Ministry

Stories from around the world

March 10, 2020 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

“The nation of Equatorial Guinea in West Africa is certainly experiencing new waves in the planting of churches since the country’s independence in 1968. The 72 church planters we trained in September 2018 in the Multiplying Churches and Communities strategy have planted 147 churches in the last 12 months.” – Apollos Jabbo, Global Church Movements leader, West Africa

“In an undisclosed country in Southeast Asia, currently there are an estimated 45,000 local churches, up from 25,000 in 2007.” – John Becker, VP for Global Collaboration, GACX

“By the grace of God, all the churches in Chad are working together in the harvest and are now fasting and praying together for the nation and the growth of God’s kingdom.” – Tamadji Moyalbaye, Global Church Movements leader, Chad

“Last week, more than 60 Cru USA staff and partners attended our first US Global Church Movements staff conference, and we are ready to partner with churches and mission organizations and launch a national church multiplication movement.” – Dave Robinson, national director, US Global Church Movements

“Arobogast Henga, a former fisherman from an island in Lake Victoria, Tanzania has experienced an amazing multiplication of churches with 25 generations in two years.” – Dismas Shekalaghe, Global Church Movements leader, Southern & Eastern Africa

The Cattleman Catches a Vision

February 10, 2020 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

Arba Minch, a town in southern Ethiopia known for its many springs, its tropical fruit and a crocodile market, has grown dramatically in recent years — from 40,000 in 1994 to nearly 200,000 today.

A couple of years ago, the growth led to the relocation of 400 families (about 1,000 people) to a new community on the edge of town. As far as anyone knew, no believers dwelt among the 400 families in this village, known as Noc Site.

About that same time, the Kelhiout Church in Arba Minch sent a farmer named Gideon to the Global Church Movements church-planting training.

When Gideon was about 35 years old, he had come to faith in Christ through the witness of a 10-year-old boy. Gideon had been raising cattle but had sunk into a life of drinking and stealing. After turning to Christ, he fully surrendered everything in order to serve the Lord, and was actively sharing his faith.

During the training, he learned about a witnessing method known as “Prayer, Care, Share.” This approach encourages believers to find a “Person of Peace,” that is, somebody who is open enough to meet the believer and can open doors to a community. One prays for the Person of Peace, then finds ways to care for that person and meet their needs, and finally shares the gospel with him or her.

Gideon and his local church agreed that he would reach out to Noc Site, this fledgling village of 1,000 people with no Christian witness. He asked God to lead him to a Person of Peace, then began caring for people and witnessing. One day in town he met Yashir, who lived in Noc Site. As he began to pray for, care for and share with Yashir and his wife, they gave their hearts to the Lord. Yashir quickly shared the gospel with his relatives, and two of them accepted Christ as well.

This small group began regularly meeting to study the Bible. As the new believers learned how to follow Jesus and share their faith with others, the group grew. With the help of Gideon, what started at Yashir’s house two years ago has grown to a church of more than 50 people today. And several of the new believers are learning how to lead their own Bible studies, so the church in Noc Site will soon begin to multiply — fulfilling the dream of a church reaching this 1,000-person community!

Thinking about 2019

December 27, 2019 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

Aurea with 2nd generation church planters she is training

Aurea, a 47-year-old woman and mother of 5, learned to plant a church. Kay and I taught Aurea and others in September 2018 in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. Aurea says,

“The training has given me power to start church planting. I started with three persons in my house, but it has rapidly grown to 25 members. There have been difficulties and challenges but God has raised three leaders who will soon start second generation churches. My vision is to see churches planted everywhere in my area.”

Anita, a mother of eight, travelled 80 miles to attend the training. She returned to her home in Cogo and planted a growing church in this former center of the slave trade. Cogo is at the confluence of 3 major rivers that ships could easily reach from the Atlantic ocean.

After returning home, Anita began to share her faith using the Four Spiritual Laws and organized a showing of the Jesus Film with 45 watching and 13 making decisions to follow Christ.

Church building in Cogo, Equatorial Guinea on land donated by a new, 75-year old believer

Anita says,

“Cogo is a difficult area. Many people feel civilized because of the colonial influence, but their lives are empty. The people are into drunkenness and loose living. I came back from the training a changed person and was excited about teaching the word of God. One man who received Christ was 75 years old and controlled by smoking and drinking alcohol. He is growing in his faith and has stopped smoking and drinking. This transformed man gave us the land where we have started constructing a church structure.”

Map of Cogo, Equatorial Guinea — Map of Equatorial Guinea showing Cogo town.

Anita continues,

“Cogo is surrounded by rivers. A woman of 65 years received Christ with me but doesn’t live in Cogo. This woman paddles her canoe 10 miles to come to Cogo for fellowship with believers. She stays three days for church service and discipling then returns to her area to minister.”

This is why Kay and I train church planters to connect with the lost and to plant churches that multiply. This is why we develop training curriculum. This is why we develop digital technology tools to expand the scope and engage more people in the Great Commission.

Thank you for our partnership reaching an increasingly desperate world like the people of Equatorial Guinea with the life-saving message of Jesus.

Kay and I look forward to 2020. We will be training and coaching. We will be following Jesus into new adventures. We praise God for the privilege we had in 2019 to minister in 12 countries flying about 195,000 miles and sleeping in 29 different beds. The adventure continues…

A predictable process on an unpredictable pathway

November 25, 2018 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

I teach evangelism, discipleship and spiritual formation, and how to help new believers form local churches that multiply. Occasionally, friends and colleagues from my own mission organization will challenge this work saying that following Jesus is a non-linear process and what I teach reduces following Jesus to a simple, linear, step-by-step process.

Most of this well-intentional criticism is primarily from those in post-Christian cultures. I appreciate their engagement and do not fear this pushback because I know that, while life is not linear, that education and training and transferable discipleship requires approaching it as if it is linear.

I’m reading Steve Smith’s Spirit Walk book and found this excellent understanding of this complexity:

The Spirit Walk is unpredictable. But the process of learning the steps of walking in the Spirit of God is predictable. The Bible and its application throughout history point to common patterns that we must follow. They are the spiritual disciplines of learning to let the Spirit guide us every day. [Spirit Walk, Steve Smith, page 40.]

The word “process” is defined as “a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.” Steve is saying that, while truly walking in the Spirit day by day is an unpredictable experience because of who the Spirit is, we can LEARN to be obedient through a series of actions or steps taken in order. Ministry to others, whether evangelistic or spiritual formation, is rarely a linear, predictable process, but we can teach others to be effective by teaching the steps in a process of engaging others.

I appreciate Steve Smith’s 3 Ps of movement-building: a common pathway for discipleship, a common process that is teachable, repeatable and transferable and a common power available to all that comes through walking with the Spirit of God.

This fits well with my engineering education. Most of the physical laws in our universe are complex and not linear. But in order to train engineers, we make some assumptions that simplify the basic physical laws of the universe. My first courses were spent solving engineering problems in this simple, linear space. Then we admit later on that it is more complex and instead of linear equations that predict behavior, we actually have to learn what is called partial differential equations. These are equations that are too complex to actually solve except by making assumptions which simplify them and give acceptable accuracy (99.9%). Maybe they train engineers differently in this era of very powerful computers than can model and offer solutions very quickly. But the guys who put a man on the moon with less computing power than my cellphone did it by solving very complex problems by simplifying them into a step-by-step process.

We do the same with teaching a process of evangelism, spiritual formation and discipleship, and local church formation with a DNA of multiplication.

A Voice from the Past

October 7, 2017 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

Isaac Abijade

Please, are you the Mr Seabourn who taught Electronics when I was a young boy at Government Technical College, Bukuru, Nigeria? If you are, thank you for helping me learn how to be a committed Christian as a young man with very little experience of life. Many thanks. ~Isaac Ajibade

So began a conversation through Facebook Messenger.

I currently pastor a small parish of the Redeemed Christian Church of God here in the United Kingdom in a town called Gillingham, Kent. I am also a Professional Environmental Health Practitioner to support the work of the ministry.

Later, Isaac shared more.

On the 21st April 1979 during a Fellowship meeting where you spoke, I felt the need to make a better faith commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ. I pleaded with Him to take away the sin of anger towards others which I often demonstrated while playing football, often injuring others. Jesus took the anger away and I made peace with God. The change continues today with fellowship with Jesus and love for fellow men. God used you to be a source of the help that I needed as a young person seeking. I fell in love with Jesus.

It’s exciting to hear stories of God’s faithfulness almost 40 years later. I was a teacher of electronics for the government in Nigeria. Part of the joy of walking with God is that we never know when a conversation will be life-changing for someone.

On a trip this week, I handed Heath my phone opened to the Knowing God Personally section of the God Tools app. Heath read through the gospel. We discussed it. Although Heath is comfortable as a childhood-Catholic attending a Unitarian fellowship, seeds were planted.

Success in witnessing is taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.

Who knows, maybe Heath will have an Isaac story in the future.