The Seabourns

church planting

Bold Responses

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As I review my notes on the Bold Moves Summit, things have become clearer to me. I am increasingly excited to be used by the Lord for His Kingdom come. Thanks to you, Keith and Kay, to Bekele and to your team for a conference that will produce eternal rewards. [from a participant]

Some came from far. Others were nearby. As the Bold Moves conference began in late February in Manila, 229 people from 89 countries gathered to explore Bold Moves: Boldly Multiplying, Boldly Expanding, Boldly Partnering and Boldly Leading. Directing a global conference with visas, around-the-clock arrivals and departures, establishing a meaningful agenda and executing it in atimely manner is in itself a bold move!

My prayer for weeks before the conference was from Luke 19 as Jesus expresses his love for Jerusalem. He laments that “you did not recognize the time when God visited you.” I felt God wanted to visit Bold Moves participants with a fresh breath  of the Holy Spirit, a renewed vision and tools to overcome barriers. He wanted to invite us to closely follow our God who is boldly moving towards “this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14)

My prayer  was that we each would recognize the time when God visited us in Manila.

My prayer was overwhelmingly answered. There is a renewed dependence, vision and commitment. We have identified the big challenges. We have discussed the barriers. We have developed pathways to success. Participants departed saying, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” (Acts 4:29)

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Reflections on the Bold Moves Conference

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Reflections on the Bold Moves Conference

28 February – 2 March 2018
Manila, Philippines

This was my first GCM conference and it was the best organized conference that I have attended with our organization. I liked that it was global and I could meet people from around the world. I liked how practical it was – writing down the next steps and emphasizing what the Lord is saying and how he is leading. I liked all the talks and the workshops. [Eastern Europe]

The 4 clear themes, the women time, the best practices (huge impact to have had Joey and his wife in person). [Latin America and Caribbean]

Seeing best practices, big challenges table times, clear directions of how to take notes and put ideas into the notebook. [Central Asia]

I liked learning a new process together to find a solution to a Big Challenge. Best practices to learn how others trusted God and made progress. [Southeast Asia]

The Bold Moves Conference was designed and executed by a highly-competent and highly-committed team from Albania, Panama, Australia, the Philippines and the USA.

Eventually, there were 229 participants from 89 countries with 17 cancellations due to visa difficulties or other issues. Among these participants, 51 were women representing the highest number of engaged women leaders in the history of Global Church Movements. The meeting was held in Manila, Philippines at the Crimson Hotel in the Alabang area.

The conference theme was Bold Moves: It is Possible. There were daily subthemes of:

  • 4G :: Boldly Multiplying.
    Achieving multiple streams of 4th generation church multiplication in every country)
  • 1:1000 :: Boldly Expanding.
    Establishing a church accessible to everyone, in every village, neighborhood, high-rise and digital space)
  • 1:1>2 :: Boldly Partnering.
    Intentionally engaging kingdom-minded partners in a -led paradigm to share in the mission.
  • 50X :: Boldly Leading.
    Becoming a movement leader, a leader of leaders with a goal of every GCM staff influentially leading 50 other leaders.

The conference was designed with these values in mind:

  • This conference should focus on problem solving, identifying and overcoming the big challenges and barriers limiting our 2020 goals.
  • This conference should intentionally engage women leading church multiplication. This was not conceived as a “wives’ track” but designed to engage those leading church multiplication.
  • This conference should intentionally welcome key leaders and partners who are not GCM staff. Key denominational pastors and leaders, partner organizations and key volunteers were fully engaged in all aspects of the conference, including problem solving and identifying best practices.
  • This conference should catalyze and energize the “wisdom in the room.” The focus should be on engaging the participants rather than plenary presentations.
  • This conference would not have live reports but would use video to capture the best practices each region of the world is learning in a compelling story format so that the knowledge is most easily transferable throughout our global movement.
  • A leadership development process would be used to tackle 3 big challenges. Identifying pathways to overcome these challenges would be important. But equally important would be helping global leaders with a systems-thinking approach to creatively and collaboratively overcome barriers.

Extensive discussion opportunities focused on best practices and an immersive, 6-hour problem-solving exercise. All participants engaged on one three wicked big challenges:

  • How do we achieve multiple streams of 4th generation in every country?
  • How do we expand our scope to achieve a church for every 1000 people in every country?
  • How do we partner in new and more effective ways to effectively engage all the kingdom laborers in every country?

These responses are common in the evaluations received:

  • Daily 20 minute introductions by our Vice President Bekele Shanko set the tone for each day. The combination of current reality based on observations from the 2017 reports related to the day’s sub-theme and future vision delivered every morning in the context of the daily theme for the day was very powerful.
  • High level of participant engagement. Every hour there were new and meaningful discussions.
  • Highly integrated conference. Many have commented on how integrated the conference was around the overall Bold Moves theme and the daily Bold themes. Pastor Dale Hummel of Wooddale Church led daily times with Biblical truths around the sub-themes.
  • Best practices discussion. Each morning, video and live presentations were visionary and demonstrated how others had overcome faith barriers to move forward in multiplication, scope, partnering and leading.
  • Big Challenges. This immersive experience in collaborative problem solving based on the popular TED Talk How to Make Toast [See the website DrawToast.com] was mentioned by many as one of the more meaningful opportunities to engage with other leaders in a way that gives them confidence, a practical plan and hope that these barriers can be overcome.

My prayer for weeks before the conference was from Luke 19 as Jesus expresses his love for Jerusalem. He laments that “you did not recognize the time when God visited you.” I felt God wanted to visit Bold Moves participants with a fresh breath of the Holy Spirit and a renewed vision and tools to overcome barriers. He wanted to invite us to closely follow our God who is boldly moving towards “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the people groups (nations); and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14)

My prayer was that we each would recognize the time when God visited us in Manila.

My prayer was overwhelmingly answered. There is a renewed dependence, vision and commitment. We have identified the big challenges. We have discussed the threats. We have developed pathways to success. Participants departed saying, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” (Acts 4:29-31)

Resources

 

The Kingdom is expanding in Ethiopia

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The noise from people beside the road was getting louder. Girma was explaining the gospel to some young men who had not yet followed Jesus. As he continued sharing Christ, group beside the road grew increasingly larger and louder.

We could see them through some bushes. They were near our vehicle. The noise was getting louder as the crowd became more agitated. One picked up a large stone, another a thick stick.

Use the left and right buttons to see photos in this photo album.

We were visiting a newly-planted church called Tuchi. As we greeted the new believers, Pastor Ayano informed us that some of those present were not yet followers of Jesus. He invited Girma, the National Team Leader in Ethiopia, to help them understand the gospel.

Just 30 minutes before at Shubigamo, another new church, seven seekers had come to know Christ. We were reliving the experience as we drove to the Tuchi church.

We should have been praying.

Satan knew what was happening. He was ready to wage battle against God’s people.

As the gospel was being presented at the new Tuchi church, opposition arose from some of the townspeople who were not happy to have “foreigners” in their town. They were shouting that the town had their own and didn’t need outsiders. The truth was, Satan didn’t want more people in God’s Kingdom.

We decided to leave so that Pastor Ayano would not have problems.

We quickly loaded into the van, praying for God’s peace to overcome the anger. As we drove away, Pastor Ayano spoke with his fellow townspeople to calm them down. We realized that our lack of spiritual warfare prayer had given Satan an opportunity. Fortunately several of the young men accepted Christ before we left.

It’s been a very full 10 days in Ethiopia and then Kenya. We have seen amazing things and heard incredible stories. The lame are walking. The blind are seeing. The captives are being set free. Small local bodies of Jesus Christ are celebrating their new-found life and their neighbors are seeing the change and joining them.

We visited churches and encouraged new believers and the faithful church planting leaders. Keith spoke to a group of 300 pastors. We trained church planters how to use our new iShare measurement system.

Learning from Oliver

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Oliver’s white hair stood out in the room of black hair. His craggy face was very different from the many young faces we were teaching. Some in the room had to leave the afternoon session to go to classes at the local school.

Not Oliver. He had probably not been in school in 40+ years.

Oliver didn’t let his age keep him from pulling his chair into a small group and joining the foundational Bible study about How to be sure you are a Christian or How to walk in step with the Holy Spirit.

Oliver is different that way. Sometimes, older leaders don’t fully engage. They sit at the edges. They let the younger ones do the lessons, especially in hierarchical cultures like Africa.

Oliver is humble. He is also effective.

Oliver walks 2 hours every week to an area outside of the capital city of Guinea-Bissau to minister in the church he planted. Oliver has no car and no bicycle. Oliver is too poor to take a taxi or bus. Part of his journey takes him through the forest where snakes and other dangers lie.

When the team leader asked him why he didn’t choose an area closer to where he lives to plant a church, he responded, “Then who would reach the people in the Oyo area? God told me those people needed to be reached.” But Oliver, what about the snakes, he was asked. “God told me the people in Oyo area needed to be reached. He will protect me or he will provide someone else to reach them.”

Kay and I are not too much younger than Oliver. As we each stood before the trainees to impart our wisdom and knowledge, I was aware of how much I could learn from Oliver about following Jesus.

Student churches in the Philippines

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Students planting churches among students on campus? Students graduating with church planting experience who then go to other campus, into professional communities and into new cities and plant churches like they learned while in college? This is happening in one part of the Philippines. College Instructor and Electrical Engineer Pee Jay N. Gealone is leading this initiative.

Pee Jay says,

Our vision is to see multiplying churches across Bicol [area of the Philippines] and eventually across the country that will really bless and transform this nation. We believe that being a Christian is not only about personal change but rather a change that once happened collectively can really transform this country. We want to see Christ-centered multiplying leaders in all sectors of society that are moving into church planting.

Eighteen churches are under Pee Jay’s care with about 600 involved members. So far, students have graduated and are opening campuses for student churches, opening house churches for professionals and opening churches in communities where God sends them.