2012 November.pdf - International Baptist Convention

Celebrating Two New Churches• “Hey! Did you hear? We launchedtwo new churches this year!” This wasour responsive cheer at this year’s AnnualConvention Meeting and our LEAD Teammeetings that followed. We had a greattime in Berlin, celebrating our two newchurches – Converge International Fellowship,Darmstadt, Germany, and LifebridgeInternational Church, Panama City, Panama.Two new communities of faith thatdidn’t exist before! Two new expressionsof the light, love, and life of Jesus Christthat didn’t exist before! Two new placeswhere hundreds of people gathered tocorporately worship God that didn’t’ existbefore! Two new members of the IBCfamily that didn’t exist before!Please join us around the world as wecelebrate these two new churches. Continueto pray for our church planters, Glennand Sue Hershberger in Panama City andBob and Carol Marsh in Darmstadt.We’re making significant strides forwardwith church planting! In October2011, all four LEAD Teams (Northern Europe,Southern Europe, Latin American,and Nordic-Baltic) met in Rome, Italy, andlaid out the strategic way ahead for IBCchurch planting. We set into motion fourstrategic moves.• Strategic Move #1 – Identifying “HotSpots” (target areas for church plants)• Strategic Move #2 – Spotting churchplanters• Strategic Move #3 – Matching the planterto the site• Strategic Move #4 – Church plantingprayer initiativeIn March 2012, our four lead teams metin Sorrento, Italy, and began work on contextualizingthe church planter vettingprocess that we’ve learned through ourpartnership with Converge Worldwide.Working groups laid the groundwork forthe IBC’s 10-Step Church Planter InvolvementFunnel, a systematic process to workwith a potential church planter from initialcontact to planting the new church.Our LEAD Teams are currently workingwith seven candidates for church plantingand have begun feasibility studies onseveral of the 20 cities we’ve identified forpotential new IBC churches.These are very exciting times in the IBC.Our churches are growing healthier andthe natural result is multiplication. Someplant … some water … but God makes itgrow! “We are God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor.3:9). “Hey! Did you hear? We launchedtwo new churches this year!” •Darryl Evetts, Church PlantingMinistry Team CoordinatorLaunch a Church in 496 Days!• We are amazed and awed by what God accomplished in justunder 500 days. How incredible to be witnesses to the miracleof watching God create a church. In many ways we knew thisday was inevitable; we sensed God’s call to be here in PanamaCity. But at other times, the journey along the way has been tryingand difficult. There were days when we thought this wouldnever happen, but as the Lord says, do not grow weary and giveup. Our preview services were so important to our team as weworked out many logistical and timing issues.We have been a part of setting up a church plant manytimes and our World Premiere on 23 September was one of thesmoothest. At the end of the day we sensed God showing up ina powerful way; 152 came out to experience this historic event.We counted 14 nations represented in attendance. We had specialguests from the United States and Costa Rica on hand. JerrySheveland and his wife Dee, president of Converge Worldwide,gave a commissioning prayer at the launch. Bob Putnam andMatt Stephen from Converge’s quarterly news magazine Pointalso joined in to cover this story of the first Converge Worldwide-International Baptist Convention partnership plant. We had DinaDreessen, pastor Paul’s wife, and Jilma Rivera, administrativeassistant, from IBC Costa Rica travel down to be the representativesfrom our supporting church there.This has been a dream for many people. Cleide Cooper, ourPanamanian contact, has been praying and dreaming of this dayfor more than seven years. So many people around the worldknew there was great potential for a new international churchhere in Panama City. Needless to say, we are filled with great joyas God has begun a new work here. Clearly, this is God exhibitingHis perfect timing and sovereign prerogative in His redemptiveplan. It was so evident that many IBC churches were prayingfor us on launch day. We had smooth set up, our team wasfull of joy, and the Lord was glorified on that day.Our launch team watched the DVD of “the Harvest” on ourlast prayer and planning meeting just prior to the launch. Asone of our team members stood at the entrance to the theateron Sunday morning, she pointed and exclaimed, “The harvest iscoming.” We turned to see dozens of people, both familiar andnew, making their way to the theater. We had a steady trickle ofvisitors coming right up to the very end. One couple had gone tothe wrong shopping mall and then gotten caught on the wrongside of a running race, which detoured them even longer. Theymade it to church for the last 10 minutes of the service! •Glenn and Susan HerschbergerLifeBridge International Church premieres on 23 September.13 | Highlights 11/2012