from April 17, 2011 prayer update

On April 4-6 I had the opportunity to participate with 700 other local church, para-church, and sending agency evangelism and mission leaders from across the U.S. in Mission America Coalition’s annual conference in Orlando. This year the event had both a national (as usual) and global (in response to Lausanne 2010) focus.

Our morning and evening sessions were together as a large group. We had times of corporate worship, plenary messages, and times of small group interaction / prayer around the messages. We heard from Lon Allison, Hwa Yung, Doug Birdsall, Esme Bowers, among others.

Our afternoon sessions were divided into more than 25 specialized breakout sessions addressing some excellent national and international outreach issues. I participated in the largest of the breakout sessions, focused on “mobilizing the U.S. Church for global missions”. Steve Shadrach with the USCWM very capably planned and led this breakout session. Nearly 100 of us interacted in small groups in six sessions around practical issues related to engaging the U.S. Church more effectively in taking the gospel to the least reached around the globe.

In session 1 and 2, I participated in 2 of 8 topical discussions. I chose the topics: “What is the USA’s role now that the Global South is sending – every nation to every nation” and “What do tomorrow’s missionaries look like in closed access countries? Tentmaking and BAM vs. traditional missionaries without a covering”.

Session 3 was focused on how to ENGAGE the unmobilized to have a vision and passion for personal involvement in global missions. I served as 1 of 10 table facilitators broken down by a focus on youth, college, mid-career, finishers, and entire church.

Session 4 was focused on how to EQUIP believers to get involved in global missions locally and equipping long-term goers.

Session 5 was focused on how to CONNECT believers to strategic opportunities for global missions. I served as 1 of 9 table facilitators in this session.

And the sixth and final session was a Q&A time with a panel.

My biggest take away from the three days together was the opportunity to interact and network with like-hearted colleagues from across the country. Another take away for me was the complexity of and changing nature of the task of world evangelization. It is amazing how much is happening globally despite how disjointed so much of what we do is.