Here’s the way one church is doing it. One congregation in Louisville formed a partnership with a mission organization there (in this case, Team Expansion). They invested 6 months in a study on how to form up new unreached peoples projects. The leadership studied unreached peoples, prayed together, then set aside a 30-day period to gather prospective unreached people challenges. At the end of the 30 days, one of the committee members proposed a certain location/people in the Middle East. The Committee prayed about it and became convinced it was a God-given call. They asked the church to participate in “30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World” during Ramadan in ’07. About 450 individuals participated. They then did a 30-day prayer emphasis for the prospective nation. Then they sent a two-person exploratory team. Upon their return, they reported back to the leadership what they had found. The leadership became further convinced that this was a God-given call. The church invested 6 months in Concerts of Prayer to ask for a team leader to serve as point person for the on-site team.
Most recently, they wrapped up those 6 months of prayer concerts by staging a special missions fair. At the close of their service, answering the call was a young couple with exactly the right mix of Bible college, on-field experience, and desire to work with an unreached Muslim group. Joining them were several key facilitators, ready and willing to serve. During the final stage of the invitation, some 200 adults stepped out to surround them in prayer. It was an extremely emotional time. The church then did a picnic lunch and the project is now heading into the next step of the sequence.
Would you tell about a project that you or your church might be launching? It might be very similar, or totally different. Either way, we’ll praise God for the way he’s at work around the world. Just click on “Comment” below. Tell your story and thereby encourage others in the realization that God is at work around the world.
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