My Recent Trip to the Philippines and Europe
September 2022
I have been away (from NZ) for just under two months. The first three weeks was spent in the Philippines with the SMI Center team. This was a great time of catching up with everyone and it was so good seeing the Center Team doing so well!
My main purpose for this travel was to be a speaker at the Pentecostal European Fellowship and Missions Conference, held this year in Stockholm, Sweden.
Over 200 leaders from 39 European countries attended! The theme aptly chosen was ‘WAKE UP EUROPE’. Europe today is a microcosm of the world. It contains all the world’s peoples and often in very large numbers, many of which are identified as unreached peoples.
With such ‘final frontier’ mission opportunities on the doorstep of the Church in Europe, it is time for the Church to ‘wake up’, and it has been doing just that over recent years, which is an encouraging development.
I attended one of these Conferences about ten years ago and cross-cultural missions to the unreached in Europe was far from the agenda. This conference was so very different. Also, over the years our Simply Mobilizing team in Europe has been doing an outstanding job. Kairos, The Unfinished Story, Empowered to Influence etc were spoken of freely and enthusiastically! And now our seminar on missional church (INTERFACE) is beginning to catch on as well.
I am convinced that the greatest Great Commission need is not more church planting (unless it is among unreached peoples), but for every existing church to become missional.
There has never been anything wrong with the harvest fields – Jesus said they were ripe. The problem is with the harvesters – not with the work but with the workers. They are far too few (Lk 10:2)!
However, today the potential for abundant harvesters and plentiful workers for the remaining harvest fields of the world is huge. We have more Christians on earth today than at any other time in history, connected to churches that exist in every country of the world. Mobilization must be, therefore, our collective focus and priority!
Following the Conference, I had the privilege of traveling to some European countries with several of our SM European team, namely Mika, Jennifer and Stefan. These countries included Poland the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Belgium.
We conducted INTERFACE (our seminar on missional church) and Mobi 101 (introduction to the ministry of mobilization) plus specific meetings with mobilizers and church leaders on mobilization and mission.
Our SM message of all God’s people living a life on mission with God and every church a missional church is beginning to catch on! I was so encouraged at the response from both pastors and church folk!
Please continue to pray for Mika and our amazing SM team in Europe – they have some big challenges, but it seems God is with them in very exciting ways!