As you may remember, I have been working with an entire network of churches seeking to increase their impact in world missions in their part of the globe. I met at a regional missions conference that was attended by over 380 people, a record attendance. Several of the pastors challenged more to dedicate themselves to becoming missionaries and for each church to invest at least 10% of their income for missions. I was asked to speak in two sessions on cross cultural missions and what makes a church missions minded. The participants were all challenged to think, pray, welcome refugees, and boldly act in missions as God calls them.
For the first time I was able to meet face-to-face with 5 of their 107 missionaries reaching at least 14 UPGs. This really helped me in understanding how to go about training these current missionaries and the nearly 200 new missionaries they hope to send out within the next two years. Most of their missionaries only last about 5 years before they return home. We hope they will now stay 15 years or more. This network has targeted one area of unreached people where they hope to plant 15 churches over the next ten years. I was able to meet with the key leaders who were at our strategy meeting in June and further their planning to fulfill their goals in mission. We will meet online soon this fall and in person next year.
