Gospel to Africa

The Power of the Gospel in Rural Africa

Mar 21, 2019 | Stories

One of our Beyond team members, Neill, was invited to study a movement taking place in Africa. He and a team met with over 100 of the leaders in the movement over a period of a week. These men and women live in very rural areas. In fact, some were late to their appointments because they had defended their crops from wild elephants the night before!

In one particular appointment, Neill and an interpreter were interviewing four young ladies, all of whom had started Bible study groups within “streams” of the movement. This movement has one stream that has 15 generations of new groups started. For the interview, a plate of snacks had been provided, and Neill had intentionally eaten just two of the cashews. He knew that, while he gets three meals a day, these young ladies, two of whom had nursing babies, usually didn’t get enough to eat.

Halfway into the interview, the interpreter and the ladies began laughing. When Neill asked why they were laughing the translator explained by naming off several observations the young women found interesting about the day.

“We’ve never been in a building where we climbed up stairs.”

“We have never been in such a nice “house” before.” (It was a 5-story hotel.)

“We have never been in a bathroom where you just sit down to “go.”

“We’ve never seen a toilet where it just went “whoosh” and took everything away!”

“We’ve never seen a foreigner before. And he ate from the same plate as us!”

Neill felt very humbled to be with these young ladies. They lead such a basic life but are seeing generation upon generation of new believers coming to Christ. They have front row seats, witnessing and participating in the Kingdom coming to earth.

Are we, who have so much, doing all that we can to reach the unreached with the Good News of the Gospel?

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WORK IN THIS AREA

When Buildings are Useful

Sep 15, 2018 | Stories

Many people have the misconception that Church Planting Movements are opposed to buildings. What we are opposed to is the unwise use of God’s resources.

In some movements, buildings are used for community centers, community outreach, and training centers. This enables a movement to be a blessing to the community, and to train believers with a focus on Disciple Making Movement principles.

Some movements have decided that, rather than constantly renting facilities, they are better off building something or simply buying a property and saving the rent money to be used on other costs. Beyond’s own global headquarters (given to us by God through a donor) is a good example. By renting out most of the building, much of the mortgage payment is covered while we can also provide affordable office space for other ministries and small businesses. We also try to use the building as a vision-casting tool.

Our brightly colored, vibrant “Vision” wall in our offices illustrates how disciple-making movements reproduce churches that start churches that start churches–and includes many faces of the different cultures, ethnicities and continents of the world. The wall gives a global glimpse of our areas of focus and the movements we have impacted–and the massive ⅓ of the world which still has never heard or seen Jesus’ Good News.

About a year ago, a prospective employee was being interviewed for a position. We showed her the wall to help her understand Beyond’s mission. She prayed that day that she would get the job because of the faces on the wall (she did!). She had been a Christian for years and in ministry for a long time, but had never experienced such a burden for the unreached as she did that morning.

This “Vision” wall has similarly impacted many who visit–both believers and non-believers. When the Unreached are just statistics in a faraway land, it is easy to forget. When you see their pictures and look into their eyes, the enormity of the Great Commission becomes more pressing, and more urgent.

If buildings enable practical ministry and more vision-casting and better funding, they can be effective tools for vision-casting and for making disciples of all Unreached peoples. Pray that God would continue to break the hearts of believers who visit us in this building, that they too would get the urgency of Matthew 28:18-20.