This web page has been completely changed during this month of June. Within a month’s time, we expect to start posting free access to the disciple-making tools that have made possible the ministries described on this web page.
We Southern Baptists rightly admit to many faults. It is not by accident, however, that God has made us the largest Evangelical denomination in the United States. We were favored by humble beginnings, have clung to the Bible as our guide, build lives on gospel teaching and preaching, and have learned to cooperate with one another in the task. We knew from the beginning that God created the church as His primary and permanent instrument for the disciple-making of communities and nations.
The first Christians were gathered together in a church and as they spread out across the world, they started churches in every community. Many mission efforts today bypass the church, but do so to their loss. What we call “the Church on the March” is simply a cooperative network of volunteers with the one purpose of helping and encouraging churches, their pastors and their members to live out the Great Commission every day in every possible place. This is what God is wanting, and that is why He is prospering all that we set out to do.
Christian rugged individuals, of whom there are many, have courageous Paul as their special saint. Many fail to see, however, that Paul was a constant team-builder. He set the example, always displaying it in the sight of others who helped him and who would soon form teams of their own. Christ was the greatest team builder, with the Twelve as his basic working group and the 72 as his wider invasion force. Was it accidental that the 72, divided into six teams, had 12 men in each? Did Jesus put a pair of his Apostles over each of the six teams of 12? Did Jesus use organization to better achieve God’s purposes? Successful revolutions have always used teams. This is even more true of Christ’s revolution and the selflessness of Christ’s anointed servants makes such cooperation normal and powerful.
For many reasons, God’s Revolutions begin at the bottom and not at the top. Top-down efforts may bring enforced reformation, but not internal transformation. Jesus, therefore, gathered leaders from the bottom rungs of Jewish society rather than from among the established rulers of the nation. The outcasts of society loved him while the rulers of society saw to his killing. The Wesleyan Revival, worked like leaven among the poor illiterate and drunken masses and transformed English society in ways its kings and prelates could never do. The bottom of society is the most open to change. It has greatest need of it and is the most open to the voice of God’s spiritual revolution.
God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.. 1 Corinthians 1:27-2 In Paul’s day, Bible scholars say, most church members were bond-slaves. The gospel was born among the blue-blood descendants of Abraham. While these increasingly turned away from the gospel, the spiritually-ignorant pagans replaced them in huge numbers. In Spain, most Evangelicals are Gypsies, the most despised and abused people in society. Who have the weakest voices and least places of power in American society today? The national transformation will begin among them. Our greatest privilege Is to join them and call them to the greatness God has prepared for them.
When entering a building, we look for free-swinging doors rather than to break holes in the walls. Going through the doors, we have much freedom in all the house. Look, children are spiritually much wiser and more open to God than are adults. Children, when won and trained, are powerful spiritual-change agents in the families, though few Christian ministries take advantage of this fact or know how to do so. Look, young adults hold the keys to the future of our nation and are, historically, the most sacrificial soldiers in any revolution. But we fail to see this and let our young adults drift into meaninglessness rather than become the flag bearers of Christ’s revolution. Look, in most communities, it is hard to find people to give you more than one minute in a spiritual conversation. Many prisoners, in contrast, will give you hours—and not just because they have time on their hands. Look, other large but supposedly “low value” groups are overlooked by the world, and, therefore, by the Church. These all open wide doors for the transforming work of God in our nation and our culture. Look, Christian revolutionaries, open your eyes.
The reader is invited here to examine great doors of gospel opportunity that are swinging open to him or to her in today’s world. For a single church or organization, these are doors that can lead to the transformation of thousands of lives on foreign mission fields and on the mission field that surrounds the reader’s church and home. It is not an appeal primarily for GIVING, but for DOING. It will offer free field-tested disciple-making tools in multiple languages along with uniquely developed strategies for reaching whole neighborhoods and cities. It will offer foreign mission service activities and, in doing so, lays out novel mission strategies and opportunities to readers who may choose to join or may prefer to act alone.
It seeks volunteers for many kinds of ministries that can be done in one’s house, neighborhood, church or international mission field. It is based entirely on the Great Commission as given in Matthew 28:18-20. It, hopefully, will inspire both denominational and free-standing mission organizations to work for higher returns in terms of new-born souls, growing churches and transformed families and communities. It is the product of decades of much-blest missionary service. Hopefully, it is a gift of God to you, the reader and to those with whom you minister.