The Evangelists Committee is encouraged by the continued progress that God
is producing in our worldwide fellowship of churches. More souls are being saved
and our geographic regions are getting stronger, healthier, and more functionally
dynamic. The American churches just completed their first American Leadership
Conference hosted by the Boston Church. The ALC was a tremendous success, addressing
the growth needs of our churches through workshops broken down by size. Douglas
Arthur and the entire Boston leadership are to be commended for this inspirational
conference.
The committee is also encouraged by the response to our upcoming 2012
World Discipleship Summit in San Antonio, Texas July 5-8, 2012. Already
over 3300 have registered. The Summit will host 8 conferences going on at the
same time. Each evening we will all come together for worship services of over
10,000. These will be the largest worship services in the history of our fellowship.
The development for a unified curriculum has made great progress in the last
several months. We have developed a consensus among the Evangelists, Elders
and Teachers service teams to pursue a course of action that will develop a
program that can be implemented around the world in the training of our ministry
staff. The proposal is before the Delegates for their approval in Budapest this
December. Perhaps the most exciting development is the formation of a Board
of Development that would be comprised of representatives from the Elders, Teachers
and Evangelist groups; this Board will help us shape the concepts and oversee
the development of the curriculum.
During our last few meetings with the Delegates, we taught and disseminated
information to everyone on the Best Practices of a Healthy Region that we felt
were taking place in our fellowship. We are encouraging and helping regional
families of churches around the world to develop and publish their own 2020
Vision. We also encouraged the collection of some statistics on an annual basis,
relating to church growth. Last year, a collective attempt was made for the
first time and they were sent to Roger Lamb, Chair of the Communication &
Administration Team for consolidation. These numbers were given out to all members
of the Evangelist Committee when they met earlier in 2011. Discussions took
place informally among themselves on the progress of the churches in their regions.
We hope that this trend will continue and that churches and regions that are
healthy will be able to continue to help others that have been experiencing
road blocks, such as increasing in growth and unity. For this reason the global
Delegates Conference for 2011 is being held in Budapest to provide inspiration
and encouragement to the churches in Europe.
The 2011 Delegate Meeting in Budapest promises to be our most productive yet.
We will study these lesson topics together: (1) Vision & Faith, (2) Unity,
(3) Mission, and (4) Discipling. We will not only be able to have great fellowship
and vote on the proposals, but we will also have a time for our group of Delegates
to be in the creation of direction, and ideas. In a constructive way, this plan
expands our tank of ideas and cultural and global experiences. Also our perspectives
grow from a group of 17 to a group of 100. This changes the dynamic from Delegates
just coming together to be "informed", to our actually working together.
We will seek God’s guidance in 6 areas where many people feel there needs
to be global collaboration. Everyone will be able to participate and provide
insight, ideas, and convictions for the various topics. We believe that will
be a great opportunity for the Spirit to work in an amazing way!
Missions SubCommittee Progress Report
The purpose of the missions committee has been:
• to access the opportunities and resources we have on a global scale
to fulfill our mission.
• to evaluate our efficiency and organization in accomplishing God’s
mission around the world.
This year our focus has been to address the financial needs of ‘giving
churches’ and ‘receiving churches’. Our proposal to the international
Delegates Meeting is for the ‘giving churches’ to maintain a consistent
or yearly missions offering through 2020. This commitment to missions would
allow the receiving churches to focus on building their churches. Our evaluation
showed that many receiving churches still spend too much time year after year
traveling to different churches seeking and scrambling for support. This affects
their ability to build a multiplying ministry, which would save more souls and
inspire the “giving churches.”
Our proposal and the ultimate goal for the ‘receiving churches’
is to move towards self-sufficiency. We recommend the model used by the African
churches that has been effective to support missions within their local geographic
areas. Their model includes a 5-point practical plan. Our committee recommends
this platform be shared with all ‘receiving churches’ for consideration
and implementation. This plan involves eliminating wasteful spending by monitoring
and evaluating church expenses as well as establishing boards with a clear mission
and vision for their geographic area including quarterly reports and proper
church audits. Also, we are encouraging a five year challenge to grow, raise
up leaders and invest in next generation ministries.
Bruce Williams,
Bruce Williams, Mike Taliaferro Chairmen
Africa -- Kris Ogbonnaya, Steve Mukenya
Asia / Pacific -- Dinesh George, John Louis, Steve Chin
Canada / US -- Doug Arthur, John Causey, John Porter, Mike Fontenot, Scott Green
Eurasia -- Alexey Donskoy, Andy Fleming, Shawn Wooten
Mexico & Central America -- Javier Amaya, Pedro Garcia
South America -- John Reus
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