Thank you so much for praying for our special annual gathering of our churches and the two week Bible school that followed! Here are a few of the highlights:
- I was gathered in a circle with eight Asian leaders representing the churches we have started in four cities across Asia. Each was listening to the Holy Spirit about who He was calling our young church network to be. After the Lord started speaking prophetically through them, they began to outline their vision: A Sending Church: reaching students with the gospel and sending them out to impact every corner of Asia and every level of society.
- They specifically laid out that they would be a church of Jesus First, Love, Radical Sharing of the Gospel, Multiplying Discipleship, Supernatural Power, and Revival. They especially felt the phrase “XianFeng.” This means the front lines of an army and is often translated vanguard, forerunners, or pioneers. It’s possible they’ll end of choosing this as the name of the nascent network of churches. These are so many of the DNA strands we have prayed God would build into this church, and it was exhilarating to watch the Holy Spirit lead them to each one.
- Four teams of Asian believers scattered across the host city for a night of a fun scavenger hunt, but God and these young believers had other things in mind. As we gathered the next day for funny videos from their experiences, we were instead regaled with story after story of teams sharing the gospel, interceding for campuses, worshiping in public places, and praying for the sick.
- Liberty’s (an attendee) brother was in the hospital for an extended time with a serious lung disease. We prayed for him together, and by the time the retreat was over the results of his blood tests had completely changed, and he was recovered and preparing to leave the hospital.
- Since that retreat, we have had five young leaders in a two week Bible School. During this time the Holy Spirit has fallen on the group multiple times to the effect of repentance from sin, spontaneous singing new songs of worship, a passion to go out and share the gospel every night, a zeal to read the Bible (the entire group has read the whole New Testament in less than two weeks), and people feeling called to full time ministry.
God is using your prayers to build His church! Thank you for standing with us.