A Missionary Movement Is Born—the Church on the March.
Bill Davis and Ted Lindwall have been good friends since 1954 and have been missionary partners for the last twenty years. Davis’s organization has published Lindwall’s mission field-based training and disciple-making materials since 1997. Inspired by Davis, Lindwall established the Church on the March for the purpose of uniting missionaries, churches and denominational and missionary organizations in an international network dedicated to fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission. This ministry grew out of Lindwall’s 45 years of service in Guatemala, 37 of which were as a missionary of the International Mission Board, SBC. Upon retirement, he dedicated his efforts to teaching and spreading the neglected disciple-making strategy taught by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20. He worked to complete a small library of disciple-making Bible studies, children’s Bible studies and basic training materials for Christian workers, missionaries and church planters. The ministry began to spread to the United States and to other countries and took on new strength with the legal formation of the Church on the March in 2015.
The Church on the March is different from that of most missionary organizations in that it is, first of all, a missionary network and not just a mission organization. In it, missionaries, missionary organizations and churches join together in a fellowship of Great Commission disciple-makers, using strategies and materials developed by the organization and printed by Church Starts International. Pastors, missionaries and missionary leaders are encouraged to study this web page and consider becoming a part of this voluntary network as also are Southern Baptist denominational leaders and workers. The five-member board of directors currently includes an associational missionary, a pastor of a prominent Southern Baptist church, a Southern Baptist ethnic leader and a Southern Baptist pastor who is a retired missionary of the International Mission Board, SBC.
The Church on the March is also different from many organizations in that its purpose is to inspire and help churches practice the Great Commission by making disciples of large sectors of society found that are most open to the gospel but often neglected by Christian workers. Its goal is the conversion and spiritual transformation of entire communities and people groups. This was first seen in an experience of its founder back in 1963.
