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.
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