Hope: From The Global Church to the Global Church

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

From The Global Church to the Global Church

From History To Harvest

For more than 2,000 years, the Church has worked to fulfill the Great Commission of our Lord. After all our collective work, in AD 1900, just 45.69% of the world was evangelized. With another century behind us, more than 73.09% of the world had heard the Gospel. Yet today, with enormous population growth, more than 2.4 billion people have still never heard of Christ.

Globally, Christian leaders can choose to continue with our present strategies, and in AD 2200, 83.25% of the world will be evangelized. This appears to be great progress, but the world population will exceed 9.5 billion by 2050 and will reach nearly 11 billion by 2100. That means, the unevangelized population would continue to increase over the next one hundred years. Comparing Church growth to population growth, the Church will not fulfill the Great Commission even by AD 2500.

The approach has brought us this far, but it will not take us to the finish line. What got us “here” will not get us “there.”

From Parenting To Partnering

In another scenario, the global Church could choose to synergize our efforts and share our resources.

According to many international Christian leaders such as Suliasi Kurulo, Founder of the World Harvest Center and CoChair/Unreached Peoples, we have been given the first time in modern Church history, where have a realistic opportunity to complete the Great Commission in our lifetime, or at least that of our children. Pastor Kurulo’s World Harvest Center has planted more than 2,000 churches in more than 100 nations.

Dr. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, said it best: “We have the manpower, we have the resources, all we lack is the motivation.”

More leaders are becoming more convinced that the way we can follow our Lord’s command faster is by being willing to “leave logos and egos behind” and become serious about fulfilling the Great Commission.

From Working To Networking

This philosophy does not mean that one has to surrender his or her uniqueness in Christ or doctrinal distinctive in order to network for compounding results. In such a scenario, we retain our uniqueness, but do not care who gets the credit as long as God gets the glory.

We will achieve this through a five-layer strategy authored by Dr. Paul Walker of the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee:

1. To provide relationship-building opportunities for the fulfillment of the Great

Commission.

2. To promote shared resources for Kingdom-minded leaders worldwide.

3. To publish current research for successful evangelism and church planting.

4. To prepare strategic recommendations for global partners.

5. To produce reports measuring the progress of the Billion Soul Initiative.

God is aligning His forces around the world for the greatest evangelism thrust in Church history. Dr. Ademola Ishola, General Secretary of the Nigeria Baptist Convention in Abuja, Nigeria, and CoChair/West Africa states, This is the first time that the Global Church is being mobilized together to finish the Great Commission.”

“I knew from our first meetings,” states Dr. Jack Hayford, “that this partnership would be more than just a cohort of like-minded leaders who hoped to make some difference in the world. This has grown into one of the most embracing missional partnerships representing the diversity of the Body of Christ in church history…. We agree we must, together, find ways to understandably share the Good News with and to serve these for who Jesus died and rose again! It blesses me when I see our brothers and sisters as the Bride of Christ respond to the clarion call to be ready for the return of Jesus through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.”

From Personal Goals To Eternal Roles

David Sobrepeña, Founder of Word of Hope, Manila, Philippines, says, “The goal is bigger than the role–this vision to establish five million churches has to go beyond denominations and traditional methods.”

Roland Vaughan, former World Missions Director for the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee, developed a divinely-inspired approach to networking among the unreached people groups of the world. Through this global networking approach, it is possible to take the Gospel into new, uncharted regions. Through this synergistic approach, the Global Church can seek the lost, save the lost, synergize for the lost, sow into the lost and send to the lost.

From The West Going To The Rest

To Best Worldwide Going To The Rest Worldwide

In the years ahead, these new trends in ministry mean the measurement of a pastor's ministry will not be the number of people worshiping at his local church, but the number of dynamic partnerships he or she has built worldwide. God is raising up synergistic leaders to network throughout the earth.

I am often asked, “What is going to happen to Western Europe? Is there any hope that millions will come to Christ in this world region or that thousands of churches will be planted? Will America cool down spiritually like Europe? Can America be turned around before the culture passes the tipping point?” Big questions deserve big answers. One thing we can rely on is that the global church will never be any smaller than it was yesterday!

Some missiologists today believe that the “Rise Of Global Christianity” will not only impact Europe and North America, but the entire world. We are witnessing before our eyes the rise of a global Church that is just as committed to fulfilling the Great Commission worldwide as in each individual world region. By 2030, 70% of the global missions force will not be from North America. In the single, greatest missional shift in church history, missionaries from every world region are headed to every world region. The Great Commission will be fulfilled! God will keep His promise!

In the last 13 years, the Global Church has witnessed more than 4 million new church plants with more than 850 million coming to Christ. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is growing faster than in any other time in history. When one measures the global growth of the Church, we are on schedule to witness firsthand the doubling of the size of the Church, from just over one billion to more than two billion in our generation.

A small group of executives work together each year to make Mickey Mouse the most recognized name on earth. We have more than 1.3 billion Christians on earth. If we want to, we can finish spreading the Name above all Names, “Jesus Christ!” Today, more than two billion people do not know the meaning of Christmas or why we celebrate Easter. More than two billion people on the planet do not have church within walking distance or even one verse of Scripture to read. We must become a network that works!

Ours can be the generation that puts the cross on the roof of the world and lets the whole world know that Jesus died for every nation and every people group! When this is achieved, we will have a satisfaction that no previous generation has ever had! The global church will achieve what no one of us can do alone.

We need to be motivated about what novitiates heaven. How many souls will you be responsible for? How many churches will you help plant? How many missionaries will your church send? We can achieve more together than we ever could alone by synergizing our efforts to bring back the King. Can you think of anything more important to accomplish with your life?

In the future, those who are not networking will eventually be not working.

Until The Last Person Has Heard,