UNLEASHING POTENTIAL IN STORYCENTRIC COMMUNITIES

Reaching the Unreached People in East Africa

East Africa Module 1

Real People With Real Stories “Grace” is 30 years old. Every week she walks on rough roads through mountainous terrain for 25 miles in order to reach the community for Jesus. She is persecuted for her faith, but she persists in her ministry because her calling to the unreached is great. “Ian” worked among an unreached people group. He was one of the very few Christ followers that had made contact with these people. “Jerry” was building into Ian, developing him as a leader in order to grow the church there. Last month, Jerry’s phone alerted him that Ian was calling, except when he answered it wasn’t Ian. The person on the other end had to deliver the bad news that Ian had been killed in a car accident. Jerry lost not just a friend that day, but one of his strategic leaders in his network. With Ian now gone, who is going to carry on this work? These are real people with real stories. These are the people Freedom to Lead International has interacted with on the ground in Kenya this month. They are doing amazing work, but they are under-resourced. A Message For You FTL in East Africa Reaching the Unreached This month we have been meeting a network that spans nine countries in East Africa. They have requested Freedom to Lead International to provide our leadership development program (The Garden Project) for thousands of leaders throughout this large ministry that focuses on unreached people. After 40 of

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Is there any real difference between evangelism and missions?

Evangelism and missions both flow from the Great Commission – Christ’s command to “make disciples of every nation” (Matthew 28) by reaching them and teaching them. Isn’t this all just Great Commission work? Yes and no. There is a big difference between those that have been reached with the gospel and those that have not.

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Pray, Then Send or Go: Reflections on Matthew 9:37-38 and the Lord of the Harvest

“Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’” Matthew 9:37-38 In this passage of Scripture, Jesus gives us three ways to reach the lost: praying, sending, and going. The one command is “pray earnestly.” It’s one word in the original; it has the connotation of pleading for something. We all have the responsibility to plead for the lost, praying specifically that the Lord would send out workers to reap a harvest of lost souls. They are there ready to be “reaped.” This type of pleading prayer is set in the context of Jesus going from village to village seeing the people that were like “sheep without a shepherd” (v. 36). Christ had compassion for the lost and he was asking for his disciples to have that same kind of compassion. In essence, Jesus is calling the disciples into a Gospel partnership as they plead with the Lord for harvest workers.

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