World Missions & Evangelism, Inc.

To all of you who have been following the articles on the WME blog, let me ask for your special prayers for a major outreach that is about to happen in Honduras. As you know, WME has a permanent team in western Honduras that is conducting community development ministries and beginning inductive Bible studies as initial steps in church planting. The project is going very well and as of now, has begun 1st, 2 nd , and 3rd generation studies. We are very excited about what is happening there. So now a team of 16 people are preparing to travel to Honduras in the coming days. The trip is May 30 through June 6. This short term team will be assisting the permanent team in community development ministries. The team plans to help with painting a school, drilling a water well, and distribution of school supply backpacks to hundreds of children in several villages. They will also be learning about the principles of church planting movements. Please pray for this outreach. Our hope is th...

In the November 5 blog article, I talked about the 1:8 principle. It is a comparison of Joshua 1:8 and Acts 1:8. As I first began to go deeper into the church planting movement principles, I was struck by the critical element that "all you need to begin is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit". It interested me that the two "1:8" scriptures (the first to Israel as they launched out on their "great commission" and the second to the church as it launched out on its mission) highlighted these two elements respectively: the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. That is why I chose Joshua 1:1-8 to recommend as a 3 column study for those who would like to learn this process. In this installment I will report from my 3 column sheet on this passage, focusing just on verse 8. I do this both to illustrate the process and to share the fruit of the study. The previous 7 verses set the stage and the context. Moses has died and God now tells Joshua to enter the land. ...

The 3 Column Bible study method is a fundamental part of the process of cpm . This method of Bible study is beneficial to an individual and it is foundational to a small group discovery Bible study which is the foundational unit of church planting. Let me take you through the basics of it and then try it yourself. Take a regular 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper and turn it on its side. Then draw 2 vertical lines down the whole sheet so that you have created 3 approximately same sized columns. Begin on the left column and write at the top of the sheet the word "SCRIPTURE". Then at the top of the middle column write the words "MY WORDS". Then at the top of the third column write the words "I WILL". In the SCRIPTURE column you will write out the passage of scripture that you are studying word for word. Someone might ask, why must the passage be written, I can just read it. But if you are doing this for your own study, it is important that you write it. As yo...

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

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

I just returned, a week ago, from a powerful conference on church planting movements around the world. David Watson was the main speaker and case studies and presentations were given from several others as well. At least 18 mission agencies were represented, including WME . You can check out that conference at churchplantingroundtable .com. The agencies represented are fully committed to the Lord Jesus Christ and His mission of completing the great commission. It was a great privilege to be a part of this meeting. At the same time, our world seems to be going through very turbulent times. Worldwide economies are causing people to wonder what is ahead. So here we are in a time of unequaled challenge (the global crises that face us all) and unequaled opportunity (the prospect of seeing church planting movements multiply worldwide helping to bring closure on the great commission). Here is a scripture that I think should be in our minds at this moment in history. Ecclesiastes 11:4-...

Since the emergence of church planting movements around the world in the early 1990s, there have been several lists of what we call critical elements. The earliest one that I have seen had 9 critical elements. Then the list became 10 in David Garrison's books. When I first heard David Watson speak, the notes he gave us listed 17, but he verbally added an 18 th . Bob Robert's book, The Multiplying Church, lists 19 (this is the list that I expounded in this blog in late 2008). In David Watson's blog at davidlwatson .org, his April 4, 2008 posting lists 20, and in a personal conversation with him in Honduras last December, he added a 21st! (The addition was group dynamic, so check out his April 4 blog and add that to it and you have the whole current list.....at least for today!) The interesting thing to me is that as the years have passed and as the lists have been modified to more accurately reflect what God is doing in church planting movements around the world, the first i...