"I was challenge the way I think about evangelism"

Dear Praying Friends,

We were greatly encouraged by some of the feedbacks we’ve received after“The Changing Face of Evangelism & the Well-being of the City”trainings that we had in L.A. and in KC. Here are 4 from the dozens of written comments:

“I loved the way Gabor spoke of building your testimony using fours words in one sentence. I also loved the focus on listening and understanding people since they share the same imago Dei.”

“The evaluation at the end of this course… revealed thatwe are effectively NOT growing through seeing people won to Christ.This is a paradigm shift we need to help American church leaders make.”

“I was challenged to change the way I think about evangelism. I want to re-prioritize my lifeto be more focused on relationships with people that I come in contact with everyday to make the most of every moment!”

“The tools that you shared were helpful in taking evangelism out of the theoretical and giving very practical ways to go about it.”

Recently at a church-planting conference we’ve learned the brutal reality that only 1% of the churches in the U.S. are growing through conversion while 80% of the churches are either stagnating or declining. The rest are growing through gaining new members from other churches. We host these evangelism trainings with the hope to contribute to change the paradigm so believers would feel envisioned and equipped to start spiritual conversations where they work, live and play. Your partnership makes it possible for us to continue equipping believers in various parts of the U.S.

In Lenexa, KS at Westside Family Church we've trained 55 believers to start spiritual conversations where they work, live and play. This coming Sunday Westside Church will host another training offering this opportunity for the whole church community.

In L.A. training pastors and church-planters. As part of the training we help them to evaluate their ministry in the area of evangelism and create a comprehensive evangelistic plan for their community.

We Need Your Prayers:

1. Pray that many people would feel equipped and envisioned to start spiritual conversations as a result of the evangelism trainings we are hosting this spring.

2. We are helping to lead 3 different multiplying faith communities as we are working on developing a curriculum for advancing group multiplication (called Sent 6:7). Between May 13-20 we will have the opportunity to present this curriculum and process to church and ministry leaders in Western Europe.

3. We are recruiting students to join us for the “In the City for the City” summer project in KC. Pray that many students would join us between June 1-25 to learn and experience how to do ministry in the city.

4. We are blessed that our two older kids are missing us and they often express that to us. However, living continents apart remains a growing emotional challenge. As you walk your call, the voices of losses and loneliness amplified. Remember to pray for our scattered family.

Significant & Tender Moments

January had been full of significant and tender moments. Our team continues to expand geographically "The Changing Face of Evangelism & the Well-being of the City" conversational evangelistic training. 1,469 believers in 12 cities, in 7 States had been trained so far. (See the picture above.) It would be impossible to share the depth of all the significant moments of this month. Instead, we've decided to give snapshots of some of these moments through pictures with a brief summary.
In the last two pictures you'll see some of the tender moments of this month.

In Oklahoma City at the middle of January, at Take the Mountain, sponsored by our good friends and prayer warriors Paul & Elizabeth Dungan. Leaders came together to ask God to take the 7 Mountains of our culture: religion, family education, government, media, arts & entertainment, and business.

Gabor and Dave are working on contextualizing a training process that is successfully utilized by church-planters outside of the U.S. worldwide. We call it Sent 6:7 based on Acts 6:7: "the Word of God spread and the disciples multiplied". It is a training process to equip believers to initiate, build and multiply discipleship groups and faith communities. This is the first test-pilot group in the U.S. before we launch it through our 57 staff in 28 cities. More about Sent 6:7 here: www.churchmovements.com/sent67/ 

We've recently joined a church-planting effort downtown KC. This past week we had an Elders Planning Retreat. Pictured here are the elders and their spouses of New Life CityChurch.

This is a group of special friends we have the privilege of leading in the past year weekly studying God's Word. We'll together dive into Sent 6:7 in the next couple of weeks.

Edina and Renato saying good-bye as Renato moves back to Hungary to start college in Budapest. We won't see him until the summer. 

Gergo and Rahel are saying good-bye as Rahel leaves after spending two weeks with us over Christmas. She continues her medical studies in Dundee, Scotland. We won't see her before mid July.