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“For the
earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Glory of God
as the waters cover the sea”
Habakkuk 2:14 |
Our vision:
To help catalyze church planting movements in 100 countries
by training, coaching and giving prayer support and
encouragement to local believers. |
Global House Church Movement Summit 11-15 Nov 2009
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Global Summit Papers and Reports |
Can
you help Huang Dan?
Huang Dan is 22 years old and suffers from a rare genetic
disease called epidermolysis bullosa (EB). She is a member
of one of our lifestyle training groups. The disease means
she has extremely fragile skin. The slightest knock or
pressure creates a blister, which has to be lanced, and
leaves a wound which takes some time to heal. There is no
cure for EB, which considerably reduces life expectancy. If
Huang Dan lived in a western country with a good health
service, she would have a lot of pain and live a very
challenged life. She might spend some three hours per day
bandaging her wounds. But a lot of care is available. She
would be able to get special wound dressings which do not
stick to the wound and help a lot with the pain of the
wounds. Many services are available free, which enable
sufferers to live as normal a life as possible...
read more.
Church Planting Movements
A church planting movement happens when a group of small
simple churches or Christian training groups begin to
multiply themselves rapidly so that a whole community,
people group or region is influenced by the Gospel. More
traditionally structured churches or “para-church
organizations” can also participate in church planting
movements by multiplying “cell” or other small groups, and
providing prayer, training and motivational events. Church
planting movements are happening all around the world today,
and are the best way to bring the Gospel and Biblical
discipleship to a large number of people.
There are a number of principles which, if followed, will
enable a church planting movement to start or grow rapidly: |
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The churches or training groups are simple, so that they
can be run by anyone, even if they don’t have much
education. Simple worship, group Bible study, prayer,
fellowship, and perhaps a meal together, are all that
are necessary in the simple church meeting, which can be
anywhere, such as in a home, restaurant or workplace.
This is how simple church meetings were in Bible times,
and is all we need today.
- Jesus, through the Holy
Spirit, is the foundation, centre, commander and goal of
the movement.
- All the members share
their experience of Christ with their friends and people
they know, inviting them to become Christians, and to
join the group, or, even better, to start a new group.
- All members of the group
train new believers how to live the Christian life. This
is made possible by making training lessons and ways of
training available in a simple format, which anyone can
learn to apply themselves and learn to teach others to
apply. For example, the training lesson on prayer in our
resources is easy to put into practice by a new
believer, who can then teach another new believer to do
the same thing. The group encourage each other to put
into practice the training lessons when they meet.
- The leaders of the group
are not expected to be experts. They do all the
organization to make sure everyone knows where and when
to meet, and facilitate the group discussion so that
everyone participates, and contributes something to the
meeting. The Bible itself is seen as the authority for
how to live the Christian life. There should be some
apostolic leadership or experienced Christians available
so that the leaders can contact them if questions or
problems arise, and who can coach the group from time to
time. But a group can consist entirely of new Christians
or friends who are interested. In our experience these
groups work well and grow quickly in the knowledge of
Jesus and the Christian life.
- Every church or group
makes it a goal to start other new churches or groups.
The training lessons and simple training methods teach
how to do this.
- Everyone is conscious of
the need for much prayer and commitment for the church
planting movement to grow well.
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We pray God’s blessing on your
simple church, and wish you much joy and success as you
follow Jesus and help others to follow him too. To be a
disciple, you must be making disciples!
“222 Foundation” comes from 2 Timothy 2:2 – And the things
that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit
these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. |
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