structures were solidified and the Clergy/Laity division became hard and fast. (Of course, I am generalizing and also focusing primarily on the "western" church.) Mission advance began to slow. Christendom had arrived. I continue to classify this period by Christocentric Authority however, mainly because the official church was still focused on the Person of Jesus, and it was during this time that the Biblical teachings on the humanity and Deity of Christ were expressed in theological language, language that I believe does justice to the Bible's revelation of who Jesus is. He is God in the flesh, and the great doctrinal councils of the church were faithful to establish this.

IV. The Middle Era: 500-1500 AD
a. Religiocentric Authority
b. Institutional Structure
c. Institutional Leadership

In this era, the transformation was complete. While still acknowledging the authority of Christ and the Scriptures, tradition and experience and the structure of the church was raised to nearly equal authority. I call that "Religiocentric" authority and during this time the church leaders tended to be the only ones with the scriptures and the official church actually ended up opposing the "laity" even possessing a copy of the Word. Missions continued, but the life of the church suffered and the mission tended to be the advance of the structure rather than the advance of the gospel. A reformation was needed. And in 1517 it began with Martin Luther and his contemporaries. In spite of the next 3 eras, however, the 3 institutional elements will continue to be present. (Like Jesus said of the poor, once here, they will always be with us!)

V. The Reformation/Revival Era: 1500-1900 AD
a. Christocentric Authority (and Religiocentric Authority)
b. Institutional Structure
c. Institutional Leadership

In the Reformation and the Great Awakenings and the birth of the denominations and the modern mission era the Church began a difficult return to Christocentric authority and the authority of Scripture. This one return was the very most significant, for it is Jesus who builds His Church! Gospel expansion exploded over the 4 centuries mentioned.

VI. The Renewal Era: 1900-2000
a. Christocentric Authority (and Religiocentric Authority)
b. Organic Structure (and Institutional Structure)
c. Institutional Leadership

The 20th century has been called "The Pentecostal Century". Sweeping Renewal movements circled the world and by the end of the century there were nearly 700 million who could be described as Pentecostal, Charismatic, 3rd Wave, or Post-Charismatic. Even distinctly Non Charismatic groups of believers have refocused attention on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. In many cases, the new wine burst the wineskins and new kinds of church structures emerged. But perhaps the most significant move toward Organic Structure occurred in China, where communism crushed the shell of the Institutional Church and the emerging House Church movement has exploded underground. Then the various "cell church" experiments emerged (a kind of hybrid Institutional/Organic mix). Finally, the various CPM movements at the end of the century and the emerging Organic Church movements have rounded out the greatest century of gospel advance since the days of the apostles.

VII. The Closure Era: 2000 and beyond
a. Christocentric Authority (and Religiocentric Authority)
b. Organic Structure (and Institutional Structure)
c. Organic/Servant Leadership (and Institutional Leadership)

I believe in closure on the great commission. I believe that Matthew 24:14 will take place literally. I pray that we are in that era now, though I have no idea how long it will take. But in this final era I think that we will see the emergence of all the elements that were present in the first century (alongside of all the elements that have developed during the last 2000 years).

Let me state unequivocally, I believe that genuine believers who are carrying out God's work are in ALL of the combinations of these elements that I have described over the centuries. The great commission will not be fulfilled by "tinkering" with church structure. It will be fulfilled by obedience to the command to make disciples. What I have been concerned with in this blog is to demonstrate the combination of these elements (they are certainly not the only important elements) over the scope of the history of the church. And I do believe that in the Christocentric/Organic/Servanthood forms, these elements facilitate the multiplication of the Church in the fastest way.

Looking To The Future: Project Indonesia

2010-04-05T16:38:00.005-05:00

In this week's blog, we want to highlight a new outreach that is in the preparation stages. As our work in Honduras continues, we are now looking at a future project for the advancement of the gospel. We are calling this Project Indonesia.

The focus of this project is a people group that is majority Muslim and which we will call the “B” people. Let me give a bit of history about how WME has become involved in this project along with what has been accomplished and the plans for the future.

Phase I: Adoption
In the early 1990’s, we became aware of an organization called the Adopt A People Clearing House. The focus of the Clearing House was to get churches or mission agencies to adopt one of the over 9,000 unreached people groups in the world today. In very general terms, there are over 13,000 people groups on planet earth. While there are only a few hundred nations on our planet (for example United States, India, etc.) there are multiplied thousands of tribes, ethnic groups, or language groups that live within these geo-political borders. These groups have such names as the Zaghawa of Central Africa, the Bunak of Indonesia, and the Yemeni Arabs. As an example, there are 23 distinct people groups in Honduras where our primary project is located. In Honduras, with a population of approximately 7 million, 6 million are general Hondurans and 1 million are comprised of 22 other people groups. Some of these groups are lesser reached with the gospel.

Jesus said that the gospel would be preached to all nations in Matthew 24:14. In Matthew 28, in the Great Commission, Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all nations. In both cases, the word translated nations is “ethne” meaning people groups. So to put it another way, Jesus has both prophesied and commanded that his church bring the gospel to and make disciples of all 13,000 people groups on the earth. That is the Great Commission. Out of those 13,000 groups, we could say that about 9,000 of them are still unreached and somewhere around 3,000 of those have almost zero gospel witness in any form. This is the task that remains to us.

So to get back to our story, I contacted the Clearing House in the early 90’s and told them that we would like to adopt an unreached people group for outreach and prayer. They asked which one we wanted. My response was that I really didn’t know at that time. They responded that they had assigned a people group to every zip code in the United States for just such an occasion. I gave them our zip code and they gave me the name of a people group in Indonesia that we will call the “B” people. At the time there was very little information available on this people group. I shared this with the church I was pastoring and beginning then, special prayer began to rise for this people group.

Phase II: Research
In 2005, I had the opportunity to take the Perspectives course, taught by the U.S. Center for World Missions. In that course I learned more about the goal of reaching unreached peoples as well as the strategies of CPM that we are using now. In 2006, our church hosted the Perspectives course and attending that course was a young man named Eric. Eric already carried a call to missions and taking the Perspectives course only clarified and strengthened it. What I did not know at the time was that through our prayer for the “B” people, God had planted a seed for reaching this Muslim people group in Eric’s heart.

As the Perspectives coordinator, I had the opportunity to nominate one of our students for a year-long intensive training course called “Insight” that would take place at the campus of the U.S. Center for World Missions in Pasadena, California. I nominated Eric and he was accepted into the program. He was entering that very fall, his senior year in Bible college, and his college allowed him to use the year at Insight as his senior year. In 2007, he finished Insight, received his bachelor’s degree from his Bible college, went on staff as a Insight instructor at the U.S. Center, and prepared to enter Fuller Seminary that fall to prepare to reach Muslim peoples with an advanced degree in intercultural studies. As part of his program at Fuller, he was required to do an intensive research project on an unreached people group.

In the summer of 2008, WME sent Eric to Indonesia to enter the area of the “B” people, live with them, and research the status of their evangelization. In doing this, Eric was able to complete his requirements for Fuller and do the most extensive research that has ever been done on the “B” people. The report that he presented after returning from this extensive trip was the most advanced research ever done on this people group. In the fall of 2008, I was able to present this report to the Adopt A People Clearing House in order to update their database on this people group. This report has also been presented to other groups that are tracking unreached people group evangelization worldwide.

Eric finished his degree at Fuller in December 2009 and is now in the process of raising support to go full time to Indonesia with the ultimate goal of evangelizing the “B” people.

Phase III: Project Indonesia, Reaching the “B” People
This brings us to the present and the future. After 15 years of prayer for this people group, and having conducted intensive, on the ground research of them, WME is now preparing to make an attempt to evangelize the Muslim population of the “B” people. As far as we know, we are the only organization focused on this particular group which we will call the “B” Muslims. Here is our future plan:

2010: Raise support necessary to send Eric to Indonesia. Altogether somewhere between 20,000 and $30,000 needs to be raised this year.

2011: Eric deploys to a region near the “B” people and works with a team that will be doing Muslim evangelism with another group for a period of time. While there he will be gaining field experience with Muslim evangelization in this kind of culture and also he will be acquiring the ability to speak the language that he will need to bridge into the “B” area.

2013 and Beyond: Eric will move into the “B” area and begin our project of reaching the “B” Muslims with the gospel.

We are very much excited about the prospect of moving forward with this project.
We believe we have been assigned this particular people by the Lord. How can you help? Two ways specifically:

1. Pray:

A. Pray for the “B” people group to be reached with the gospel.

B. Pray that the Holy Spirit will prepare their hearts to receive the
Word when the team arrives.

C. Pray for Eric to be blessed and protected, spirit, soul, and body as he
prepares to make the move to Indonesia.

D. Pray for the needed finances and resources to be raised this year.

2. Give: If you would like to give a financial gift toward this project, you can make your check out to World Missions and Evangelism with Project Indonesia in the memo. All funds designated this way will be used for this project. Our goal for this project is $30,000 this year.

Thank you for your prayers and support!
(As always support may be sent to:
World Missions and Evangelism
P.O. Box 790
Benton, KY 42025)

The Beginning of the New Creation

2010-04-03T10:26:00.003-05:00

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

On the first day, He said, "Let there be light" and there was light.

On the second day, He made the expanse and called it Heaven.

On the third day, He gathered the seas together and caused dry land to appear on earth. Then He made all the vegetation and plant life.

On the fourth day, He made the Sun, Stars, and Moon.

On the fifth day, He made all the water creatures and the birds of the air.

On the sixth day, He made all the animals and beasts of the earth. And He crowned His creation by creating Man in His image. He made Man and Woman and gave them authority over the whole earth to fill it.

God said that all of this was good.

And on the seventh day, God rested.

On the eighth day, the first of the second week, creation began to function. The garden began to be kept by Adam. But shortly the serpent came and enticed Eve, and Adam chose to rebel. And though the human race has filled the earth, it has been filled with sin, suffering and death.

God became flesh and dwelt among us.

On Sunday, the first day of the week, Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem on a donkey, in fulfillment of prophecy. He was hailed by masses as King. He looked around the temple and went back to Bethany.

On Monday, the second day of the week, Jesus came into the city to minister and teach. On the way He saw an unproductive fig tree and cursed it. Then He proceeded into Jerusalem and in the temple, He drove out the money changers and declared that His Father's house was to be a house of prayer for all nations.

On Tuesday, the third day of the week, Jesus came into Jerusalem again and His disciples noticed that the cursed fig tree was dried up from the roots. Jesus taught them that faith in God would enable them to speak to mountains and see them removed. Then He proceeded to minister in Jerusalem and teach about the Great Commandments: Love God and Love neighbor as yourself. He found himself in controversy with the religious leaders.

On Wednesday, the fourth day of the week, Jesus taught in Jerusalem again, this time giving the strongest denunciation of religion He ever gave, and teaching profoundly about the future, prophecies some of which are still in our future. That night Mary anointed Him for burial, and Judas plotted his betrayal.

On Thursday, the fifth day of the week, Jesus celebrated passover with His disciples.
He washed their feet, instituted the Lord's supper, and taught them about the Holy Spirit. He led them to Gethsemane and prayed. There Judas brought the soldiers and He was arrested and led to a mockery of a Sanhedrin trial.

On Friday, the sixth day of the week, Jesus was condemned by the Sanhedrin, led to Pilate, then Herod, then back to Pilate again. He was beaten. He was mocked. He was whipped with the Roman cat of 9 tails. He was pierced by a crown of thorns. He was condemned, and taken to Golgotha and crucified between 2 thieves. Through it all He repeated, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
He hung on the cross for six hours that Friday, and at the end, when His work was completely finished, He declared, "It is Finished" and died. He was taken down from the cross and buried by friends in a borrowed tomb.

On Saturday, the seventh day of the week, He rested.

On Sunday, the eighth day, and the first day of a New Week, He rose victorious. He is alive and is the first fruits of the Resurrection. It was the beginning of a new creation a new race of people....redeemed and given new birth. On that day, the Last Adam, the Second Man, walked forth alive forevermore. Within a short time that morning he was seen by Mary Magdalene and other women and resurrection faith first fully exploded into the hearts of the first human beings to be "born again". That night He entered the room where His disciples were and breathed on them, telling them to "Receive the Holy Spirit", and they were "born again". A new race has begun, and over the next 40 days, He appeared to them and before He ascended to sit at the Father's right hand (from whence He will come again) He gave them a Great Commission....to bring this message to every tongue, tribe, and nation....to fill the whole earth with the good news of His Person and His work and this New Creation that they could be a part of.

And all over the world it is still happening. In Asia, in Africa, in the East, and the West, the Global South and the North, we are living in the day when the Word of the Kingdom of God is exploding and soon will fill the whole world.

This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness to all peoples, and then the end shall come.

Happy Easter.

Obstacles to CPM Part 3

2010-03-31T09:13:00.005-05:00

Church Planting Movements are occuring all over the world. CPM and Insider movements to Christ, are advancing the gospel throughout the Muslim and Hindu worlds especially, and WME is working to see such a movement take place in Honduras in Central America. In a future blog, I plan to share a new potential project in Indonesia that WME hopes to facilitate. But the question on which I am focusing in this series of 3 blogs, is whether such a movement is possible in the United States or the West in general.

My answer: a resounding Yes! In fact there are groups that may be in the early stages of experiencing this right now. But where it is happening, it is outside of the organized church in the West.

There is only 1 Body of Christ, and it meets in many ways, in many churches, and many fellowships and denominations and without those structures as well. The church is comprised of those who are connected to the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Meanwhile, the local expressions of the Church are multiplied, and we thank God for this. The last thing that we should want is for every church to be the same, because there are many cultures in the West (we are no longer a melting pot, we are a Mosaic) and the multiplicity of church structures can all be relevant to bring people to Christ. And that is ALL that matters. It is not bringing people to church, but bringing people to Christ.

I say all of that so that my readers will not hear me saying that the specifics of the principles I am sharing are "right" and any deviation is "wrong". What I am doing is addressing the question that is frequently asked by people in American churches: Can CPM happen here? and by implication, How?

And in this context, I am addressing what I call "3 Stones in the Field", that will hinder cpm. So let's finish with this blog.

Stone #1: The Waning Authority of Jesus Christ in the Church
Stone #2: An Organizational, Not Organic Paradigm of the Church
Stone #3: Man's Control Vs. God's Control

I was in Africa with leaders of church planting movements from the whole continent when one of the chief leaders was speaking. This man is one of the most respected leaders of the cpm strategy on the whole continent of Africa, and was the leader of what is one of the greatest cpms worldwide in his country. He is a Strong Leader to say the least. I have been in his country and in his home church where he pastored and have seen him strongly exhort his people. I would view him as one of the greatest leaders of the Church in our day (although most of my readers will never have heard of him).

Imagine the impact of these words as they came from him on that day, addressing key cpm leaders from the whole continent: You must avoid control! Control will kill CPM! (from my memory, so the words may not be a direct quote, but they were certainly the gist, and were spoken with passion)

Even as a great leader, he was saying that the cpm in his country could not be linked to him or his leadership. He was not the Bishop or Kingpin at the top of a CPM pyramid. It was his delight that the churches planted in the far reaching villages of his majority Muslim nation, never hear of him. He would never excercise authority there. The CPM in his country would have 1 King: Jesus Christ.

David Watson, the missionary who has been so instrumental in teaching us about CPM, frequently points out that in the CPM that he helped foster in India (which now has resulted directly and indirectly in over 80,000 churches and over 3 million baptized believers) probably only 100 leaders even know him.

Let me state this as plainly as I can: this is an absolute fundamental principle. Human Control Kills CPM. As long as any cpm ministry tries to excercise control or keep a group, denomination, local church, or human leader in a place of control no cpm will ever happen. Churches that are in cpms can have leaders, fellowships, networks etc. but whenever the work is limited to that kind of thing, the cpm will stop.

Jesus addressed this kind of thing in Matthew 23: 8-12.

"But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

Here (and in other places) Jesus addresses the issue of leadership. There is leadership in Church Planting Movements. In fact, leadership development in CPM is critically important. However our leaders must be "servant leaders".

In that same conference in Africa, David Watson was present. During the 3 days of the conference, it was led entirely by the African leaders. David never addressed the group, although it was he who had really trained every leader there and transmitted the vision of CPM to them. On the last day, in one of the last sessions, one of the African leaders rose and said something like, "Before we close the conference it is only fitting that we recognize the man who has really taught us and given us this vision...etc," and began to ask the group to honor David.

I was sitting near the back of the room, and David was sitting about 2 rows behind me. As the African leader began this attempt to honor him, suddenly David shouted "Call no man Father! Call no man Teacher!".

The point is that he would not tolerate being moved into any exalted position. Here is a man who has trained leaders and probably been the catylyst of the planting of 100,000 churches worldwide, refusing to be called anyone's "spiritual father". Meanwhile here in America, if someone has 15 people in a home group, he'll want to be ordained, and will have "Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist (ape)" printed on his business cards!

I said that last with tongue in cheek, but with love may I implore that here in the US we let go of this addiction to titles and position. Until we do, we will not see cpm here, or at least our ministries.

It may be that the first thing that slowed down the early church and halted the spread of the gospel through the middle ages was the direct disobedience to the command of Jesus to "call no man your father".

May I lovingly address the trend we see today of "spiritual fathering"? I would suggest that this is really a hindrance to the advance of the Kingdom of God. The constant referencing to a leader as "my spiritual father" is, I believe, unbiblical.
Jesus directly said not to do this. We should obey Him.

Some would say, but did not Paul say that he was the spiritual father of some. Are not there frequent references to this in the epistles. Let's look at this for a moment.

Who is our Spiritual Father?
Ephesians 4:6-"one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all".

Hebrews 12:9-"Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live?"

We only have one Spiritual Father and He is God. We are not to call anyone on earth our "spiritual father".

What about Paul's writings?

1 Corinthians 4:1-"Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God".
In this passage, Paul is continuing his argument that we must not argue about being of Paul or of Cephas or of Apollos. We must not divide over following certain leaders and not others. And he says basically, Here is how I want you to view me, as a slave of Christ and a steward of God's mysteries. The authority lies in Christ and his Mysteries (His Word). The whole point of 1 Cor. 1-4 is to contradict sectarian followings of leaders. He calls it carnal. Boasting in "who" we are following, "what" our denomination or church, or "who" our spiritual father is, is contrary to Paul's teaching here. That is the point he is making, and that is the context in this chapter.

Therefore, it is in that light that we must read verses 14 and 15.

"I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel."

We must see this as descriptive of function and role and not as position and title, or else we will err and end up disobeying a direct command of Jesus. Paul is saying that he performed the role of "fathering" this church, and treated them (and later on Timothy) as his "children". This is not only good, but is the way we should treat those we lead to Christ and disciple for Him. To have a relational, parenting love for those we lead to Christ is modeled for us. We take it as a responsibility and as a pattern. But it is not an office, or some permanent official relationship that demands constant reference, constant submission, and constant financial remuneration. This is to miss the whole point of what Paul writes in 1 Cor.1-4.

I share this to deal with this "stone" in relation to CPM. No movement that seeks to establish controling structures will ever see CPM. They will see CP. Church planting may happen, and may even be significant. Large networks may form and leaders may rise to the top of huge pyramids of organizations. But this will never bring closure to the Great Commission. It has not in the last 2000 years and it won't in the next 2000 years. God's work will be done, and the Great Commission will be fulfilled, but in a way that the only glory will be to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Obstacles to CPM Part 2

2010-03-29T22:09:00.003-05:00

In the previous blog we started looking at Obstacles to Church Planting Movements in the West (North America and Europe). I am in the process of addressing 3 specific "Stones in the Field" that will have to be dealt with if cpm is going to happen.

The specific point that I am making is that the stones are not so much in the field of Western Culture, but actually in the field of the Western Church. I don't think that American or European culture will be impossible for cpm. Actually, the West is extremely needy of and ready for a church planting movement (or a gospel planting/church multiplying movement, or a discipling movement, or a revival, or whatever you want to call it!). The greater difficulty is the traditionally structured and functioning church in the West.

In making that statement, let me say 2 things: 1st, I love the church in the West. I am not even suggesting that the existing churches should make changes based on what I will be discussing in this article or the next. The gospel preaching churches are filled with God's people and sincere and loving leaders and God is doing wonderful things through their ministry. But it is by God's people in the churches and by wonderful God honoring leaders that I am asked the question (again and again) as I have shared about cpm and what God is doing in Africa and Asia (and we pray and believe in Honduras). I am asked, "Will this work here?" and the question usually assumes that in cpm there is some special technique or program being used, or that perhaps this is a phenomenon that only manifests in the Global South. I can either ignore this question, or I can answer it truthfully, and genuine love for the church requires me to answer truthfully.

2nd, I need to say that I don't think that most American churches SHOULD try to make any changes based on these principles because it very well may be that God has structured things for them in such a way that they will make an altogether different contribution to the Kingdom of God. I cannot address all of this here, but at some point in the future, I will address the question of how a traditionally organized church can effectively partner with cpms (while not trying to become a cpm).

With that as an introduction, lets press in.
Stone # 1 was: The Waning Authority of Jesus Christ in the Church

Stone # 2 is: An Organizational, not Organic Paridigm of the Church

Let me put it this way: In the West, for all practical purposes, we tend to view the Church (specifically the Local Church) as an organization, an event, or a place. However, the Word of God does not recognize any of these concepts as "church". Instead, the New Testament sees the church as an organic living thing, the body of Christ, the family of God, or the flock of the Good Shepherd.

The church is not an organization. It is not a 501(c)3 organization that is incorporated. That does not mean that it is wrong for God's people to organize this way. In many ways it is beneficial, and helps with compliance with laws if finances are involved etc. Let me repeat: I am not against organization. But in terms of the church it is ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT and sometimes (if that aspect is actually thought of as the church) it is positively harmful. There is no such thing as a church planting movement if what is desired is the multiplication of some non-profit organization that will be called church. I know of no church planting movement in the world that is actually the multiiplication of such organizations.

The church is not an event, or a service. Biblically speaking the phrase, "going to church" has no meaning whatsoever! Church planting movements are in no wise in reference to multiplication of meetings or services.

The church is not a place or a building. Biblically, there is not a single reference to a place or a building as a church. Let me add that I am not opposed to church buildings, and I am not advocating "house church" as opposed to having a meeting place. I am saying that neither the "church building", nor the "house" is a church. Nowhere does the word church refer to a building. There might be a church in a house, or a church that meets in a building, but the church is the people not the place! I know of no church planting movement in the world that is linked to building buildings. In fact, it is just the opposite: when a movement begins a program of building buildings, if the cpm is not already dead, that invariably kills it!

The church is a family, a body, a flock, a living organic thing. The church is the people of God, both universally and locally. And basically that is all that the "church" is, and it is in reference to this concept ONLY that church planting movements are occuring.

In Matthew 18:15-20 we find the word church the 2nd time in the New Testament. Jesus says this:

"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them."

Notice that in Matthew 16 (Stone #1) and in Matthew 18 (Stone #2) spiritual authority is vested in the church (binding and loosing). When the church operates as Christ intended it has great authority.

Again, without in any way fully expositing this passage, let's boil down what it tells us about the church. The church is a relational thing. Again it is a body, a flock, a family. Christ is the Head, the Shepherd, The Elder Brother. His prescence (even with 2 or 3) is what constitutes the organic life of the church. And it is a relational group of people who can literally obey the commands he gives here in reference to erring brothers. Dare I say that most churches simply cannot do this. In fact in church as Organization/Event/Place, literally following this command is probably not a good idea (especially in our Sunday morning services!)

(We used to call this the "Matthew 18 Principle" and tried to find ways to "apply" it. Calling a command a principle, and applying it instead of obeying it is what we tend to do, isn't it.)

Now, let me shift once more into practical terms. What difference does this distinction make in our strategic purpose?

If church is Organization/Event/Building then our goals (and clearly this is the case in the American church) are Church Growth on every level. As someone has said, in the Monday morning Pastor's meetings the talk is all about Buildings, Bodies, and Bucks! How big is our building, how many people were in attendance at the weekend event, how much money has been collected to fascilitate more ministry. This paradigm dominates basically everything the American church does and defines our understanding of success. Church Growth on every countable digit is success.

But if church is really Organic in nature, and the growth goal is really not about the size of a ministry organization, but rather measured by disciples made for Christ, then Church Mulitplication throughout the population of the culture is the measure of advance.

If America and Europe are to be reached for Christ, then we must have Church Multiplication movements of Organic Local Churches that penetrate into every segment of our societies. We are going to have to change our motto from "COME GROW WITH US" to "GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES".

To learn more about what I am talking about here, I really would like to recommend a couple of books:

1. Organic Church by Neil Cole
2. The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch

More to come next time.

Obstacles to CPM

2010-03-27T11:42:00.004-05:00

A Couple of blogs ago, on March 9, I wrote an article on Keys and Obstacles. At the end of the blog, I promised further discussion of the Obstacles to CPM, especially in the American context. In that last blog, I shared some things that came from David Garrison's important book, "Church Planting Movements" (2004). In this blog, I want to move into some new territory on this issue.

The basic concept that I am espousing here is that, church multiplication is natural and organic, and really should not be that complicated. I am suggesting that the church is a living thing (alive with the Spirit of God) and as such should naturally grow and multiply. The book of Acts tells of a growing, spreading, and multiplying church that moved from Jerusalem to Rome in about 30 years, and which literally shook the Roman Empire. In the midst of 10 persecutions, and without cars, trains, planes, phones, TV, or internet, the church experienced the greatest church planting movement in history and in less than 300 years had about 20 million believers!

Taking the parable of the sower seriously leads me to think that this was an example of the seed of the Word being sown into good soil that brought a 30, 60, and 100 fold harvest. The same thing is happening around the world where church planting movements are happening.

Often the question arises, can this kind of thing happen in the United States and Europe? Will CPM work in Western culture? Without downplaying the importance of culture (certainly CPM manifests differently in different cultures) I would suggest that the question itself illustrates part of the problem. I might suggest that the problem does not lie primarily in sinful western culture, but in the culture of the traditional church in the west. In other words, our problem is not the lost sinners and their culture (in fact that may be very fertile soil in which to plant the Gospel or as Neil Cole said, "Sinners make good soil, they already have a lot of fertilizer in their lives"). Our problem may be more the culture of the church in the West. A brief glance at the 21 critical elements of CPM (check out the blog on March 4) will illustrate that these do not describe the DNA of a typical western church.

So let's look at 3 obstacles to CPM in our Western context. If we can address these "stones in the field" the seed of the Word can do it's supernaturally natural organic work. In these 3 areas, I am going to use scripture from Matthew's Gospel to illustrate the issue.

STONE # 1: The Waning Authority of Jesus Christ in the Church.

A few years ago, during a period of renewal in my life, I became a devotee of some of the writings of A. W. Tozer. Tozer was a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor in Chicago and Toronto, and the author of many books (most of which were collections of editorials and articles that he had written). To anyone who is going through a spiritually dry period, I would really recommend the writings of Tozer. As he commented in one of his books, if his flame is not large it certainly was real and you can always get a spark of holy fire from his materials. One of Tozer's lesser known works, but one of my favorites is his small booklet called "The Waning Authority of Christ in the Churches: Is He Lord or Merely a Beloved Symbol?" I think the title says it all. Let me share a quote from this book (published most recently by Christian Publications of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, copyright 1995).

"Among the gospel churches, Christ is in fact little more than a beloved symbol. The Lordship of Jesus is not quite forgotten, but it has been mostly relegated to the hymnal where all responsibility toward it may be discharged in a glow of pleasant religious emotion."

With the exception of the reference to the hymnal, which is mostly a thing of the past, the words, written sometime before his death in 1963, are as true today as when Tozer penned them. He presses on in the book to apply this to church boards, mission boards and other seats of decision making in the visible church. His burden was to question how much of what we do, is in obedience to Jesus Christ. Do we merely tip the hat to him in an opening prayer and then go ahead and do what we think is best, or do we really engage with the Head of the church.

Let's look at the scripture that first mentions the word "Church" in the New Testament. Matthew 16: 13- 19

"Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets". He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

There is much more in this passage than we will examine now, but let's focus on this fact: Jesus is the issue! He makes it all "about" Himself. The church exists where Jesus is exalted into His rightful place as Son of Man and Son of God. The confession of Jesus as Christ is the foundation of the church. And in this context he calls it "my church" and says "I will build" concerning His church.

So here it is plainly: In the first mention of church in the New Testament, Jesus lets us know that:
1. He is the Center and the Foundation of the church
2. He is the Owner of the Church. It is His church.
3. He is the Founder and the Builder of His church.

My take home principle from this for CPM is that CPM is Christ Centered and Christ Controlled. Church growth and multiplication are works of Jesus Christ. He does work through His people and our obedience is important, but it is Christ Himself who does the work. And furthermore, it is Jesus Christ who remains the absolute authority in the church (whether this is recognized or not). He is the Lord of the church, and when the church does not operate in this way, it is hampered by the "stone" of the "waning authority of Christ in the church" and the seed cannot truly multiply.

But let me go on and be a bit more helpful here. It would be very legitimate to ask at this point what does that mean in practical terms. How does the church (or an individual believer for that matter) put Jesus in His proper place of authority?

My answer is the restoration of the authority of Scripture in our lives and churches. Jesus Christ is Lord, and our Lord's instructions are infallibly and inerrantly contained in the Scriptures. I believe a return to a proper understanding of the Reformation doctrine of Sola Scripture would be in order here. To be specific, to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord means to obey the instructions contained in the New Testament, both from Jesus Himself (the words in Red) and the Apostles who spoke with His authority (the Epistles).

(By Sola Scriptura, I do not mean that God only speaks in scripture. God speaks to His people in many ways, including the natural creation, circumstances, the voice of the Holy Spirit to each believer, the gifts of the Spirit, even supernatural ways such as dreams and visions. By Sola Scriptura, I DO MEAN that Scripture is the only absolutely authoritative way that God speaks, and that Scripture stands in judgement of all the other ways in which God communicates and either verifies or negates all others as genuine or spurious! Only Scripture is inerrant and infallible. Some have objected to Sola Scriptura and made the point that the church itself (or its leaders or magesterium) stand above the scripture. They would say that the church gave the scripture. My response to this is: that is nonsense! The church did not give us the scripture. God gave us the scripture (2 Timothy 3: 16-17). The church may have recognized what God had given, but the scripture stands in authority over the church and not vice-versa!)

So let's remove this stone from the field. The confession and lifestyle of Jesus Christ is Lord is the centerpiece of everything concerning the Church. He Himself is the absolute and only authority of the Church. His authority is communicated to us inerrantly in only 1 way: the Scriptures. A self discipline of Obedience Based Discipleship to the commands of the New Testament is the key to getting positioned for the flow of God's power into our lives that may result in CPM.....even in the West!

Special Update on Haiti Recovery

2010-03-15T09:58:00.002-05:00

Dear Reader,

This week I'm going to interrupt the series of blogs on CPM principles to give you an update from one of WME's partners in the Haiti Relief and Recovery project. I want to thank you all very much for helping WME channel relief funds to Haiti during this time. Through your help, WME has been able to work with several relief projects. In this blog I want to share a letter I just received from missionary Don Jones of Lifelines ministry. We have been partners with Lifelines and their ministries in Haiti and Mexico for over 20 years. In February, Brother Jones and others reentered Haiti and have begun work on recovery. In his letter, that follows, he describes his reaction to the devastation and the specific needs with which they are working. Let me allow Bro. Jones to give this report in his own words:

“My Precious friend of Haiti:
Words simply cannot tell you the damage that the earthquake has caused in Haiti, it is totally unbelievable, but it is FACT.
I was right on schedule, I was on the first AA flight into Haiti after the quake, and within hours I was on the job, helping the people, our pastor at Leagone was the first one for me to go to, we had seven buildings and all of the buildings were a pile of rubble.
Let me use you as a sounding board---while in the states, I felt that when I got to Haiti, I would just offer arms for the Haitians to cry on and of course, I would cry with them. As I got near our complex the first day, I did stop the car and simply let all my feelings hang out, I cried and cried-and cried, so when I got to the property, I could be the strong leader---HOWEVER, when I walked on the totally destroyed property, Pastor Badio and about 20 orphans, workers and family came running, Badio grabbed me, hugged me tight, I put my head on his shoulder and cried my heart out, one thing wrong, Pastor was praising the Lord, AND LAUGHING very hard. Was I right to act like that?
I got to where I could ask a question, my first question was-WHAT IS SO FUNNY-his answer was---PRAISE GOD I AM ALIVE-Not one person was hurt, now in all that rubble, you would agree, that was a miracle.
That very day we started cleaning out the rubble, and when Shanda and her group was down, we were ready to start digging the foundation, however in all that mess, they were having church on the former floor of the church, it is o.k.
We have totally lost three complexes, and about 12 churches damaged, but they can be repaired, however almost every house is in need of repairs before we can use them, including our Bible college, and our Fireplace Seminary, it will be a LONG, HARD, EXPENSIVE trip back to being able to use our buildings, thousands of our students are sleeping on the ground or in tents, our street and the area is filled with make-shift sleeping places, the problem is that if another quake hits, they do NOT want to be inside, hey that thousand are not just students but EVERYBODY.
We had church on the street in front of Victory Chapel Church, we gave bags of food to over 1,150 people, took about three hours just to get the food out to the people, Pastor Kent Christmas was the speaker, what a great service.
In just a few weeks, we hope to bring work teams down, WE NEED people who can get down in the mud and filth and show these people how to “JUST DO IT”, watch my mail for the times and dates, most of all the people need MONEY, that we SPEND on them, generally speaking, I am buying the materials and food for them, that have NO IDEA how to “cut a deal” on large amounts of things, I DO.”

I think Bro. Don Jones’ letter illustrates the situation in Haiti better than any explanation I could give. WME is going to continue to partner with Lifelines during the recovery period. If you would like to give financially toward this effort, you may send funds to:

World Missions and Evangelism
PO Box 790
Benton, KY 42025
Memo: Attention Haiti Recovery Fund

If you are interested in being a part of an intensive work team with Lifelines Ministries, please send me an e-mail at dparish9@cs.com and I will be glad to give you information on how to connect with Lifelines. Thanks again for all your prayers and support.

Keys and Obstacles

2010-03-09T09:52:00.002-06:00

I Corinthians 3:9b-"you are God's field, God's building."

KEYS TO CPM

I had a great weekend in Lexington, KY with some great believers. On Saturday night I spoke to the men of a network of 3 churches on the subject of the 21 Critical Elements of Church Planting Movements (The notes of that talk are last week's blog). Then on Sunday morning, I spoke on Hearing, Understanding, and Obeying the Word (my current favorite sermon) to a great church of wonderfully receptive people. But one of my absolute highlights was Saturday night after the meeting. I had the opportunity to eat with and interact with an amazing group of college students from UK. (And others, not all were students). They sure knew how to probe and ask questions that kept me on my toes about church planting movements. For about an hour and a half (9:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.) we talked about CPM and the critical elements and what that might look like in the US.

At one point I explained the critical elements this way: View them as Keys on a Keyring. You are already doing some of the elements. Just look at the ones that you are not doing. These are the keys that can unlock cpm that are needed in this context.

I wish I could claim originality for this insight, but alas I can't. I got it from a book called "Keys To Church Planting Movements" by K. Sutter, published by Asteroidea Books. Let me quote from this book's introduction:
" Avoid thinking in terms of steps to be followed: 1, 2, 3, 4.... Rather let's look at these key church planting principles as actual, literal keys designed to unlock specific doors. Think of all the keys (we'll identify 26 of them) attached to one big key ring. As we move into pioneer church planting, we will carry our keys along. We may find that many doors are already swung wide open. No need for a key if the door is open. Keys are only necessary for unlocking closed doors."

You can look at what Sutter calls 26 keys as what I am calling 21 critical elements. (By the way, I heartily recommend Sutter's book if you want to see the different concepts there). They are not 21 steps to implement in order. They are principles that are all operative simultaneously in CPMs. Many churches, ministries, and projects have some of the keys in use. So as we look at how to apply them here, first understand them, then analyse your own work to see which ones are already in place, and then begin to apply the ones that are not.

The opening scripture showed the church as illustrated as a building and as a field in which the seed of the Word is sown. The keys illustration seems to fit the building metaphor. Now let's look a bit at another view: Obstacles to harvest in God's field.

OBSTACLES TO CPM

Jesus told the parable of the soils and one point was that the seed of the Word has the power to produce great harvest, but it is limited by obstacles in the soil. Some soil is wayside and impenetrable. Some is stony and incapable of depth. Some has thorns and they choke out the word.

After I shared the message (Hear, Understand, and Obey) at the church on Sunday morning, the pastor shared with the congregation that he wanted himself and the congregation to pray to see thorns removed from their lives. That is a great application of this message, especially to individuals.

But what are the thorns, the hindrances, the obstacles to CPM? David Garrison's book, "Church Planting Movements" has a chapter called "Seven Deadly Sins" where he identifies 7 things that will hinder CPM from taking place. Without much elaboration, here they are. (With my own brief explanation)
1. Blurred Vision: CPM must be the vision that is aimed at clearly

2. Improving the Bible: Exceeding the Bible's guidelines

3. Sequentialism: Seeing the elements as step by step instructions

4. Unsavory Salt: Sins of omission and commissions that make the church unattractive

5. The Devil's Candy: Distractions (good things many times) from CPM goals

6. Alien Abduction: Adding cultural points to the Word that extract new believers from their own culture

7. Blaming God: When results are not present, assuming God is withholding blessing, rather than taking responsibility to change.

I want to go a little further with this concept. If we could look at obstacles to CPM as thorns or stones in the soil, one great strategy we could employ would be to work on removing them from our work and then plant the good seed of the Word. Next time in the blog, I hope to focus specifically on 3 stones that are hindering CPM in the American field.

Looking again at the Critical Elements of CPM

2010-03-04T13:36:00.005-06:00

This week I will be speaking to a group in Lexington, Ky. on the subject of church planting movements. The leader has specifically asked me to talk to the group about the critical elements of church planting movements. This is a subject that has been addressed in this blog on several occasions, but as I have been putting a short outline together for this group, I thought I would share it on the blog again. Let me make a couple of points at the beginning and then just give the outline I will be using with very little editing.
1. The concept of critical elements is that these characteristics are present in every known CPM.
2. The list of critical elements is constantly evolving, and the one I am sharing comes from David Watson's blog, and is the list that I think is the best at this time.

INTRODUCTION TO CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS: THE 21 CRITICAL ELEMENTS

I. Definition: A Church Planting Movement is defined as a rapid multiplication of indigenous churches planting churches that sweeps through a people group or population segment. (David Garrison, Church Planting Movements, 2004)
This definition is referring to specific movements that have occurred in Asia and Africa since 1990. These movements may have similarities with other previous movements (notably the Chinese house church movement since 1950) or contemporary movements (organic church, missional movements), but I am using the term in specific reference to movements displaying the 21 critical elements as described by missionary David Watson.

II. A Brief, Selective History of Church Planting Movements: 1989-2010
A. The Bhojpuri Story: India, 1989-Present
B. The Sierra Leone Story: 2005- Present
C. World Missions and Evangelism: Honduras, 2008-Present

III. The 21 Critical Elements
In 1999, as church planting movements were emerging in Asia, David Garrison gathered several of the strategy coordinators together and they began to debrief on common characteristics of the church planting movements that were occurring in the world. The movement among the people in North India was the most pronounced movement, but similar characteristics were seen in other smaller movements. At that time Garrison and the missionaries identified 10 universal elements and 10 prominent elements. In the years since, the list has been refined down to what we now call the 21 critical elements of church planting movements.

1. Prayer
— Prayer is the starting point for all ministry – know the mind of God and join Him in His work

2. Scripture
— Scripture is foundational and the source of all teaching and preaching.
— Scripture → Principle → Practice

3. Households/“families”
— Focus on households/”families”, not individuals.
— Households include non-related people living together as family.

4. Disciples
— Make Disciples, not converts.
— Converts focus on religion. Disciples focus on Jesus.

5. Teach Obedience
— Teach Obedience to the Word, not doctrine.
— Doctrine is our church’s teaching from the Bible. It may be highly interpretive, and may not consider the full counsel of the Bible.

6. Access Ministries
— Access Ministries open the door for Church Planting and lead to community transformation.
— Ministry should precede evangelism and evangelism must always be the end result of ministry. Timing is important and necessary.

7. Plan/Be Intentional
— Plan your work and work your plan – Be intentional in Access Ministry, Prayer, Scripture, Appropriate Evangelism and Church Planting

8. Man of Peace
— Start with the Man of Peace or an existing relationship that will permit a Discovery Bible Study or Witness

9. Appropriate Evangelism
— Evangelism is an intentional calling to a family to study the Word of God in order to move from not knowing God to falling in Love with Him through Jesus Christ. The primary method used is the Discover Bible Study in relationship with maturing believers. This makes Disciples, not Converts.

10. Communities of Believers (church)
— Form new believers into minimum Biblical practice groups that will become Communities of Believers (churches) who transform communities

11. Reaching Out (Missions)
— Reaching Out to “ALL” segments of society becomes a part of the group DNA as a result of obedience to the Great Commission (missions)

12. Reproducing
— Reproducing disciples, leaders, groups and churches becomes a part of the group DNA

13. Inside Leaders
— Keep all things reproducible by Inside Leaders and directed/lead by Inside Leaders.

14. Authority & Holy Spirit
— Authority of Scripture and the Holy Spirit are all that is needed to start. Church Planting is an act of God through His Spirit and His people who are obedient to the Word and the Spirit.

15. Persecution
— Persecution is part of being a Christian. In pioneer work it is expected and response is trained.

16. Educating/ Teaching Training/ Coaching Equipping/ Mentoring
— Discipleship and Leadership Education and Training are “on the job,” continuous and primarily through mentoring. This builds communities that hold each other accountable for obedience to the Word of God. Education increases Knowledge. Training increases skill sets primarily through coaching. Equipping increases capacity through mentoring relationships.

17. Outside Leaders
— Outside leaders Model, Equip, Watch, and Leave. Outside leaders introduce new concepts that are contextualized by inside leaders.

18. Self-supporting
— Self-supporting, local leaders start and sustain all work – including groups, fellowships, and churches. Self-supporting may mean the worker has a job or business. This improves access and breaks down the barriers between clergy and laity.

19. Redeem Local Culture (Embrace the Local Culture)
— Do not import external culture, but redeem local culture by embracing all you Biblically can in a culture and transforming/redeeming the rest.

20. Spiritual Conflict/Warfare
— In areas where the Gospel has never been preached, or in areas where traditional religions have reigned for a significant amount of time, it is not unusual to find those engaging in CPM activities confronted by Spiritual Conflicts that range from annoying to life-threatening.
— Living in obedience is the best preparation for Spiritual Warfare.
— One does not have to seek out Spiritual Warfare when planting churches. It will find the one doing the church planting.

21. Group Dynamic: Small groups are involved.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

ONLINE

www.churchplantingmovements.com
David Garrison’s website

www.davidlwatson.org
David Watson’s blog, absolutely vital information

BOOKS

1. Church Planting Movements (1999) David Garrison (can be downloaded for free at his website above)
2. Church Planting Movements (2004) David Garrison (can be ordered from his website)
The Key text on Church planting movements

Other Books that have relevance:
3. Organic Church, Neil Cole
4. Church 3.0, Neil Cole
5. The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch
6. The Multiplying Church, Bob Roberts Jr.
7. Discovering Church Planting, J. D. Payne
8. The Rabbit and the Elephant, George Barna, Tony and Felicity Dale
9. There’s a Sheep in my Bathtub, Brian Hogan (Story of a CPM in Mongolia)
10. Amazing Grace, R. Bruce Carlton (Story of a CPM in Cambodia)

Think on a Higher Level

2010-02-25T13:57:00.002-06:00

Although I was involved in missions ministry for many years previous, when I began to network with leaders of church planting movements, my thinking was challenged a great deal. One of the early things that struck me was an attitude that seemed to be with the leaders of CPM movements. I think it can be expressed best with the phrase/word WIGTAKE. I first came across this on the cover of David Garrison's book "Church Planting Movements". It stands for "What's it going to take" and it sums up the attitude of missional urgency in church planting movements. In the years since I first saw that word, I have reflected on the difference in that kind of thinking and that which is typical among evangelicals today, whether in leadership or not. So I think I have identified 3 levels of thinking.

Level 1 Thinking: My needs

In Need based thinking (and this is where the majority of the West's consumer driven church is) the questions that are being asked are like these:

Am I saved?
How can I be delivered from this habit or sin?
How can I be healed physically or emotionally?
Can my marriage be saved?
How can my financial needs be met?

There is nothing wrong with these questions. In fact, I believe that no matter how long you have been a follower of Jesus, no matter how spiritually mature you are, these questions will always be important for you. God is our source and God is concerned with the needs of our lives. The Word of God is full of promises and commands that have impact on these and other needs.

Even the Bible highlights this kind of question. The Philippian jailer was here when he asked, "What must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30)

The problem is not this level of thinking....the problem is staying forever and only at this level of thinking. Move higher.

Level 2 Thinking: My purpose

In purpose centered thinking (a concept made popular with Rick Warren's Purpose Driven books) I ask questions at a higher level. (I think that most ministers and leaders are at this level, especially the ones who are interested in church and ministry growth).

Questions like these abound:

What is God's will for me?
What are my Gifts, how do I discover them, and how do I begin to use them?
What is my Purpose or Calling?
How can my ministry (business, church) grow?

Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with these questions. They must be asked by all of us at sometime, especially when we want to excel in the work of God. Discovering our unique callings and gifts and using and stewarding them for God is to be commended.

My only critique is this. Did you notice the repetition in these questions of the words me, my, I, I, my, my!

The very question of "Purpose" that has garnered so much attention is inherently centered around the one who's purpose is being sought. Again, let me say that these questions must be faced and pursued, but don't stay forever and only at this level.
Move higher!

Level 3 Thinking: God's Mission

The missional level of thinking is one that focuses on God and His revealed purpose. One of the greatest things about the "Perspectives" course is that it forces one to rise to the highest level, the level of God's Mission, and traces this kind of thinking through Biblical, Historical, Cultural, and Strategic dimensions. It is why it is unique and lifechanging.

At the Missional level of thinking one asks questions like:

What is God's priority for planet earth?
What will it take to Evangelize my City?
What is it going to take to see CPM in Honduras?
What will it take to see Closure to the Great Commission in my generation?
What does Obedience to Jesus Christ mean in my life?

Once you have really been to Level 3 thinking, you cannot be satisfied to return to life at a lower level. You will be breathing the same air as World Changers like William Carey, Hudson Taylor, and Cam Townsend. And if you decide to live your life at this level of thinking you will find the truth that:

Seek to live at the Missional level of thinking, and you will discover that God will take care of your purpose and your needs. (A different way of expressing Matthew 6:33).

Seeding CPM into Latin America

2010-02-18T09:33:00.002-06:00

One of my friends in the CPM movement (for lack of a better way of describing it) shared his excitement about what is going on in Honduras. His way of putting it is that this project may be breaking new ground. When questioned about how that was so (in light of the fact that there are massive CPMs taking place in China, India, and in various places in Africa) he responded in basically 4 ways.

1. Location: Latin America has seen some CPM type results (as per David Garrison's books called "Church Planting Movements" (1999, 2004). However, these manifestations of CPM have been very different from the ones in Asia and Africa, and have not exemplified the seemingly unlimited multiplication that other contexts have exhibited. WME's Honduras project is seeking nothing less than full blown CPM throughout Honduras and then all of Latin America. We are looking to exhibit all 21 Critical elements and to see multiplication into literally every village, region, or population zone.

2. Existing Religious Matrix: This is my term to describe the fact that Latin America (unlike the contexts in Asia and Africa) already has Christian religion present and in some ways pervasive. Without in any way denying that genuine believers are a part of the existing Religious configuration of Latin America, it is clearly true that 2 situations face the Kingdom of God in Latin America. Number 1, in spite of the Christian presence, thousands of communities remain unreached with the gospel. Number 2, it is a pervasive reality that much of the Christianity that is already there is either religious formalism (at best) or Christo-paganism (at worst).

3. Intentional Strategy: At least in the Honduran context and to some degree in the overall Latin American context, WME's project represents one of the very few attempts to see CPM occur via an intentional strategy. For this reason, the HCPM project is keeping good records of what is occurring, both statistically and anecdotally.

4. Specific CPM Model: Finally, WME's HCPM project is working with a specific model of CPM, that has primarily borne fruit in Asia and Africa and that is a very non-traditional approach to church planting. WME is working with a Biblical/Obedience Based/Missional DNA to seed into the Latin American culture.

All of that is to describe what WME is trying to do with the HCPM project. And we believe that the early results are very promising. Here is our status at this moment.

The HCPM project in Western Honduras has started over 300 Discovery Bible studies in communities needing church planting. These studies are moving forward toward becoming churches or foundations for churches. Our number 1 priority in 2010 is to see these continue to multiply and to develop into full fledged replicating churches, and for this to represent thousands of people who have become new, obedient disciples of Jesus Christ.

In Eastern Honduras, WME is working with at least 3 denominations/networks. WME has provided training in CPM principles for these groups and is continuing in contact for mentoring availability as these groups move forward. We believe that these groups may have already started at least 100 DSBs.

In Chiapas state, in southern Mexico, WME has now provided training to approximately 100 persons in CPM principles. This represents WME's first real impact in terms of Latin American CPM beyond Honduras. This training was given in January and February of this year in 2 separate training events, and we believe that 30 or more 2 person teams have been formed to begin working in the region of San Cristobal and Chiapas by the first part of March.

I want to ask all of our intercessors to cover these 3 regions in special prayer in the next months as 2010 moves forward. Pray specifically for the 3 regions of West Honduras, East Honduras, and Southern Mexico. Pray that the existing discovery Bible studies will continue to multiply. Pray that the existing studies will be anointed by the Holy Spirit and through the application of the Word and the Spirit, the persons involved will make full commitment to Christ and become fully obedient disciples of Christ. Pray for the new efforts by teams of 2 in Southern Mexico and by partnering networks in East Honduras, that they will find person's of peace which open doors into families for the beginning of new discovery Bible studies. Pray for our WME team, both American, Honduran, and Mexican that is working in this process.

Thanks for your faithful prayer and support.

Partnering Churches

2010-02-09T10:18:00.003-06:00

In this blog, I want to thank all of WME's partnering churches for their faithfulness to support the work that WME is doing, and to especially highlight 3 of our most faithful partners. In the New Testament, Paul especially commended the church at Philippi for their partnership with him in the gospel. It is true that in missions we can go, pray, or send by giving. We count on all of our individual and church partners to cover WME and especially the Honduras project in prayer, as well as to send by faithful giving. WME has wonderful partnering churches and there is no way that we can share our full gratitude for their faithful support. In this blog, I want to turn from the mission field and focus on the home team that supports the church planting movement project in Honduras and other outreaches that are impacting the world.

CAVE HILL INDEPENDENT CHURCH OF GOD, VERSAILLES, INDIANA

The Cave Hill church has been a faithful supporter of WME for over 10 years. As a partnering church they have been a model of faithfulness. Our partnership with Cave Hill began about the time that WME began to focus its strategy on church planting in the year 2000 and they have been on the whole journey with WME as 212 churches were planted in India, Indonesia, Romania, South Africa, and Swaziland. In the last couple of years they have focused with WME on the Honduras church planting movement project, even sending a team of 13 last June to do Access ministry there. Through their work, doors of ministry were opened for the advance of the gospel.

Thanks Cave Hill. We appreciate you so much.

OASIS CHRISTIAN CENTER, PADUCAH, KENTUCKY

I cannot even begin to express my appreciation for Oasis Christian Center and Pastor Larry Starnes. During these first 2 years of launching the Honduras church planting movement project, the partnership with Oasis was simply nothing less than MISSION CRITICAL. When I shared this project with Pastor Starnes before we launched into the field, it seemed that it was a Divine moment and a Divine appointment. As Oasis partnered with WME for the Honduras project, it was literally the impetus to launch. I can honestly say that what Oasis has done in these 2 years was the critical difference between doing the project or not being able to start at the time. When this partnership began, the Honduras project was just a dream. Since then, leaders have been trained, wells have been drilled, education projects have been carried out, and together with our partners that we have trained in Honduras, over 400 locations in 7 states of Honduras have experienced inductive Bible studies that are moving forward towards a church planting movement.

I will be speaking at Oasis Christian Center the next 3 weekends (Feb 14, 21, and 28). I look forward to seeing and fellowshiping with this tremendous church body.

Thanks so much.

CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP CHURCH, BENTON, KENTUCKY

Christian Fellowship Church, which I served as Senior Pastor for 14 years, is truly one of the greatest churches that I know. A true mission church, it was the original partnering church with WME and it continues to faithfully support and undergird the work of WME.

CFC is now moving into a wonderful transition. Last year CFC celebrated its 40th anniversary (1969-2009). What a history of blessing and faithfulness to the Lord it has had. In those 40 years it has only had 3 Senior Pastors. My father, Dr. J. T. Parish was the founder, but my uncle, Dr. Carroll Parish was the first pastor (1969-1970). Then my father, Dr. J. T. Parish served as Senior Pastor for many years (1971-1994). I served as Senior Pastor from 1995-2008 and then launched full time into leadership of WME and the project that we are currently doing. My dad, Dr. J. T. Parish then served again in the last year (2009-2010).

Last Sunday, CFC elected its 4th Senior Pastor, a young man that I have known and loved and worked with for many years, Rev. Richie Clendenen. Pastor Clendenen actually worked on staff at WME for a number of years (2001-2008) as well as served on the pastoral staff of CFC. I congratulate Christian Fellowship and Pastor Richie Clendenen and believe that this transition will serve CFC well as this wonderful church moves into the future. May the next 40 years be even greater than the first. And WME looks forward to a continuing partnership with CFC for the advance of the Kingdom of God.

CFC, and Pastor Richie, we love you and appreciate you so much.

And to all of WME's partnering churches, Thanks for your prayers and support. Without you, there would be no projects going forth touching the nations, through WME.

Haiti, Mexico, Texas, and Honduras

2010-01-28T18:04:00.004-06:00

Dear reader,
Here is a quick update on WME's activities in the last month as 2010 has begun, and a preview of February.

HAITI:
WME has partnered with Worldwide Missionary Evangelism (Dale Yerton, Missions Director), and Lifelines Ministries (Don Jones, President)to get funds for Haiti relief. Many people have responded with offerings and this will be an ongoing project throughout this year. WME also plans to work with the Full Gospel Fellowship Missions Department to send support and relief to Fellowship ministries in Haiti. For now, here is a quick report from Worldwide Missionary Evangelism Mission Director, Dale Yerton.

Haiti Update

The Worldwide Missionary Evangelism group would like you to know:

Dear WME Member, Thanks for the wonderful response to the Haiti Relief Offering. To date we have raised almost $150,000. We will be able to help a lot of people with such a generous offering. Here is what has transpired to date. Doctors Rik and Sabine Celie have been in Haiti for one week giving medical attention to those injured in the earthquake. Kent and Candy Christmas are still trying to get into Port-au-Prince. They have been able to get some money wired to help their orphanage. Dominic Russo sent a team from the Dominican Republic last weekend with food to feed over 5,000 people multiple meals. Eddie Whittemore is planning a trip to Port-au-Prince next week and will take money to help the 400 orphans that he helps to oversee. He also will be taking an offering to help Elim missionaries Roger and Margaret Clark purchase a truck. James White, a WME missionary in the Dominican Republic is sending in food and medical supplies via planes from the DR to Haiti. Roy Peterson, Missions Director for the IMA Fellowship is in Haiti with relief funds for the ministries they help oversee. Bill and Marlene Burch tell us all their boys and workers are safe, but their home was destroyed. I am thankful that we have been able to help with these emergency relief needs. The next stage will switch from relief to rebuilding. Jason Hanks is helping us put together a container filled with medical supplies and temporary building supplies. We plan to ship this container from New Orleans to Port-au-Prince. Roger Clark will pick up the supplies and help distribute them. We would like the pastors to please communicate with us about any people you have which would like to be a part of a construction team going to Haiti later this year. We want to begin putting together teams of ten which would concentrate on one building project for one week. The dates Roger has given us for the first teams would be February 19-28, anytime between March 21 and April 30, and July 1 and August 31. We envision sending many teams through the end of this year. Please let us know if you have any people who would like to go. Again, God bless you for all you do to advance the Kingdom of God.
Dale Yerton

MEXICO:

Randy Travis and I traveled to Chiapas, Mexico and joined Keith and Juanita Travis in conducting a 3 day training for about 120 people in CPM principles. God's blessings were apparent as this training event took place January 21-24. In mid February Randy will conduct some follow up training for these people and we are expecting many of them to begin to implement the principles in south Mexico. Pray with us for disciples to be made, churches to be planted, and a church planting movement to begin that will move from south to north Mexico, and cross the border into Guatemala!

TEXAS:

Several WME personnel are planning to attend the Verge conference in Austin, Texas from February 4-6. This conference will be centered on cutting edge missional training. David Watson, the missionary who has trained our church planting team, will be teaching on CPM, and a number of other leaders in the Church Multiplication and Missional movements will be sharing. The WME team that plans to attend include:
David Parish, President; Russell Bivin, Field Representative; Randy Travis, Honduras Strategy Coordinator; Linda Travis, Missionary; Keith Travis, Missionary; and Larry Hardin, Missionary and Bible School leader in Kenya. Randy, Linda, and Keith Travis will leave directly from the conference to travel back to Honduras, stopping briefly in Chiapas, Mexico to further train potential cpm workers.

HONDURAS:

By mid-February Randy and Linda Travis will be back in Honduras and meet with our Honduran team. Discovery Bible studies continue to multiply. Many are nearly at the stage of becoming churches. We believe that nearly 2000 people are involved in these studies. The WME Honduran team believes that there are studies in nearly 350 locations now, and 2 other denominational groups that have been trained may have 60-70 more groups. Conservatively, I believe that from the WME project and others that have been trained, there may be at least 400 locations in Honduras with Discovery Bible Studies occurring. Please cover this work in prayer. Our prayer is to see a full blown CPM occur in Honduras. We believe that this will be a year of great advance.

Thanks for your prayers and support.

Haiti

2010-01-13T06:42:00.002-06:00

I want to share this brief blog to say that WME is joining in prayer and support for relief and recovery for the nation of Haiti. I have personally visited Haiti a few years back to do leadership training. It is a nation of extreme need in the best of times, and I can only imagine the horror and suffering of the nation after this devastating earthquake.

WME has a history of helping during times of disaster in lesser developed countries. Our ministry helped during Hurricane Mitch in Honduras in the late 90s, directly distributing supplies on the ground. After the Tsunami in southeast Asia, WME worked with partners to send relief.

We plan to do the same now. WME has at least 3 or 4 partnerships with missionaries and key organizations or agencies that will be helping Haiti in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Today WME will open its Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund and will work with our partners to get support to this effort.

To our partners, we ask that you pray for the people of this nation and for all who are working to help during this disaster. Pray for healing, recovery, and for the Lord to use this to cause people to call on Him and to see Haiti turn to Christ.

If you would like to give to the Haiti Earthquake Recovery Fund, you may send support to:
World Missions And Evangelism
P.O. Box 790
Benton, KY
42025
Attn. Haiti Earthquake Recovery

The Bottom Line

2010-01-05T14:05:00.004-06:00

If the Big Picture for WME is our goal to multiply churches in unreached areas as a means of helping to bring closure to the great commission, then what is the Bottom Line or the fundamental principle of what we are doing? Another way to ask this question is what is the DNA of WME?

In pursuing the answer to this let me note that in life, when a baby is born and the proud parents and family are standing at the window looking in the nursery, no one ever says, "What a beautiful lump of DNA that is!" No, rather they say, "What a cute baby....looks just like grandpa." or some such thing. We see the whole baby. Most humans don't have the training or understanding to talk in depth about the individual DNA or genetic make up of the baby in scientific terms. But they can see wholeness and beauty and distinguishing characteristics.

When God first called me to missions involvement in September 1983, I knew absolutely nothing about missiology. All I knew was that for the first time and in 1 hour's time, God had put a burning desire in my heart to bring the gospel to the whole world. In some sense the DNA was there, but I could not unpack or understand it. As the years passed and I worked in local church ministry and christian education and read and studied, it grew and developed. And when WME was started to help 1 missionary who was ministering in Honduras in 1988, we were focused on 1 family in 1 country, but the whole world and closure on the great commission was in the heart of it, even though we could not express it. That's why we named the organization World Missions and Evangelism (and not Honduras children's ministries). That in spite of the fact that the primary motivation at the time (1988) was a specific child evangelism ministry focused on Honduras. A thing's DNA is not necessarily evident when it is first born, but is understood as the life grows and as it is analyzed (and educated) in terms of purpose.

The DNA continued to be revealed as we decided to focus on planting new churches (in 1994) and as we launched into church planter training (in 2000) and when we first read David Garrison's small booklet "Church Planting Movements" (2000). Hyper-revelation of DNA occurred in taking Perspectives (2005) and being introduced to key leaders in cpm in Asia and Africa (David Watson, Jerry Trousdale, and the leadership of Cityteam and New Generations...2006). Through it all we have felt that we have never really changed directions....we have simply been growing into what God has called us to be from the beginning. I remember arriving home from West Africa in September 2006 having visited a new church planting movement and telling my wife, "Patty, I have found what I have been looking for, for 23 years!"

Now, with the launch of the Honduras church planting movement project (2007-present) we are bringing forth after our own kind at last. Having identified enough of our DNA as an organization to define it, we are now intentionally trying to see it multiply.

So what is the bottom line, the DNA of WME? It could be expressed in various ways. We could call it the 21 critical elements of church planting movements. We could boil it down in a sense to "Obedience based Discipleship". We could define that as the fundamental principle that the Kingdom of God expands toward fulfilment of the Great Commission as disciples are made and taught to obey the Word of God in their own lives and continue on to themselves make new disciples and gather in multiplying communities of believers. Now that I am writing this, I find it difficult to put into words. It's kind of like trying to get inspiration from a picture of a strand of DNA and individual genes and imagining what kind of creature you are looking at. As difficult as it is, let me try once more:

The Bottom Line for WME is to serve our Lord Jesus Christ, by obeying His command to make disciples of all the peoples of the world. Our commitment toward this goal is to practice and model and foster obedience to the Word of God in our own lives and to intentionally make disciples who will do the same with a goal of multiplying disciples and churches among unreached peoples and communities worldwide. That is what WME is, that is WME's DNA. Toward this goal, we will be molded by the Word of God. Our intent is not to pursue a "model" of ministry, but to "obey" the Word and adjust our model or models whenever necessary to do so.

May 2010 be a year where we grow more and more in obedience to God's Word and where we bear more and more fruit for His kingdom in terms of disciples made, churches planted, communities transformed.

The Big Picture and The Bottom Line

2010-01-02T09:19:00.002-06:00

As has been said before, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing!

When beginning a new year I think that it is good to set out again the fundamental bases of any organization. Getting back to fundamentals reminds us of what our main tasks are and helps to keep us on track for the coming year. I want to look at the fundamentals of World Missions and Evangelism along 2 lines: The Big Picture and The Bottom Line.

2 things that every leader must keep in mind are the Big Picture and the Bottom Line. By Big Picture, I mean the ultimate business or mission that the organization or group is engaged in. In the military we hear of "mission creep". I think this means an subtle moving from the original mission to some other mission or missions that can ultimately subvert the original mission. This is to be avoided.

I am a history buff in my spare time, and the history of America's wars (especially the Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II) is my special interest. One thing that can be discerned by studying the great leaders of these conflicts is the ability to selflessly focus on the critical point....the correct mission. That is what separates the winners from the losers in warfare. But that is not just a lesson for military leadership. The father of modern management, Peter Drucker, viewed the military model of leadership as the correct model for business as well according to William A. Cohen in his new book, "Drucker On Leadership". Cohen points out that Drucker was not advocating a "business as war" philosophy but was rather dealing with the leadership development process.

The point that I am making here is that a Big Picture understanding of the mission is critical for leaders in every field. That is true whether we are considering the military, the government, business, or the mission of the Kingdom of God. What is our big picture, what are we here to do? WME must answer that question and keep it in view every day.

The second thing that every leader must have a grip on is The Bottom Line. By that I am not talking about the finances of the organization, although that is what a lot of people would think. By the Bottom Line, I am refering to the fundamental operating principle of a thing. The fundamental principle, the Bottom Line makes a thing what it is. It is the DNA of a thing.

To give a Biblical example, Jesus gave a Great Commission (Big Picture) and a Great Commandment (Bottom Line).

So how can WME express it's Big Picture and it's Bottom Line as we start this new year. 2010 is here and with it we want to move forward. We thank God for all He has done in the past (see the last 2 blog articles for 2009). But now, as Paul said to the Phillipians, "Brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus". (NIV)

THE BIG PICTURE

Mission: WME's mission is to obey the following words of Jesus Christ:

"And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." " (Matthew 28:18-20, English Standard Version)

Vision: WME's vision is to see the fulfillment of the following words of Jesus Christ:

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." (Matthew 24:14, ESV)

Goal: WME's goal is a result of sensing an assignment from the Lord. Although worldwide in scope, it seeks to operate in the spirit that the Apostle Paul spoke of when he told of his assignment in 2 Corinthians 10:13-16 where he says, "But we will not boast beyond limits, but will boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us, to reach even to you. For we are not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach you. For we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Christ. We do not boast beyond limit in the labors of others. But our hope is that as your faith increases our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged, so that we may preach the gospel in lands beyond you, without boasting of work already done in another's area of influence." (ESV)
In the spirit of this passage of scripture we state our goal as an organization.
WME's goal is to facilitate church planting movements worldwide with special emphasis in Latin America and among an unreached people group in the far east. Specifically our goal is to plant 100,000 reproducing churches and reach the assigned people group (name kept private for security reasons) by the year 2030.

That is our mission and on that Big Picture we will keep our eyes as we move forward into 2010. In the 2nd Blog for 2010, I will consider the Bottom Line.

A Wonderful Year For WME

2009-12-30T22:36:00.005-06:00

Here is a brief last word for 2009. It is one of praise to God for His faithfulness and blessings to World Missions and Evangelism. I really believe that this has been the most significant year in the history of our organization.

WME was founded in 1988 to be a ministry of helps for 1 missionary. After focusing our strategic work on church planting, WME helped train church planters between 2000 and 2008 and through their work, planted 212 churches. WME was introduced to the church planting movement strategy in 2005 and 2006 and decided to launch a cpm project in Honduras. The foundation for this was laid in 2007, and the project launched in 2008. The story of that launch and project can be read in the articles posted on this blog during the last 2 years.

That brings us to 2009. Here in a nutshell is a report of where WME is and what has happened this year.

1. WME continues to facilitate missionaries in 20 nations on every continent except Antartica!

2. WME has seen the Honduras project multiply from about 25 locations to over 300 locations this year.

3. WME has experienced amazing advances and answers to prayer this year, including a successful short term trip to do access ministries in Honduras. Answers to prayer including healing have been seen.

4. In addition to the multiplying cpm project in Honduras, WME personel have been able to do some level of cpm training in Mexico and in Kenya. A special training is scheduled for January 2010 in south Mexico, and about 70 people have expressed interest in further training in Kenya. Also, our HCPM team has facilitated additional training for other groups in Honduras, including 2 different denominations. Our missionary, Keith Travis has begun new inductive studies in south Mexico already.

5. In the midst of grave economic conditions that are pressuring many mission agencies and ministries in order to survive, God has brought WME through this year and all of the projects that we have started have been completed. We are looking forward to a fresh start in 2010.

In short, God has answered prayer for WME and WME is now operating ministries in more locations that at any time in our 21 year history. WME is looking forward to this coming year with prayer and anticipation for what God will do and how He will use this organization and it's workers to advance the Gospel and multiply disciples for Jesus Christ. Overall WME wants to be used by the Lord for His purpose of fulfilling the Great Commission in the earth.

Thanks for everything to the Lord. And a special thank you to all of the supporting churches and individuals who are making it all possible by God's grace. Your faithfulness is appreciated more than we can ever communicate.

I close this blog with a testimony that was sent to me a few days ago. It is from one of the Kenyan leaders who attended the Leadership seminar and cpm teaching that our team conducted in October in western Kenya. This man is a true world changer and it was an honor to meet him and give him some encouragement in his work. His name is Joseph and here is his brief testimony: (I have edited a bit of his letter for security reasons)

Hi David and the family I hope you are alright.

We are all ok in the Lord.

I am Joseph from Kenya and we met at the Leaders Conference.

It is my prayer that the Lord has been doing great in your family and the ministry.

We are also fine in the Lord still fulfilling the Great Commission.

It was a great moment to share with you on my ministry. Since then the Lord has been good and I have experienced his protection.

I went to Northern side of the country with a team of 10 people to evangelize. 95% of the residents is Muslim. Our first day was successful but the second day things were tough and 7 out of 10 in the group left us and were left only 3. On the third day as we witnessed we were kidnapped and held in a house. The kidnappers threatened to kill us unless we denounce Christianity and turn to Islam. After three days God brought a confusion and they started fighting among themselves. One of them was stabbed to death in our presence so that we can be afraid. The Lord strengthened us and we stood firm.

On the fifth day there the power of the Holy Spirit fell on the kidnappers and 3 of them surrendered their lives to Christ.They freed us and since they could be killed we had to leave with them to a safer place until their faith is strong. We suffered a great ordeal but the Lord was with us. WE SERVE A MIGHTY GOD WHO IS ALWAYS WITH US!

Remind the church to pray for those brethren since we will use them to penetrate in those territories.

We are in short of evangelism materials such as leaflets, handouts, films, audio cassettes, and we are appealing to Christians to help us with them to enable us penetrate where others can't reach.

May the almighty God bless you and have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year

Together united in Spirit.

JOSEPH