May 24, 2018 | God's Work, Live Missionally, Mobilize Others
“I’ve never led a Bible study. I’ve never been on a mission trip. I’ve never been baptized. I’ve never been a member of a church, and I’ve never approached an unreached person with the intent of sharing my faith. I’ve never talked with a stranger about God; I’ve never joined a worship team, and I’ve never joined a Christian organization outside of church—that is, until now.” John, a senior at Texas A&M University, recently shared these compelling words about how God has been shaping his heart for the nations throughout his college years. CMM mobilizer, Chris, had known John for years, and invited him to go through the Xplore study. Doing this study together served as the catalyst for a much longer, deeper discipleship relationship. “John is always responsive to challenges,” said Chris. “I don’t have to invite him twice.” When Chris challenged John to begin taking small steps to implement what he learned in Xplore, he responded by starting conversations with his international classmates. He also invited a friend to join the Xplore study with him and Chris. As Chris was mobilizing John, John was mobilizing his friend! John began to see that God was positioning people around him in everyday life for a purpose. He regularly played basketball at the rec center with international students, but had never before seen it as a potential ministry. He began to see those games as an opportunity to meet those who had never before heard the gospel. God began positioning John in places where he’d have more open doors to befriend people with whom he normally would not cross paths....
May 3, 2018 | Live Missionally, Mobilize Families
Nearly 40 parents and pastors gathered together in a back room, on the top floor of a factory office building. Everyone removed SIM cards from and gave up their cell phones for the duration of the training. They were sleeping on mats on the floor throughout the building; there was no heat and the temperatures were near freezing. Only a small handful of participants ventured outside the gates of the factory compound. All of this was done in order to avoid raising suspicion and alerting the Chinese authorities to the fact that there was a large group of people meeting in this place. This was the first BIG Story Training to take place in China. Developed by Weave, a ministry of the CMM, the BIG Story Training (BST) is all about God’s plan to redeem a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation—and specifically about the role He invites families and children to play in His big story. Through this training, we want to help parents see that God has a plan for their whole family to be involved in spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth, and to give them tangible ways to do just that. In more than 10 years of doing ministry in China, I have never experienced an event with security as tight as it was for this training. It amazes me to see what local believers are willing to do and sacrifice so they can grow in understanding the Lord’s purposes. “I know that we are all nervous,” one of our hosts said before the training began. “But nothing happens without God’s...
Apr 26, 2018 | God's Work, Live Missionally, Mobilize Others
“I have to tell you what happened yesterday!” my teacher said as I sat down for our weekly Chinese class. Thursday was quickly becoming one of my favorite days, as I knew the moment I walked in the door she would have a story. My teacher, Di Laoshi, was working through the Xplore study with some other teammates, and it was starting to shake things up in her life. After each Xplore lesson, she would come in with a simple, yet profound revelation and a practical step of obedience. At first, they were small: “I didn’t know there were so many unreached people in the world.” Or “it’s so amazing that God wants to use the Chinese church to grow his kingdom.” But then one day, she came to me and said, “I’ve been going to the minority university to share the gospel every week after work for months now. But every time I see someone from a minority, I get so scared. I’m used to sharing with people who look like me.” She continued to explain that Han people are not intimidating because she understands them and shares a cultural identity with them. But certain minorities, specifically rural mountain dwelling peoples from West China, have a reputation for being dangerous and hateful toward their Han counterparts. The cultural and racial clashes are very real and deeply ingrained. “Yesterday I was praying,” she continued with a smile, “and I told God that I don’t want to be afraid because I know His love is for all people. Even the ones who are different from me.” Soon after her prayer,...
Apr 19, 2018 | God's World, Live Missionally, Mobilize Others
“Interacting with an unreached people was very edifying for me,” said Jerome after being led through Xplore and visiting an unreached tribe. “It gave me confidence and courage to serve the Lord. I no longer lament insignificant treasures, because now I see that there are those who are suffering more than me.” Jerome was a student at the Summer School of Missions, founded by Eraston, a CMM Global Affiliate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Eraston founded the school to mobilize Congolese believers to take the gospel into conflict zones and unreached areas throughout the war-torn country. The median age of the DRC’s population is 19, and while Eraston believes it is strategic to mobilize these young people, he has also found that they are often intimidated by the violence and financial insecurity they face on the mission field in a country at war. “This is due to the fact that both the church and its youth are lacking information and missionary training.” Eraston said. To provide this necessary training, he started the Summer School of Missions, a multi-week hands-on intensive course on the biblical basis for mission that requires an in depth study of Xplore. The French translation of Xplore has provided Eraston with a platform to share God’s heart for the nations. After leading a group of students through Xplore in just one week last summer, Eraston took the class to visit a nearby Pygmy tribe. The Pygmies have a long history of exploitation by outsiders, and are wary of missionaries. This sort of resistance, Eraston thought, would provide a great atmosphere for the students to...
Apr 12, 2018 | Live Missionally, Mobilize Others
She sat across the room from us, a short girl with a strong presence. We had never seen her at one of our monthly meetings of mission mobilizers in Peru before. The pointedness of the questions she asked immediately caught my attention. Latinos are not usually straightforward or direct in their conversations, and as an American from New Jersey this rare quality in Latin America appealed to me. We had no idea then just how close we would get with her. Yussei (pictured front left) is a youth pastor at a small church in San Juan de Lurigancho, one of the districts on the outskirts of the greater of Lima, Peru metropolitan area. She had been involved with her local church for years, but had struggled with the idea of a global focus in ministry versus a local one. She had some involvement in mission projects before, as they are understood in her church. But she always understood global and local as competing ministries, not complimentary ones. “At the beginning it is feared that by having a vision for the world I would lose my attention for the house (local church),” she says. “We are afraid to invest time, talent and treasure in the global mission because we feel it would cause us to lose investment in the local. But nothing is further from the truth. When we open our lives and ministries to the global purpose of God, we truly begin to fulfill our local purpose as well, and God opens his heart and His treasures.” As we befriended her and began to share more and more with...
Apr 5, 2018 | God's Work, God's World, Live Missionally
In Kenya, it is easy for a student to get stuck in the “cycle of life.” As young adults, Kenyans are expected to get good grades in school so that they can go to a good university, make good grades, get a good job, make a lot of money and provide for their family. Their children are then expected to repeat this cycle, and so on. These very same expectations were upon Alice Kalunda. When we first met Alice, she was a junior at Kenyatta University studying world religions. She had a heart for missions, but life and societal pressures discouraged her from pursuing that calling. Instead, she wanted to study world religions in order to serve as a teacher in local schools throughout Kenya. Because Alice had this passion for missions, she was really excited to meet missionaries from America. We were able to take Alice and her friends through the Xplore study, and it was like she was seeing the world for the first time. She was overwhelmed with some of the things she was learning. She had no clue there were people in the world who have never heard about Jesus. Before the Xplore study, she read the Bible as a random collection of stories with her at the center, instead of reading it as as one story, with one theme: the glory of God filling the earth! All of this information was so exciting for her that she started gathering all her friends to learn these same things. We were overwhelmed with how many people she was inviting to go through an Xplore study. Eventually,...
