ECHO 2/3/09

PR Highlights

• Notice: a lot of pregnancies
• A praise to highlight: Whitney Stire’s sight is preserved.
• Russian men: received visas, God has provided abundantly. These are hard to get.
• Matt & Rachel Floreen: please pray for their support levels as they share their vision with churches in the States

 

Alan Luciano (Philippines)

• John 4:35 – the fields are white for harvest!
• We took a trip to the Philippines for teaching
• Indeed there’s a harvest!
• We worked with TMS grads to conduct a weeklong hermeneutics seminar. Attended by 80 people. 50 men, 30 women.
  • There were a lot of Compassion Int’l people
  • Pastors, children’s ministry workers
  • And a few pastors from White Fields
  • We had Bible workshops
  • Also on the last day, we had separate mens/womens sessions.
• The Body of Christ in the Philippines is VERY hungry.
  • A lot of evangelical witness here BUT the depth of knowledge there is very shallow.
    • On par with an FoF class at GCC
  • There’s a real need & hunger for training here.
  • Pastors are very ill-equipped
  • The physical poverty here is a picture of the spiritual poverty
  • The Catholic church is very prevalent here
  • The pastors here are well-connected with each other. We train one pastor, and he refers us to 20 more! Opportunities abound.
  • Sean and Mark, two of our missionaries over there, are likely to overstretch themselves. So many opportunities!
  • There’s a huge need for more expo preaching. There’s really no local church in the Philippines that demonstrate expo preaching

 

The Future Faces of Missions – GCC Missionary Candidates (Kevin Edwards)

• There are many in the pipeline! Clearly we need to beg the Lord to provide support for these precious families.
• Welcome, UCLA. It’s our hope that God would really use many of you for the cause of missions.
• The people I’m about to present, not all of them will be sent. And some we’ll send aren’t here on this list
• Latin America
  • Mexico: 1
  • Brazil: 2
  • Argentina: 2
• Asia
  • Lebanon: 2. There’s big opportunities here, because it’s one of few Muslim countries that isn’t closed in the sense that a Muslim can become a Christian without it being a crime
  • China: we got 2 missionaries over there. 3 more coming!
  • Philippines: the national church there is good at spreading and planting, but definitely there’s a huge thirst for more solid teaching. 1 more coming!
• Africa
  • Malawi: 1
  • South Africa: 1
• Europe
  • Spain: 1
  • Germany: 2
  • Italy: 2
• And 6 more undecided.
• Money has never been a show-stopper for missionaries at GCC. We trust God to continue to provide that

 

STM Update

• Often a heart for missions begins with an STM
• Applications still open for a few weeks
• A great opp here!
• If you’re thinking about missions long term, an STM is a great start. You get to see missionaries in their native environment
• France, Czech Repub STMs still need team leaders. If you wanna lead, please come talk to the coordinator.
• Sign up on the web (gracechurch.org/stm) if you’re interested
• Please consider an STM at least once. You’ll not come back the same! Guaranteed.

 

John Snyder (Samara, Russia)

• IMO Samara is one of the great stories in modern missions
• SAMARA acrostic. What’s Samara all about?
• S – Spiritual leaders (2Cor 5:9)
  • 1998 – Victor Ragusov
  • Was a pastor for 20 years.
  • Came to a preacher’s conference a few years back, and therefore wanted to make many changes, because he wants to please God!
  • Made the pulpit in the center of the church
  • Made verse-by-verse exposition a priority
  • Sent a request to GCC: “come and help us!”
  • PRAY that you’ll serve with the kind of leader who’ll make serious changes if he realizes it Biblically.
• A – Answered prayers (Phil 4:4-7)
  • 1999 – short-term trip
  • Pastor Victor’s request was heard. GCC sent an STM
  • And I (John) was totally captured. Beware the STM
  • And since then, it’s been 8 of the most blessed years of my life!
  • A room jam-packed with men who were hungry to learn. Come and help us!
  • I came back to the States and I told my wife… apprehensive if my wife would agree to moving to Russia
  • I came back, and she was more than ready!
  • Praise the Lord, He richly provided
• M – Missions-minded churches (Phil 4:18)
  • 2000 – support raising
  • Golden piece of advice, if you want success in your ministry: find a church with a mindset for missions
  • A church with fervent fanatics for prayer! Beg them to pray for you! The Apostle Paul did it in all his epistles!
  • THAT’s the kind of church you want to be sent out by!
• A – Amazing Grace (2Tim 2:1-2)
  • Samara Preacher’s Institute!
  • 285+ grads! Faithful 2Tim 2:2 men!
• R – The Russian brethren (1Cor 16:20)
  • They are so precious
  • They are such an encouragement
  • They love us here at GCC, and pray for us as well
  • Be sure you go love the people you serve once you get there!
• A – All of you (Eph 6:18-20)
  • God has answered your prayers here! It’s been amazing!
  • People are getting saved, the workers are going out to the white harvest.
  • PLEASE keep praying!!!

 

GCC Missionary Conference – Israel 2008 (Brad Armstrong, Shannon’s dad!)

• Every 2 years, there’s a GCC Missionaries Conference. All the GCC missionaries worldwide gather together.
• Hard to come up with new superlatives for this trip. Just amazing
• Missionary fellowship
  • They all get to interact with each other and feed each others’ flames J Iron sharpening iron. Stories shared.
  • The Believers’ Foundation: they provide a lot of funding for our GCC missionaries.
  • The kids got a good time to play and have fun too
• Worship
  • Mike Mahoney got to lead us. It was totally wonderful
  • We got to experience really rich, full Body life
• Teaching
  • Mark Borisuk, Irv Busenitz and Rick Holland came and taught
  • Got to sit in the stadium where Paul almost converted Herod (Acts)
• Prayer
  • These missionaries are so fervent and strong in praying for us at GCC and for each other
  • Lots and lots of passionate and very encouraging prayer times.
  • A really special time
• Updates from GCC
  • They were SO encouraged to hear about Commitment To The Commission. A lot of them were having financial troubles lately.
• Ministry to Missionaries
  • ECHO meetings with missionary teams
  • ECHO elders – 1 on 1 meetings with missionaries. Encourage and keep up on them. How can we as GCC help you?
  • Financial meetings with Brian Milam
• Women’s Ministry
  • Really encouraging, since missionary wives can feel isolated sometimes
• Children’s Ministry
  • Very encouraging: the leaders of the time, the wife found out she had thyroid cancer right before the conference, but they still came because they really thought the children’s ministry mattered
• Biblical Understanding Enhanced
  • We got to see a lot of rich history
  • Where Jesus walked…
  • Where Peter preached in Acts…
  • Where some future events in Revelation speak of…
• The sun never sets on Grace Church missions overseas… J
  • It’s mind-boggling and so wonderful
• The next one will be back here at GCC!

 

Next month is Shepherd’s Conference.

We meet as a missionary family at the Dining Commons at the Master’s College for ECHO. Not here at GCC.

Missionaries and nationals from the countries

ECHO 1/13/08

Wow. Just wow. It’s honestly hard to describe with words how inspiring it is to hear missionaries talk about their ministries, how crazily God is working, and how much they seriously love it. It’s like Let the Nations Be Glad Living Edition. “I never made a sacrifice.”

I was going to send these notes to the people who went to the meeting, but I figure pasting it here into the blog would make it more profitable for whoever wants to read it. Skim it, read it in full, whatever you like. Be blessed by what God’s doing around the world. Better yet, check out an ECHO meeting for yourself!

ECHO Meeting 1-13-08

• Matt & Rachel Floreen will leave in March for Malawi. Right now, raising support across the US.
• Kevin Edwards leaving Friday morning for Manila & Singapore to meet with Ray Choy, Sean Random, and Roger Ng. Pray for all these men, and for Kevin Edwards traveling mercies.
• Todd Dick: Croatia since 1998
  • God has really blessed language acquisition abilities. Has been very fruitful as a result.
  • Kids all go to Croatian public schools. Useful for language acquisition since the kids have no accent
  • Objectives
    • Leadership development: training future pastors in Croatia
      • 4 year Bible school. Men from many countries (Bosnia, Slovenia, Hungary, etc). 14 graduates so far.
      • Expositor’s Conference. 3-4 day conference. Challenge, encourage, equip current preachers. Incite hunger for expository preaching amongst Croatians
    • Church planting
      • Croatia is 98% Roman Catholic
      • There are about 40 Baptist churches in Croatia. The pastors are basically just the 1^st converts in their villages. Very poorly equipped.
      • The situation’s even worse in neighboring countries.
      • Honestly, our goal here is for the next generation. Let the next generation hunger for the Word of God. Realistically, it’ll take an entire generation to undo much of the damage of false teaching.
      • Slovenia has very little evangelical churches. This is a very frontier type of work we’re doing
  • Many believers in Slovenia/Croatia are pretty lonely, since they get forsaken by their Catholic families once they come to Christ. The church is pretty family here.
  • Croatia is a VERY young country. Things are SO VERY ripe. Peoples’ faces absolutely LIGHT UP when the Word of God is unfolded for (sometimes) for the first time!
  • I do weddings and funerals for free. That makes me in pretty high demand. SO MANY opportunities for the Gospel. It’s positively crazy.
  • This has been the greatest, greatest thrill in my entire life. I wouldn’t trade it for ANYTHING else. It’s absolutely mind-blowing. There’s nothing better.
  • Gypsy village ministry
    • Around 100 kids come every week.
    • A lot of time spent talking to parents. A lot of evangelizing going on.
  • God has been VERY gracious. Permanent visa granted by the government. Croatia wants to be in the EU, so there’s not much pressure from the government.
• Lance Roberts: Kromeriz, Czech Republic since 2001
  • 70% atheist, 0.25% evangelical
  • Just like Croatia, it’s a desert land spiritually. Hardly any witness for Christ. 500 years ago was the last time the Word was faithfully preached.
  • There’s one young pastor, who’s one of the only that I know who street EVs.
  • Church planting is so very necessary. Training centers don’t have many students because the churches don’t raise up anybody who cares! The churches are dead.
  • The Czech Republic is very frontier.
    • Our generation isn’t going to see much. It’ll be the next gen. One generation plants the tree, the next enjoys the shade.
    • There are no recommendable churches in Prague! The capital! The land is very dry.
  • There are 3 towns nearby. Our prayer is that men in our church would rise up and plant churches in those towns.
  • Andre is our church’s pastoral intern. I don’t have a seminary. I have one student. It’s pure joy! Pray for this brother.
  • There’s quite a lot of charismatic/liberal opposition from other Christians. We’d like translate the Mac Study Bible, but these present roadblocks.
• Tim Cantrell: Johannesburg, SA
  • We’re not officially enrolled missionaries at GCC. Because we are being supported by the national church. It’s enabled more strategic opps.
  • Some of the spiritual opposition in Africa, go read the article in the London Times: “An Atheist believes that what Africa needs most is Christian missionaries”
    • The crushing passivity of the peoples’ mindset. That’s tremendously oppressing to Africans.
    • Tribal belief suppresses individuality. It feeds into the big-man and gangster politics of big African cities. The inability to oppose a big swaggering leader
    • Removing Christian evangelism will leave Africa to the mercy of the malign fusion of Nike, witch doctor, the mobile phone, the machete, and the machine gun.
  • Grace Church indeed holds to this vision. To bring the transforming message of Jesus Christ to Africa.
  • Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep in Africa
  • My dad closed shop at his midlife and took his vet skills to Africa. That’s how God captured my heart, through my dad’s ministry
  • There’s a huge need for model churches in SA.
  • We’re part of Honeyridge Baptist Church. We want to be an Antioch for Africa.
  • We’re having the time of our lives.
  • There’s a huge need for model black Bible-preaching churches. Letting the locals minister is very strategic.
  • Resolved Africa 2010! Pray for an intern to come and prepare R:Africa.
  • 1Cor 16:9 – the Lord has opened a door to a great effective ministry. “Suffering and success” often come together.