How to start a church explosion
How 29 believers became 110 believers starting 5 new house churches–and all in less than a year
How did they do it?
Short version for skimmers:
–4 months of concentrated prayer
–4 months of abundant Gospel sowing (intentional evangelism)
Details for those who have a couple of minutes:
A few days ago, Geovanny and I were talking “shop” about various aspects of the Lord’s work going on here in Guayaquil. In the middle of the conversation, he said, “have I told you yet that we are no longer a single church meeting at “11 and Huancavilca”, but are now a network of six house churches?”
Seeing my obvious interest, he proceeded to share what had taken place over the past few months…
“In April 2008 there were 29 of us meeting together in our church. We decided to ask God for 70 new believers by year’s end. From April to August we did nothing but pray. Some weeks we would fast and pray, other times we stayed up all night praying…but prayer was our focus, praying the Lord of the Harvest for laborers and praying for the “70”. We prayed individually and collectively for four months.
Sometime around mid-August we started praying less, but began implementing an evangelistic emphasis every month. At first we thought a single monthly effort would not be enough. But because of the spiritual preparation make by the previous months of concentrated prayer, we were amazed at
the response these evangelistic efforts were bearing in spiritual fruit.By year’s end (2008) we had surpassed our prayed for goal of 70, and were busy discipling 110 new believers –the fruit given to us by the Lord from these monthly evangelistic efforts. In Feb-Mar of this year, these new disciples began meeting in five homes closer to where they lived. Nelson is now leading the “Villa España” church, José the “Sucre y 14” group, Marcos and Tania the “Balerio” church, Juán the “Febres Cordero y 14” group, and William the “35 y El Oro” house church.
For 2009-2010 we plan to continue our PRAYER-EVANGELISM strategy and are now asking the Lord for 300 new disciples and 20 new churches by the
end of next year…”
Comments (4)
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wow wee. prayer. intentional evangelism. big god. my god has been too small & my prayers too timid or self-serving. thank you for this reminder about how we can participate with god to change the world.
thanks for that, well timed!
I love this. Thanks, Seth.
Thanks, Seth. One of the ways God has used you in my life (still does) is to reaffirm the fact that prayer is the nuclear weapon in the arsenal of the Jesus follower.
I’m still on the journey towards embracing that fully.
And I am thankful you are on that path–too.
Love and respect,
Butch