So Many Villages

Recently we had a group of volunteers from Virginia in our home.  Their excitement to share all that God had done during their time in southeastern Zimbabwe in a rural area near Birchenough Bridge was contagious!  

Team members Chris Webb (front right) and Chris Hale (center) are from Gracelife Baptist Church in Christiansburg Virginia.   This church partnered with Zimbabwe several years ago to help us reach the Ndau.  Jonathan White, (front left) is the pastor of New Testament Baptist Church and Curtis Bryant represents Woodland Heights Free Will Baptist Church.   Also pictured is Tino, their driver and guide.  

The team shared how they did village to village evangelism.  The villages here are not large.  Each village contains a family unit often including grandparents, parents and children.  In the evenings services were held and the people they visited were invited to come.  The first night about 50 people came, but by the last night over 250 were in attendance.  During the week 46 people prayed to receive Christ.

They also enjoyed spending time with local school children and were invited back by the headmaster (principal) to come and teach the children again next time they come!

Curtis, at age 83, was remarkable.  Three months ago he met Chris Hale at a spiritual retreat.  Curtis had been sensing that God had something for him to do, but until this point had no idea what it was.  Chris felt led by God to invite Curtis on this mission trip.  Curtis said, “I didn’t even hesitate!  I just said YES!” 

Curtis was able to keep up with the group and was very sensitive to the needs and pain of those he encountered.  One lady in particular he remembered that he prays for everyday was an older woman who was no longer able to walk and who is in a great deal of pain.  He asks that you join him in praying for this woman – for her physical as well as spiritual healing.

Jonathan recalled that on the first day of visits they met a woman and her husband.   The woman was a believer but being submissive to her unbelieving husband had stopped going to church.   Jonathan witnessed to the man and he was convicted and prayed to receive Christ.   He came to the services each night with his wife.  His wife was beaming.   He had stopped drinking and other bad habits.   It was a powerful testimony to the community.   Please pray that he continues to keep off the old sinful nature and allow his new spiritual self to live in obedience to God and mature spiritually.

 “We had an interesting encounter in one village,”  said Chris Hale.   There was a man in the village whose father had been won to the Lord by earlier missionaries.  But none of his children had ever become believers.   We witnessed to the son who was now the head of this village and he prayed to receive Christ.   He immediately began to share the gospel with knowledge and authority to others.  He obviously had been taught the Bible by his father and knew it even if he was not a believer.   It is possible that this man could potentially become the leader of this new church. 

“What I saw that blessed me the most was our team unity,”  shared Chris Webb.  “Before this trip we did not all know one another, but God united our hearts and minds.”  

 

Another highlight for Chris, who is here for the third time, was getting to spend time with a young man he met on a previous trip who is a new believer.  This young man is hungry for God’s Word, for fellowship with believers and for doing God’s will.   He is another potential church leader.  

 

Jonathan remembered walking up to the top of a small mountain in the area where they were camped.  “Looking out over the valley filled with so many small villages we never got to was something I’ll never forget.”  

Pray that God would raise up laborers for the harvest among the believers in Zimbabwe who are obedient to Christ’s command to GO and MAKE DISCIPLES. . .

Obedience Based Discipleship Training (T4T)

Last week (6-10 July) Gregg and Donna Fort trained 19 men in Obedience Based Discipleship. 

  This is a process whereby from evangelism to discipleship to church formation to leadership training one moves seamlessly through with a plan of action for disciples every time they are willing to say yes to the next step.   It is a process commonly known as Training for Trainers (T4T) that is revolutionizing and multiplying the efforts of those involved in church planting both in the U.S. and around the world.  We are thankful to have received the training and now have the ability to train others.  

Please pray that these men who have been trained and are excited about what they have learned will put it into practice where they live and that they will find obedient, God-prepared people who will help multiply the work of the Kingdom of God on earth.  

Pray also that from these men we will be able to develop a training team that can train other faithful men and women throughout Zimbabwe in this proven process. 

A New Vision for the Baptist Leaders in Zimbabwe

Missionary Gregg Fort invited 15 key pastors and leaders of the Baptist Convention of Zimbabwe to a retreat where they were introduced to the church planting training that we attended earlier this year. Fort shared a basic overview of the training and then spent time casting vision for reaching the 10 million lost people in Zimbabwe. He stressed that EVERY person in Zimbabwe needs to be able to hear the gospel in their own language, in a way they will understand completely, and be given an opportunity to respond. Highlighted was the importance of implementing strategy which liberates the gospel through empowering EVERY new believer to become not only a disciple of Jesus Christ, but an evangelist and disciple of others as well. None of this can be done effectively unless fervent and strategic praying is made a vital part of the overall church planting strategy. After that, Fort shared with the group how large the gap was between the number of saved and the number of lost in Zimbabwe and that if we continued to do things the same way in the future, that very few new believers or churches would be added to the kingdom of God. An examination of the scriptures is vital to identify the difference between church culture and tradition and God’s Way of doing things. When we do things our way we fail, but if we do things God’s way we will be amazed at the way God works through us to achieve His Kingdom plans and purposes.

Such questions as “What is church?”, “Who can lead a church?”, and “How do churches naturally multiply?” were asked of the participants and they sought answers from the scriptures. They discovered that: • “pastoral leadership is a spiritual gift and that this is what qualifies a man to lead a church”. Then this spiritual gift may be “trained and refined” through various ways which do not necessarily require a seminary education. • “Baptism should be done as soon after salvation as possible.” • “That the one who baptizes does not have to be an ordained minister.” • “We must be willing to train and release all believers to be evangelists and disciple makers.” The pastors expressed their desire to “repent”, to change their minds and their ways of doing things for the kingdom of God. They desired to begin to do things God’s way. They were keenly desirous of building God’s kingdom instead of their own. They expressed their grief that they had been doing “business as usual” for way too long. It was like a spiritual revival as the men vocalized changes they saw that needed to be made. One thought which was expressed over and over as well was the need to learn to love others the way God wants them to. Fort also shared with the group that a healthy church is one in which insiders perform all the functions of the church. (e.g. Baptism, Lord’s Supper, preaching, giving, evangelism, discipleship, etc.) Those present were all too keenly aware that this is not how they had been operating. They were convicted that our convention has way too many “fellowship groups” which are overseen by a mother church and its pastor. (Some pastors oversee multiple fellowships.) They decided then and there that their first order of business would be to make targeted plans to help the fellowships become healthy churches, no longer dependent on the mother church. Pray for the leaders of our convention that they will not lose the conviction they felt as they met together and that they will work together to make helpful changes in the way evangelism, discipleship, and church planting are done in Zimbabwe. Pray that we will be able to calendar a time in 2016 where we can gather many more pastors and lay-leaders to participate in a week long church planting training meeting. Pray that this training would radically change the way we think and work in Zimbabwe so that everyone in the country will have an opportunity to hear the gospel in their own language, in a way they will understand and that they will be given a chance to respond and then be discipled so they in turn may bring others into the Kingdom of God.

Reaching our Cities for Christ

The Urban Conference in Bulawayo brought together pastors and church leaders from 15 churches in 5 major city centers in Zimbabwe and from 2 different Baptist Conventions. While we seem to have a handle on rural evangelism in this country, we are not reaching the lost in our cities. The realization of our failure, the desire to succeed, yet questions as to how to accomplish this all worked together to make this a perfect time to have a conference to address these issues. Bulawayo was chosen as a site for the first urban conference as it is the second largest city in Zimbabwe.

While it moves at a slower pace than the hectic capital of Harare, it is full of people who need the Lord.

Bulawayo Baptist Church graciously allowed us to meet in their facilities. Gregg Fort, began each session with vision casting for what needs to be accomplished in our cities.

He shared with the participants what a healthy church should look like and that we need to look at new ways of “doing church” so we can include people who don’t or can’t come to our already established churches. One example he gave was of how to reach the taxi and small bus drivers in our cities. Most of them work from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week. He challenged the group to think of ways to start a church that could include these men.

Kurt Holiday, Urban Strategist from Johannesburg, was our guest speaker for the conference.

He shared some interesting facts with us to get us thinking about the future of our urban centers. One statistic that astounded us all was that by 2050 about 75% of the world’s population will live in major cities. While many city dwellers “take” what they can from the cities, Holiday challenged us to “give” to our cities. As Christians, we need to aim to purposefully influence all aspects of city life. Only in this way can we be assured that our children can grow up in a “Christian” city.

We need also to be constantly starting new churches to reach more people. A few big churches will not reach the many different pockets of lostness in our cities. Not everyone will feel at home in a large church. We need to meet them in their neighborhoods and at times when they are available. We may need churches which cater to different languages or cultures. Participants were asked to consider the problems and challenges their city faces as well as ways in which God is evidently at work at present.

During a latter session, participants were divided into groups, given instructions in mapping a city, and then went out to explore parts of downtown Bulawayo to see what they could discover. Hearing the discovery reports was interesting for us all.

Holiday encouraged us to explore our cities more than once as each time we walked we would discover something new. He also challenged us that as we explored our city and God opened our eyes to spend time in prayer. Being open to opportunities to witness to people along the way is also important. Our final challenge came from 2 Peter 3:9. Because God is not willing for any in my city to perish. . . I will . . .