EnterMission - Rob Wegner

One Prayer Update: Slam Dunk

ONE Prayer ‘09/’10 is just around the corner.  At this point, over 1100 churches are committed!  Over the last year, we've been tracking the progress of the One Prayer church planting movement started during last year's One Prayer campaign.   

The team at Lifechurch.tv asked the EnterMission team to connect the hands of the churches in One Prayer with potential church planters in four countries: Sudan, China, Cambodia, and India.   The dream?  Plant 500 churches in 18 months.

We're pleased to announce that the dream is reality.   With six months still left in the this cycle, take a look at these figures:

Cumulative ONE Prayer Figures YTD 2009:

Pastors Enrolled:  609

Evangelistic Contacts:  65,563

Bible Study Participants:  44,618

Baptisms:  7,112

Churches Planted:  667

That's what you call a slam dunk!   The Kingdom is forcefully advancing through the loving service of these men and woman planting churches on the frontline of the Great Commission.   I can't wait to see where we end up!

Here's an breakdown on the individual countries:

Phase III Detail per Focus Area

Sudan

· Pastors Enrolled:  245

· Evangelistic Contacts:  26,466

· Bible Study Participants:  18,938

· Baptisms:  3,544

· Churches Planted:  82

India

· Pastors Enrolled:  240

· Evangelistic Contacts:  11,737

· Bible Study Participants:  6,886

· Baptisms:  3,558

· Churches Planted:  150

Cambodia

· Pastors Enrolled:  64

· Evangelistic Contacts:  8,479

· Bible Study Participants:  5,667

· Baptisms: 10

· Churches Planted:  295

China

· Pastors Enrolled:  60

· Evangelistic Contacts:  18,611

· Bible Study Participants:  13,127

· Baptisms:  0*

· Churches Planted:  140

It's Illegal and a Little Sneaky

Just another GCC member at on mission....changing the world!

One Prayer China: A New Leader is Born

An update from the One Prayer church planting movement in China.

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Before his conversion Gordon Lee was leading a very lose lifestyle: regular drinking, fighting addictive games, skipping work. All of this was a normal part of his daily life. He was often arrested by police for fights and hooliganism. His dear wife Anita on the contrary was a hard working woman. All the duties of keeping a household intact were placed on her shoulders. Gordon and Anita live in the most Northern part of China in the Heilongjiang province, in the town of Huma. One has to work extra hard in this climate to reap some harvest from a garden. Because of the hard work Anita was often sick and sometimes quite seriously.

Thomas Zhen moved to this region in order to plant a new church there. In this region lives an ethnic minority group, the Aloontsoon or Oroqen people. Thomas dedicated his live to preach the Gospel to this people’s group. Gordon Lee’s wife happens to come from this people’s group. Thomas was visiting every house in this town and was sharing Christ with its people and that’s how he met Anita.

Anita was very open for the good news of the gospel basically because of the hardships she was experiencing: the many illnesses, hard work and her husband’s lose lifestyle. After a short while Anita accepted Christ thanks to the preaching of Thomas. When Thomas asked her if she had a prayer need, she did not name her health or hard work as her greatest need in life, but the conversion of her husband!

Thomas decided to pray with Anita for her husband’s conversion for one month in their house. One time during such a prayer meeting Gordon showed up at home. Thomas began to share with Gordon about Christ to which Gordon said if God will heal Anita’s health, he will also become a believer and will open his house for worship services of the church!

Thomas and Anita continued to pray but for her healing from now on. No miracle happened immediately, but slowly her health improved and was getting better every day. And the heart of Gordon was getting softer and softer also day by day.

When Anita was feeling perfectly healthy and Gordon realized this also, he bowed his heart and head before God and prayed a prayer of repentance. A small group has been started in their house and eight people are regularly meeting there now.

Gordon joined Thomas in his ministry and now they visit people in their village from house to house and preach the gospel to them together. Besides that Gordon has a good singing voice and is using it in his service for the Lord. He is in charge of the worship group that meets in their house.

Please pray for the ministry of Thomas among this ethnic group and also for Gordon as he grows into a new minister of Jesus Christ.  A new leader is born.

One Prayer Update China: An Unstoppable Woman

The story of woman who was severely burned and then saved by a someone humming a song.  The story of a woman who relentlessly pursuing God's call  by planting churches in 28 villages through One Prayer.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Challenge and Calling of Sister Tu

Tu was a factory worker of a fireworks manufacturing plant in 1994 when the explosion of her plant left one person dead and 10 severely burned. Tu was one of the ten. Her face suffered to a large extend, which was devastating to the 30 year old woman. She was very much afraid that her husband would reject her. Her children were afraid to come close to her. Tu lost purpose in life.

In 1998 Tu went to the market to buy some groceries and met a woman who was silently singing a Christian song. Tu was walking by her side listening. The melody and the words of this Christian woman’s song mad such a great impression on Tu that she decided to start a conversation with the lady.

The Christian lady shared Christ with Tu and brought her to church the next day. Thus Tu became a Christian. Life received purpose again and inner beauty became more important than outward appearance.

Since the moment of her conversion Tu always wanted to serve the Lord. Several times her church has made appeals to its members to become missionaries. Sister Tu applied every time, but because of her looks she was always rejected even though it was never expressed to her clearly. There were always excuses she had to accept.

Recently we started training of a new group of church planters, but one of our candidate families that was scheduled to move to another city, to a new ministry site, bailed out. We needed to find someone quickly to take this families place. Since sister Tu was always willing and interested and had always applied to become a missionary and also since it was hard to find someone else on such a short notice, the church decided to suggest to us to accept sister Tu into the program. To her great joy we accepted her into the program.

Sister Tu and her husband moved into Shan Dong province. The husband of Tu, who started to attend church with Tu shortly after she became a Christian, was never too committed until now. Now, he is actively participating in the service to the Lord. During the last 5 months this couple has started 5 house groups with a total of 65 people in them.

In the region where sister Tu lives there are 28 surrounding villages. Due to the help of One Prayer, Tu is able and has decided to visit each of them in the next few months in order to share Jesus Christ with the people there.

Please pray for the ministry of sister Tu!

One Prayer Update December: China

Another amazing report from the front line of the One Prayer movement...

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God's Amazing Choice

Arthur Tian was born completely healthy, but with a hump on his back. For many years of his life Arthur felt completely useless in society. He had no purpose in life at all. Arthur was growing up secluded and reserved because of his physical appearance. Quite often people made fun of him and laughed at him. When Arthur turned 20, his parents died and he moved to live with his older brother. Later on Arthur’s older sister accepted Christ and begun to share Jesus Christ with him also.

Arthur went to church with her and discovered that people in church were different than people in this world. People in the world quite often laughed at him, but in church they showed him love and cared for him. It was here at church where Arthur for the first time in his life truly felt the love of God.

After accepting Christ as his Savior Arthur felt a deep desire to tell others around him about this newly discovered love of God. When Arthur’s parents died, they left him a small amount of money, which they were saving for their whole lives. His parents were afraid that Arthur won’t be able to provide for himself after they pass away and this money would help him a little, at least for a while. After Arthur became a Christian he spent all the money his parents left him to live on. He spent it on mission work. But God has not forgotten Arthur. God continues to bless his life.

This year God has blessed Arthur with a loving spouse, who is helping him now in his ministry of preaching the Gospel. Almost immediately after their marriage the young couple moved to a different town in China with the goal of planting a church there. In the last two months Arthur started a Bible study group and five people already have accepted Christ. PTL!

Please pray for Arthur and his ministry!

“…God chose the weak things of the world …” 1 Cor.1,27