GlocalNet

Thanks for your question John Jordan!!!  Often at conferences and meetings I’m asked, “You’re church is large and in a suburb - What about churches that are small and blue collar? - They can’t do that.”  They are wrong.  First, our church is not a church of rich people - humanly speaking sometimes - I wish it was!  The median and average age is 28-29 - that means broke!  People are starting their families.  Second, we began to work around the world and in the inner-city when there were just a few hundred of us.  Third, we require our new churches to do 3 things:  work somewhere around the world in a hard place, work with the poorest in the inner-city, and multiply churches.  We have them do all this in the first 12 to 24 months.  Why?  Because we are setting DNA.  If this is done early on, like the offering, like evangelism, then it will only grow as the church grows - but if it is not done until a church has so many or so much it will never happen.  The spread of the early church wasn’t because of local mega-churches with big budgets and lots of seminarians. 

It’s never about how much money and how many people you have.  If you have 100 million and you give it away this year, in most countries the next year they’ll be asking for another 100m and forget where the last one went.  It’s about obedience and God’s resources - not yours.  If I’ve learned anything - those things that truly matter - God always takes care of.  Our church struggles financially like other churches - it gets old.  But whether it’s a Global Faith Forum or new churches or serving some nation - God always provides.  That has to come outside our church.  People keep waiting until they think they have enough - God moves only when he is enough.  God responds to obedience with what you have, not how much - isn’t that the lesson of the widow with the two mites?

The work doesn’t have to be big at first.  Maybe the first year in a hard place all you do is Google information and build a prayer team for the place.  Maybe the second year an offering is taken and the pastor and a layman go - each year builds on the other, we believe in long-term engagement in one place for impact - not mission tourism.  The same with starting a church, the first year you may have to partner with several churches, the next the same - etc., we still partner with every church we can to get churches started.  Working with the poor nearest you is a no brainer - get up and get going! 
The rest of the world really is better at this than we Americans are.  Chinese Christians are sending people all over the world- I’ve met them - they blow me away - I love them.  People from all over the world are engaging the world, especially from the Philippines, Brazil, China, Indonesia, and a few other places.  It’s not a matter of money - it’s a matter of small steps of obedience that lead to greater doors of opportunity and provision.  If my life is anything - it’s a testimony of that and I’m not the only one. 

I was recently in a very poor nation trying to develop.  I had the privilege of meeting some new believers and eating a meal with them and through a translator learning back and forth from them.  These men had a particular skill set that many poor people have in this nation - they began to tell stories of how they were crossing their nation’s border taking that skill set and serving others in a five nation area.  “How do you fund it?”  I asked, they replied “Fund what?  We have jobs - we use our job to pay the bill and we use our job to serve the people.”  I’ve written a book about that concept - REALTIME CONNECTIONS. 

My answer? Start small and celebrate the small steps and obedience.  Our church has worked in Vietnam since 1995.  We have a fantastic relationship with the government there - it takes time.  I’ve learned, in the western church, most are not committed to being somewhere long-term that can be challenging.  With time - anything and everything is possible.