DAWN Fridayfax 1998 #21

News from Egypt, Romania, Russia, Latin America

In this issue:
Egypt: Decentralisation reaches more
Romania: Timothy Principle works
Russia: Teaching how to plant church-planting churches
Three million pray for Latin America's salvation

Egypt: Decentralisation reaches more

In Fridayfax 1998 Issue 11, we reported about the evangelistic events held with Luis Palau at the start of 1998. We have since received a further report, which speaks of an average of around 110,000 'participants' in the meetings each evening. Videotapes of the evangelistic addresses were distributed to over 600 churches throughout the country by courier. Through this decentralised strategy, more people were able to take part than if the event had taken place in the Cairo football stadium, with a capacity of 100,000. Various reports speak of a total of 30,600 people who showed interest in becoming Christians during the first 4 evenings of the event. One problem which the village churches encountered was that they could organise a video recorder, but they needed several televisions to enable everyone to see well enough. Necessity is the mother of invention, so several Christians brought weak TV transmitters, via which the video could be shown on all televisions at once. By accident, they discovered that the transmissions could also be received in houses near the churches, to which people were sent when the churches were full. Some churches still transmit the programs each evening for the local Christians. Since then, the same decentralised system has been used for evangelism training with Billy Graham's school of evangelisation, reaching 1,300 leaders in 500 churches throughout the country.

Source: name and address withheld

Romania: Timothy Principle works

Steve is an American missionary in Central Europe with the vision of training pastors and leaders to plant new churches. He calls it 'facilitating', meaning that he as a foreigner does not evangelise and plant churches, but enables others to do the job. He recently met Florin Botar, pastor of a Baptist church in the Romania's Alba mountains. Steve knew of pastor Florin, but had never before been in the region. Florin thanked Steve, saying "I could never have even dreamed of what is happening to us now. Our church has changed almost beyond recognition. Eight months ago, nobody was interested in evangelism or church planting. Our prayers went around in circles and, even worse, we had serious divisions. But now we are planting new churches!" After a moment, Steve realised what had happened: "A team trained by Nelu Sofrac and his team, whom I had trained, had recently visited Florin's church. So the church planting vision still works in the third generation!" In his letter, Paul advised Timothy to only teach people who would teach others. This principle is obviously still valid today.

Source: United World Mission

Russia: Teaching how to plant church-planting churches

Peter Sautov had a simple vision: to plant 200 new churches in the next 10 years. 17 church planting teams have already formed under his leadership in western Russia. How does he work? He has put together a team of gifted Christians who train pastors, theology students, church leaders and anyone else interested how to plant church-planting churches. The aim is 'Saturation Church Planting'. The idea, though, is not only to plant new churches, but to start more centers to teach the vision and strategy. Their current aim is three more centers outside Moscow. One of Sautov's team members is Michael Dodenkov, from Zhahleznagorsk in south Moscow, who has already planted three churches in Saransk, and will soon lead a training center in the Kerov area near Kazan.

Source: Bobby LaDage, e-mail: bladage@compuserve.com

Three million pray for Latin America's salvation

On 6 April 1998, over 3 million people participated in a 'day of fasting and prayer'. Almost 200,000 people in 50 towns and cities met in churches and stadia to pray for a 'spiritual breakthrough in Latin America'. TV and radio stations broadcast the event throughout the continent for 5 hours. In Cali, Colombia, 55,000 Christians prayed throughout the night in the football stadium. According to the organiser, Raul Justiniano, some 5,000 churches took part in the day of prayer. The event marked the start of a 1,000-day countdown: the "Confederation of Ibero-American Communicators and Mass Media Christian Entities" (COICOM) suggested cooperating in order to explain the gospel to every Spanish-speaking person in the world by 31 December 2000. This aim is supported by around 1,000 Christian media groups. Prior to April 6, 5,000 Christians had prayed and fasted for 40 days for personal renewal. "If God wants to revive our cities and countries, the change must start with us," says Justiniano. Next year, the movement wants to mobilise 2 million people again in further prayer and fasting events.

Source: COICOM

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