In a strategy as old as the book of Acts, missionaries are tasked by Heaven to reach people who have not heard the gospel, establish a church among them, then move on to another area where Jesus is not known.
God laid out the pattern for missions in the New Testament through the ministry of Paul, who preached the Gospel, baptized the converts, and planted new churches.
Paul understood that these converts were more influential among their own people than any outsider could be, so he raised up pastors from within the community of believers to shepherd these flocks. Eager to share the Good News with family and friends in nearby towns and villages, these churches became launching pads for the gospel.
In today’s lingo, these local pastors are referred to as national preachers who, by definition, serve their own people. Unlike their foreign counterparts, national preachers share the same language and culture, making them uniquely able to reach their own people.
Winning Souls
We must never stop sending faithful productive missionaries, but we must increase our funding for the nationals who are already there serving through the funding of national preachers.
Final Frontiers’ Great Commission Fund provides funding for national preachers who are proven church planters working primarily in regions where Christ is both unnamed and unknown. These are doctrinally sound, morally pure men who have come by strong recommendation, completed lengthy applications, and have verifiable ministry experience.
They win souls by witnessing one-on-one, door-to-door, and with street preaching until a nucleus of newly saved and baptized believers has been developed.
The church planter begins meeting with the new congregation weekly or even more often to teach them God’s Word, train them to witness to their families and friends, and begin to mature the body. If the man is a pastor, he stays; if he is a missionary, he finds a pastor to come and take the little flock and mature it.
Planting Churches
Meanwhile, the national preacher selects two or three men from the tiny congregation to move forward with him to the next village. They receive on-the-job training from him as he goes to a new region.
This scenario repeats over and over again, and this is how we fulfill the Great Commission: by working in teams, as our Lord and the Apostle Paul taught us. These teams abound in energy and effort but lack the provision of food and supplies. Support from our Great Commission Fund dramatically accelerates their efforts.
The Great Commission Fund supports national preachers and preachers in training. Your gifts help us fund entire teams. Without our assistance, they are severely handicapped.
Through the funding of national preachers, we endeavor to effectively advance the gospel where it has never been preached before. We have thousands of dedicated, proven church planters in our ministry. They all have needs that, if met, would help them produce more churches and more church planters.
