A lot has been written in the Australian media and blogshpere in the last couple of weeks since the latest Census data dropped. For those not aware, every five years the Australian Govt conducts a Census of the population, and the data gives us a wide range of information about societal trends. The headline news, as far as the secular media is concerned is that "no religion" is on the rise and Christianity is trending downwards.
It is so easy to hear the headlines and read the blogs and conclude that things are actually on the decline for God’s Kingdom.
That is unless we take a global view of what God is doing and dig deeper than the 6 o'clock news.
One of the benefits of being in Mexico presently is that we are firsthand witnesses to one of the largest mission agencies in the world as well as attending a local church that places a high value on church planting all over Mexico. I feel like one of those CNN journalists who were embedded with troops during the 2nd Gulf War. It's the perfect contrast to the six o'clock news.
So two weeks ago I had the privilege to deeply embed with the local church and join their church planting team as they headed to Mexico City.
I was excited for many reasons. I have a wonderful memory of last time we were there in November 1993 and working with Amistad Cristiana, hearing Winkie Pratney lecture, doing outreach at Universidad Nacional, nearly getting arrested etc etc. But probably the major reason was that as a former church planter, I have read much about nimble church planting networks and how they were taking ground for the Kingdom across the globe and now I was becoming a firsthand witness of how they operate.
If you haven't seen my YouTube video of the trip you can view it here but I wanted to take a few moments to reflect and note three things I witnessed about nimble church planting.
1. The perfect property is not a large concern. The building was both the house of the pastors (2nd floor) and the church building (bottom floor). It had very tight stairwells and we needed to pack up our things each morning, but it did the job. I heard no comments about the lack of size being a retardant to mission.
2. The main focus of growth is not making the existing churches larger but rather preparing to plant other churches, lots and lots of churches. So, the local church runs a church planting school that is the catalyst to this vision, and they send their best people out.
3. They have big vision and it’s not dictated by money. They don't allow money to determine how many churches they will plant. They run a church planting conference with an amazingly small budget and won't allow it to be a limiting factor. They are dictated by a “do it anyway” attitude.
This is just one of many networks doing great things across the globe and it was my privilege to participate and now call them my friends.
My encouragement is that you often won’t see God’s Kingdom in the media, but He is doing new things and powerful things and drawing all humanity to himself. Would you consider praying for these church planters and others across the globe?