Update - Chris and Cheryl

Chris and Cheryl (and their family) are serving in the Dominican Republic for the summer.

Hello from the Dominican Republic. We made it here safely without incident, all in all a good experience. When our friend from Toronto area picked us up to stay at her place for the night on Monday she took us to Montana's for supper where we were surprised by several people from the team that we worked with in the DR on our last mission trip in January. It was really nice to connect with them and have supper together. Supper was followed by what seamed to be one of the shortest nights ever. We got to bed at around
11:45 and got up at 4:30 to be at the airport by 6. Our flight took off around 9AM and we got to the DR around 1:30PM. We picked up a few groceries so we could make supper, unpacked a few things and had an early night. We are pretty well settled into our house now.
We were in the village a few times this week to get the small engines class set up and have some orientation.
It looks like I will be teaching 2 classes of 10 men. One in the morning 8:30-12:00 and one in the afternoon 1:30-5:00.
Cheryl has met some of the people that she will be working with and has been given a schedule of what she will be doing. (Out here schedules are often subject to change.) I think we have the public transportation figured out. We will find out on Monday morning as that is when we start using it. Up to this point we have been getting the pastor in the village to pick us up and drive us there. We have been able to work with his schedule up to this point but starting Monday I have to be in the village before 8:00AM for the classes.
Please pray for our health and for wisdom as we minister here.
Thank you and God Bless
Chris and Cheryl Peters

Launch 2012

Launch 2012

Two reports. Reports that conflict. Two different stories about the same thing. The church.

One tells a tragic story. The church is in decline. People seem to walking away from the church in greater and greater numbers. Churches are closing their doors because there is no one left.

The other story is fantastic, almost unbelievably so. The church is rapidly exploding. Thousands, no tens of thousands of people are coming to Christ. Churches are multiplying at an amazing rate. In fact there some who would suggest that the church has never grown so quickly.

Both of these reports are true. The first is the story of the western church (including Canada and USA). The second is the story of the church in the rest of the world (including countries that are actively killing Christians).

We live the first story. Oh, some of churches may be growing, though many are actually declining. But we are not seeing thousands of people coming to Jesus, not even hundreds. The majority of church growth comes not from converts but from other churches. In fact many of us know too many who walked away from the church. Most of us are not part of a church that has successfully planted another church in the last 10 years.

Why does God not move in our churches the way he is moving around the world?

There is a group in southern Manitoba that have gathered together to pray, learn, and discern where God is leading us. We believe that God wants to reach the world. We believe that God is able to. And we want to be part of God’s mission.

The other night we gathered in a back yard for the first time. There were about 30 people there from the different churches in the region. We ate together (because after all we are Mennonites). Had an action plan presented. And prayed together in the rain.

This is our tentative plan:

Prayer

• We need God. Prayer is absolutely important
• 10:2b virus - This comes from Luke 10:2. Jesus calls his disciples to pray that the God would send workers into the harvest field. So we will commit to doing that. A simple way to do this is to set our cell phone's alarm for 10:02. When it goes off pray that God will send out workers.
• Prayer meetings - We will meet in local areas to pray together

Meet together

• A group will meet monthly to pray, learn and discern
• Right now it seems that this group will meet for about one year
• There will be no meetings in summer - so the next one will be in September

Learn

• During the summer we will read the Gospels and Acts
• At September's meeting we will discuss what we have learned
• At some point during the year we will be reading Organic Church and Missional Handbook.
• Attend "The Church Planting Congress" which is happening in Winnipeg this November
• Additional resources: There is No Time, this is put out by Advant and explains their model of "short-cycle church planting" and an issue of Mission Frontiers magazine which is dedicated to church planting

Action

• The group is called “launch 2012”. The reason is we are praying and hoping to launch a church plant in 2012.

There are a couple of ways you can become part of this:

1) If you are in the area join us – by attending, praying for this group…

2) Start something like this in your area, church

Church Planting congress

This afternoon Wagdi Iskander shared his story. It was amazing. I don't even know how to summarize what he said. He talked about his experience of converting from Islam to Christianity. At one point he was slated to be executed for becoming a Christian.
However the one thing that pierced me was right at the end. Wagdi talked about the need to reach Muslims with the gospel of God. He mentioned the church in Canada by and large is not engaged or passionate about it. And earlier Wagdi said that he was talking to another pastor about this and that pastor said the church in Canada will not be engaged until their is martyr - until someone dies. Wagdi then looked at us and told us that he told his family he was willing to be that martyr. He is willing to die so that the church in Canada who become passionate about reaching his people.
And he meant it.
Now I hope I am willing to die for Jesus. But this is not what Wagdi said. He is willing to die for the church, he is willing to die so that we discover the passion of God.
Amazing.

Church Planting congress

Yesterday afternoon Stuart Murray and Juliet Kilpin shared about "What God is doing in my neighborhood? And how am I to discern that?"
One of the things that they said was "God's church does not have a mission. God's mission has a church." In other words don't think that we bring God into the neighborhood. He is already there we need to join him in what he is doing. This sounds a lot like Experiencing God.
How do we know what God is doing? They said we should look for shalom seekers. Shalom is God's peace - this includes things like freedom from violence but also includes things like justice and security.

Church Planting congress

Just finished day 2 of the church planting congress here in Calgary. My head is very full of information. It has been great - wish my whole church was here with us.
Allow me to share a couple of highlights from the morning sessions:

Glenn Smith
Said a lot of the same things as Mike Frost from the night before. One thing he did talk about was the need to take place seriously. He said that God always works in a certain place with a certain people. Glenn gave a few principles of how the church should work with neighborhood.

1. We need to have a commitment to interpret the triune God to the neighborhood. We may be the only bible that they will ever read.
2. We bear witness to Jesus and all his teaching in word and deed.
3. Christian education for the whole church seriously
4. We need to bring our hearts and heads together.
   

Mike Frost - So far this has been the best session I have been in
Mike asked how we know when someone belongs to our church? He then said that most likely feel that they belong to church if they attend the Sunday morning service. In Mike's church they define belonging by practices. They have five practices and to belong to the church you have to do them. They are
Bless 3 people every week
Eat with 3 people every week
Listen to the Holy Spirit at least once during the week
Learn about Jesus once every week
Sent - journal about how God has sent you this week.
What would it look like if our churches were defined around practices instead of Sunday morning services?

Church Planting congress

Church Planting Congress - session #1 - Mike Frost

Here are some highlights from the first session at Church Planting Congress.

• The church does not define it's mission - we are defined by God's mission
• God is always on a mission - he extends himself beyond himself
• We are called to extend ourselves beyond ourselves
• Our Goal is to alert people to the reign of God in Christ - we do this by announcing it and demonstrating it