Regional Network Presentations

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Regional Network Presentations

Posted by Justin Long ⋅ May 2, 2006 ⋅

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Several of the major unreached people group ministry networks were invited to make short presentations during the plenary sessions. With their permission, a synopsis of each of their presentations is given here. For security reasons, we have sanitized them. Unfortunately this results in them being rather “bland” and void of significant details. If you are interested in making contact with a network for a particular region, you can contact us. This will mainly give you an idea of some of the ministry already happening that you could tap in to and be part of.

Regional Network Presentation No. 1

This national partnership was established in the early 1990s. It represents churches, national mission agencies, seminaries, foundations, and research networks as well as several foreign mission boards. Its goal for 2020 is to see a church planting movement in 128 people groups and 70% of the local churches involved in cross-cultural mission. It facilitated a key research project that resulted in a prayer guide for the local UPGs (and served as a model for similar guides in other countries). Over 400 pastors participated in the first national missions conference, and it has grown with every conference since. They have established local networks to mobilize churches, prayer and students. By 2010, the network will consist of 1,000 local churches, 10,000 Christians who have attended the Perspective course, more than 50,000 students and youth involved in student mission conferences, 1,000 overseas missionaries and 5,000 local church planters.

Regional Network Presentation No. 2

After a century of missions, this area of the world still has only scattered groups of believers. This regional network was established several years ago, deeply underground. It primarily features small gatherings for fellowship and prayer, as well as an annual consultation. The partnership facilitated shared projects and an international prayer campaign (which, since we’re masking where the partnership is, we can’t specifically mention here—but we’ll profile it elsewhere, so you’ll hear about it). The partnership primarily works through interagency teams, business-as-mission, and church planting teams. It encourages sharing of resources and funding as well as annual donor meetings. It also cooperates with other regional partnerships to bring workers to the area.

Regional Network Presentation No. 3

This network was formed nearly 2 decades ago in a densely populated country with a strong Christian presence. It now has over 130 member organizations. It seeks primarily to form new partnerships, to build capacity to provide quality mentoring of individuals, groups and churches for effective cross-cultural ministry, and to consistently serve as an advocate for unreached groups. It recently launched a plan to train tens of thousands of workers to serve in some of the most restrictive unreached areas in the world. It works with churches, missionary-equipping organizations, field agencies, recruiters, and research groups. It has developed a base curriculum for missionary training including video-based training modules in order to rapidly multiply its ability to equip workers. It partners with regional and global networks all over the world to help equip and place workers and provide for member care.

Regional Network Presentation No. 4

The national church is growing numerically and in maturity in unprecedented manner in this region. It is seeing different models of church, varying from cell churches to buildings, as well as a growing interest in the unreached, and small steps toward outreach in other countries. They are using an increasing amount of media for outreach. This partnership was formed to promote partnership, raise awareness, and help foster resources, training and mentoring. It builds identity amongst believers by building relationships across the region, sharing experiences, stimulating mutual learning and identifying ministry priorities, monitoring trends, and discussing conflicting issues and facilitating projects between national, internationals and agencies.

Regional Network Presentation No. 5

This region sits on a strategic trade position. The number of believers has risen from a few hundred in the early 1990s to over tens of thousands today. They are being trained and sent out as cross-cultural workers to surrounding areas. Church growth has now leveled off, but there is a sense that God is about to do something new. A greater unity amongst pastors and leaders is being seen, and new prayer movements are being raised up across the region. The network has a vision for a church planting movement in every country and people group within the region, a focused and effective prayer movement, and the transformation of society through the supernatural power of God.

Regional Network Presentation No. 6

This region is open and mobilizing many new missionaries to send to the unreached world. The regional network features national mission movements, a mobilization and sending network, a network for pastors and churches, and a training and equipping network. It is based on five “pillars”: strengthening of national missionary movements, focus on the unreached, cooperation and communication, development, and missiological reflection. It has so far held five regional congresses and is preparing for its sixth. There are many thousands of missionaries deployed from this region, with hundreds focused on some of the most unreached areas of the world, and many more are in training.

Regional Network Presentation No. 7

This network is based in a semi-open country with both a substantial Christian and Muslim population. Tens of millions of believers are forming the base of an emerging global mission force sending thousands of missionaries to over two dozen countries. The network was established two decades ago, and today is a coalition of nearly 100 churches and mission organizations working amongst 250 unreached groups. It recently launched a project to mobilizer 50,000 workers in 15 years to take the Gospel through several nations “back to Jerusalem.”

Regional Network Presentation No. 8

This partnership was founded three decades ago in one of the most populous countries in the world, and has become a national federation of over 200 churches and mission agencies representing over 30,000 missionaries. It has 11 networks, including networks for youth, Bible translation, member care, urban ministries, training, research, prayer and more. It helps its members to train, mobilize and send missionaries to the many cultures within their own country as well as to hundreds of mission stations around the world.

The Bhojpuri of India

In northeastern India in the state of Bihar, more than 39 million Bhojpuri can be found. The land of the Bhojpuri is the birthplace of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and the hyper-nationalistic movements of India. In the 100 year history of missionary work among the Bhojpuri, there have been very few results. Bihar has been commonly known as the “graveyard of missions and missionaries.”

Yet, something new is happening! In the past 15 years of ministry, a church planting movement has resulted in 30,000 churches led and planted by indigenous peoples. Over 1 million believers have been baptized. Some of these churches are 10th generation church plants—surely a measure of rapid reproduction. Over a dozen Muslim imams are now baptized church planters and prayer groups are meeting in mosques!

How did we get there? Several things have contributed:
•    Research
•    Mobilizing prayer
•    Training leaders in obedience-based discipleship and leadership
•    Focusing evangelism on the family
•    Being culturally relevant: Christians are no longer foreigners in their villages, but an important part of the community
•    Having grassroots leadership: not top-down but bottom-up.

Yet a significant portion of the task still remains. There are 150,000 villages without any Gospel influence. Work on the translation of the Old Testament is unfinished. Beyond the Bhojpuri, there are 120 million Muslims in India. We need people to join us in this great task!