What is DAWN?

DAWN-Info auf deutsch

The DAWN Vision
DAWN around the world
Quotes
DAWN Reports

The DAWN Vision

DAWN is an acronym for "Discipling a Whole Nation". It is a strategy developed to fulfil our Lord's command to "make disciples of all nations" (Matt 28:19,20). To do this DAWN seeks to mobilise the whole body of Christ in a nation to provide Christ-centred cells, congregations or churches for every village and neighbourhood of every class, kind and condition of person in the nation.

The purpose of DAWN Ministries is to see saturation church planting become the generally-accepted and fervently practised strategy for completing the task of making disciples of all peoples in our generation.

Our concern is that the body of Christ in every land ought to be praying and working for the discipling of that whole nation, including all its people groups.

Our conviction is that this is accomplished most effectively when the whole church of a whole nation is committed to the goal of having at least one Christ-centred congregation within easy access of every person in the nation. There should be a living, growing, Christ-centred congregation for every 1,000 people or smaller community unit.

With a witnessing congregation in every neighbourhood, every person will have the opportunity to make an informed, intelligent decision for or against Jesus, and will have a place of fellowship where he or she could be discipled should they become a believer.

DAWN recognises that the job of discipling a nation is too big for any one denomination. It provides an answer by bringing a unity of purpose to a diversity of styles and means.

DAWN seeks to further national movements of saturation church planting and encourages research, intercession and strategy.

DAWN works to see existing churches take on their God-given responsibility for the community around them, and to see new churches planted into communities where there is no church.

DAWN around the world

DAWN grew out of the experiences of the national church in the Philippines during the seventies.

Research and prayer helped answer the question, "What do we need to do to disciple our nation?" These answers were then used to set relevant and realistic goals. In turn these goals were used to inspire and motivate the local church to the task.

At that time the goal of the leadership was to plant 50,000 new churches by the year 2001. Currently (1995) the number of churches has grown from 5000 to 37,000. If current growth continues, by the year 2001 there will be 85,000 churches in the Philippines.

Since 1974 the DAWN strategy has been implemented in many parts of the world. In New Zealand it has resulted in growth of every denomination, in India indigenous leaders have set a goal of planting 500,000 new churches. It is currently at some stage of development in over 100 nations world-wide.

There are DAWN projects running in the following European countries:: Andorra, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Channel Islands, Croatia, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Macedonia, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, Wales, as well as Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Israel, Nepal, Pakistan, Turkey, and other countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

The present general secretary of the World-wide Evangelical Alliance, Jun Vencer, was leader of the DAWN project in the Philippines for nine years. DAWN Ministries (Colorado Springs, USA) has been in existance since 1984, and DAWN Europa since 1992. DAWN is an associate member of the World-wide Evangelical Alliance UK and serves within the commission of evangelisation and church planting.

DAWN is a biblical and mission-oriented VISION,
that recommends a practically proven PROCESS
to develop an evangelistic and national STRATEGY!

Quotes

"DAWN is the best delivery system that we have for taking church growth principles and helping them to be applied in a particular nation to plant and build up churches." C. Peter Wagner
"DAWN is one of these unexpected, meaningful, strategic and promising ways of God. Many leaders found new hope that a re-evangelisation of Europe may be possible." Jeff Fountain, European director of YWAM, Holland
"DAWN is not a program with a fixed recipe, but a kind of team work. AUBE 2001 (= DAWN) achieves the impossible by bringing together movements and churches of completely different traditions to one common goal." Daniel Schaerer, France
"Europe had its first DAWN strategy in place before the year 1500. At that time the churches divided the world into geographical parts and so arranged that every human being lived within the influence of a Christian church. This start provided a Christian base for Europe, which has stood the test of time. If our evangelisation really is to plant its roots into our society, we must rediscover and practise what the early church had already done before the year 1000: to plant churches into the very centre of the living environment of every modern man and woman. DAWN gives us the best proven and long-term strategy." Chris Forster, Co-ordinator, Challenge 2001 (= DAWN), England

DAWN reports

E-mail Dawn Ministries at 71102.2745@compuserve.com for a free quarterly DAWN REPORT by mail.
The weekly DAWN Fridayfax keeps you up to date about what God is doing today to build his church. The focus is on encouraging and inspiring researched factual reports with statistics, testimonies and spotlights to encourage the church to finish the job of making disciples of all nations. The English Fridayfax is available on the World Wide Web or by e-mail.
For further information and help, contact:
DAWN International Network, 4-6 School Road, Tilehurst, Reading RG31 5AL, UK.
E-mail: Wolfgang Simson. Phone/fax: +44 (0)118 9415 558
or your national DAWN office.

This Web version of the DAWN Fridayfax is maintained by the Jesus Fellowship Church (Jesus Army) as a service to the Christian church. Please visit our web pages which feature the e-zine Streetpaper and its special Revival section.

Text © DAWN Europa. Redistribution is explicitly allowed as long as the copyright remains intact with the text.
These web pages are copyright © 1996, 1997 Jesus Fellowship Church (Jesus Army) in this form.