Birthing a church… what does that take?

A church is birthed… 

That team of missionaries we’ve been telling you about all summer long have witnessed the birth of the church among the Wantakia people of Papua New Guinea.  The teaching finally reached the story of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection.  Many people embraced the gospel on that day but the story doesn’t end there.  Theteam continued with teaching and are now going back thru the stories to strengthen the believers in what they heard.  They will now move forward in teaching the people thru the epistles and what it means to be rooted in Christ.

Our missionaries aren’t any different than you.  They didn’t have to walk away from their previous careers

or houses and lands and family.  Or did they?

As one of the men on the team said “I was asking ‘What is God’s will for my life?’ when I realized I was asking the wrong question.  I should have been asking ‘What is God’s will and how do I fit into it.”

Missionaries aren’t anything extraordinary; they are much like any believer’ or individual in life.  We all have our issues and distresses.  But I can tell you they are individuals with deep com-passion for lost people.  …And they are willing to do something about it.  Those serving with Ethnos360 are not missionaries because they went to some faraway place.  No, they were already active witnesses ‘here’ and wanted to go ‘there’ to impact lost people with the gospel.

Here, there, wherever… God wants all believers to be active and devoted to the   directive He’s given us to ‘make disciples’ among all peoples.

Establishing maturing churches… what does it take?

The growth of the church, not by number, but by spiritual maturity, is dependent upon each believer understanding the foundational truths of God’s Word.  Most places where our teams minister are like untilled fields where seeds of truth have not been sown.  People living in such areas are considered the least-reached of the unreached world.  It is important to us as it is to God that such ones hear the gospel.

People everywhere have some sense of a greater being, though millions remain in darkness and live unfulfilled lives because such a being is a mystery to them.  They live in fear, placating spirits or performing ritual to escape the bondage that drives their fear.  Round and round they go… nothing changes and bondage deepens.  It is in such places that we put teams of missionaries to bring the complete story of God. 

Beginning with God’s character, the teaching moves through creation’s story and truths set forth in the scriptures that expose man’s sinfulness, and ultimately points him towards a coming savior.  I guess you could say it compares to assembly instructions –you don’t start in the middle of the instruction booklet to assemble a complicated piece of equipment; you start at the beginning.  …And so it is with unfolding God’s story.  Get that right, you set in motion the foundation for understanding and belief, from which you see God doing just as Jesus described when he said “I will build my church.”