As part of our annual strategic planning meetings with the national movement leaders, it became abundantly clear that we are seeing an acceleration of the church planting activity happening in each of our core countries. The limiting constraint: resources. We asked them: "If resources were unlimited, how would you reach your country for Jesus Christ?" Unanimously they said, "Church Planting Movements!" A Strong Foundation from the Inside Out When WorldServe funds a church start, we establish a secure foundation by providing a trained pastor who works under the supervision of trusted indigenous leadership. The pastor equips his body of believers to mature in their faith and share Christ with others. In turn, this mobilizes the planted church to develop a "mission mindset" and become a strong parent church for a new body of believers. Using this model, we help church planting movements establish the infrastructure they need to accelerate to the next stage of growth, positioning each of them to play a significant and lead role in reaching their countries for Christ and establishing networks of self-sustaining churches. In most cases house churches are comprised of 30-50 believers each. Simply stated, we see a modern day pattern from Acts: • Making a decision to follow Jesus Christ; • Growing and maturing through discipleship and training; • Getting actively involved in ministry; • Enrolling in leadership training; • Taking a leadership role first in the local church, then in the start of a new church within their community; • Identifying others that can do the same thing! Sound churches grow out of small groups of believers meeting in homes; they are well-suited for intimacy and accountability. They are built on prayer, devoted to worship and fellowship, and have discipleship and evangelism woven into the fabric of their member's faith. These churches by design replicate rapidly - accelerated church planting.
			Accelerating the Rapid Growth This is why WorldServe is allocating resources for Accelerated Church Planting. Through our work with the experienced movement leaders in each of these countries, WorldServe launched an aggressive five-year strategy we're calling Accelerated Church Planting (ACP), launching 115,000+ new churches over the next five years. The ACP efforts focus on evangelism, discipleship, training, and mercy; all of which support church planting- which leads to church training- and then to church sending – and the cycle begins again. Focusing initially on nine specific initiatives in China, Vietnam and Cuba, ACP plans are already underway to integrate Ethiopia, where efforts recently saw 3,755 – most from a tribal heritage – accept Christ and be baptized at one ceremony as part of church planting efforts there. Information on our initiatives is listed with our goals. Click Here to see how you can help support Church Planting.
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