Here’s what Steve had to tell us:

I learned today that most of these pastors have been taught (and have been doing it) to be “praying down Gods wrath on all pagans/poor/etc. NOW they have openly repented of this practice and have PLEDGED to pray the Lords prayer (i.e. the exact opposite), praying fervently instead that Gods will on earth (their part of it) will now be done as it is in heaven … through their radical acts of mercy & justice!

I’m so in awe and humbled by all this. Your prayers are being answered! Thanks again.

Gracious and Powerful Lord,

We commit Steve, his travels, his teaching, his partners on the journey, and his family as they remain to you.

We ask for wisdom as he teaches, sensitivity to the workings of the Holy Spirit, insight into the gifts and challenges of his translators and images that teach in powerful pictures the lessons you would have the pastors who hear learn.

Allow the lessons to be woven into the hearts of all who participate. Open Steve’s heart to the messages with which you would have him bring home. Join hearts together in the Hope of your Kingdom Come and in the work that is here now.

Protect all the families who remain and lend your travel mercies to those who join together. Fill up the participants with a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit that they might be refreshed, encouraged and empowered.

Provide good soil for the seeds which are sown.  Send water and sun to nourish them.   Raise up harvesters to reap the Word in deed and in their thoughts.   Hold back the thorns that would choke your harvest.   Protect the footpaths of those who would work and not damage the fields.   Allow patience for your timing and what you will bring forth.  Let there be rejoicing in all that you provide.   We give you the Glory!

“O Taste and See that the Lord is Good!”

We lift all these things up in the name of Jesus,

Amen.

West Africa 2010 Dates:

• Depart USA: Sunday afternoon/evening, May 23, 2010
• Ghana, West Africa Summit: Monday, May 24, 2010 to Saturday, May 29, 2010.
• Togo, West Africa Summit: Saturday, May 29, 2010 to Wednesday, June 2, 2010.
• Return USA: Wednesday evening, June 2, 2010

Mission Team 2010 Leaders:

• Steve Childers
• Dick Brown
• Allen Hunter

Steve Childers’ Personal Prayer Requests:

• The health and safety of the African church leaders I’ll be training, as well as their families and churches while they’re away. Many of them will be traveling long distances in remote areas of Africa in order to receive the training.
• Wisdom for me to know what to teach: even though the training topics are already planned I often find that I need to change some topics, put down the prepared notes and address real needs that have surfaced during the training.
• The ability of my French translators in Togo to understand accurately the concepts I’m teaching and communicate them with great effectiveness—resulting in not only renewed minds but renewed hearts. I’ve learned the hard way that my translators can make or break the learning experience.
• My relationships with the African leaders would be deepened resulting in new levels of mutual trust, love and ministry partnership.
• God would be glorified and His invisible kingdom would be made visible through starting, growing and multiplying gospel-centered churches in West Africa (starting in Ghana, Togo, Benin & Senegal) that result in the spiritual, social and cultural renewal of all West Africa (15 countries) AND that West Africa would become a major sending sub-continent to ALL nations.

So, since we’ll be talking about it, we should probably get you acquainted with what the Church Planting Institute is – namely, what are GCA’s goals and aspirations.  This is a pretty exciting time for us; and we want you to be excited too!  Because there is so much to share, this post will be longer than usual.  So, without further ado …

GCA West Africa 2010 Church Planting Institute (CPI) Goals

During the early GCA Leadership Training Summits in a nation, we intentionally do not focus primarily on church planting methods and programs for the indigenous leaders such as “practical steps to planting a church in Africa” or “how to develop and manage a church plant core group”.  Instead, the initial, primary focus is on laying a strong, biblical foundation among the indigenous national leaders and churches—from which these more practical church planting methods will emerge. The four foundational goals (pillars) of the initial training are:

I.  Uniting around a National Kingdom Vision for Church Planting

• A Vision for the Glory, Kingdom & Will of God to come with great power through the Church of God in all it’s various forms (denominations/agencies).
• A Vision not merely for individual church plants but for regional church planting networks that form kingdom alliances with other like-minded denominations that birth true gospel renewal movements and spiritual awakenings.
• A Vision for developing a common church planting training curriculum (“practical steps to planting a church in Africa, etc.”) through a Kingdom Partnership with GCA and other denominations that share this vision.

II. Renewing the Church Leaders through the Power of the Gospel

• Almost every great awakening in the history of the church has been started by a great awakening in the hearts of the church leaders. If we long for an awakening in our churches and nations, it must first begin in the hearts of the church leaders.
• So there is a strong focus on the need for the release of the transforming power of the gospel in the hearts of the leaders through their ongoing repentance (from heart idols) and faith in Christ—setting their heart affections on Christ in worship.

III. Renewing the Churches through the Power of the Gospel

• Like a spreading flame, the personal renewal of the leaders must spread to the churches. The leaders must return to their churches as agents of personal renewal that will lead to church renewal and reproduction of new churches.
• For a church to parent other churches (new church plants) it must first be strong and healthy itself. If not, it will birth sick babies—unhealthy church plants that have little or no true Kingdom impact. So we must have a strong, healthy base of leadership churches in these emerging movements or we will be reproducing unhealthy churches.
• During this training church leaders will study the “Vital Signs” of church health/growth and participate in practical exercises where they evaluate their present church plant or established church in order to help these churches become healthy (especially in evangelism, discipleship and mercy/justice ministries) so they will grow and reproduce new transformational churches.

IV. Raising Up Church Planting Movement Leaders

• For there to be true movements born in these nations, God must raise up movement leaders. So during this training we are asking the Lord of the Harvest to begin raising up church planting movement leaders from all the denominations represented.
• We need what we call “Movement Champions” in several critical areas: We need Vision Champions, Prayer Champions, Worship Champions, Preaching Champions, Discipleship Champions, Small Group Champions, Evangelism Champions, Mercy Champions and Leadership Development Champions. As we spend time studying these areas, we’re asking the Lord to begin raising up key movement leaders who will become champions for strengthening these areas in their own emerging regional and national movements.
• These movement champions will then begin to work in partnership with GCA to develop a common curriculum that will include contextualized church planting methods and programs that can be used effectively by all denominations and agencies in the movement.

GCA West Africa 2010 Church Planting Institute (CPI) Aims & Aspirations

This 2010 GCA West Africa Church Planting Leadership Summits (Ghana & Togo) are designed to equip key West African national leaders to strategically partner together to glorify God by advancing a movement in the West Africa that is multiplying churches and disciples through the transforming power of the gospel. Our purpose is to use this forum as a catalyst to help start strategic church planting movements in West Africa that will advance God’s kingdom in word and deed over every sphere of life by starting, growing and multiplying churches in West Africa that share a passion for the glory of God to be manifested in and through His Church for all nations.

Through these Summits, we aim to foster:

• Kingdom Vision: Helping to develop kingdom-minded church leaders throughout West African with a strong focus on transforming cities, towns and villages through deeds of mercy and justice as well as words of truth.
• Servant Leadership: Equipping leaders to better understand the capacity of the indigenous church to minister to and serve well their own people—leaders who will think and act strategically in spreading the gospel in West Africa.
• Church Planting Networks: Fostering a vision for leaders to develop cooperative Church Planting Networks that recruit, train, and mentor emerging their own indigenous church planters that will help multiply churches among their regions’ diverse groups of people. These networks will work in strategic partnerships with other ministries and NGOs to form alliances, create resources and facilitate more and better church planting movements in West Africa.
• Kingdom Collaboration: Creating platforms for dialogue with various regional leaders to explore new strategies and best practices for working together in their regions.
• Community Development: Fostering a vision of developing creative, entrepreneurial and passionate leaders who are constantly working to create a process of problem solving and improvement in the community that is sustainable through the leadership of different alliances and networks both at the regional level and abroad.

Through these Summits, we also aspire to:

• Explore and learn new strategies and best practices for working together in various West African regions
• Bring church leaders together to build alliances with various like-minded groups who are strategically involved in the same regions and are seeking partners to join them in their efforts.
• Share ideas and models with national leaders regarding how to foster church planting movements through establishing regional church planting networks and alliances.
• Examine holistic ministries and deliberate, proven models that foster social transformation by providing employment, encouraging social change (justice/mercy), influencing government and key national leaders, and helping church leaders provide a credible platform for demonstrating the love of Christ.
• Share proven business strategies that work well hand in hand with church planting, growth and multiplication movements.

Bart assembled our team for a planning meeting after breakfast.  Vava, Darcy, and I were going to be handling registration.  Nathan and Gordon (both fluent in French) were going to provide interpretation and translation.  Thomas (another employee of S.U.) was going to take the payments as we registered people.  Daniel was going to make sure they got checked into the right hotel.  Comfort (many Ghanaians have names like Comfort, Prosper, Wonder…) and Mr. Agama were going to make sure the conferees received their name tag.  We had been trained on how to register people using our Internet based registration system.  We were all set; what could possibly go wrong?

I’ll save time by just saying that from the moment we began to register people for the conference, we were solving one problem after another until the last person was registered two days later.  Problems with the Internet, problems with power and voltage differences in our American equipment, problems with our printers, problems with names being misspelled, problems with people wanting to pay in currency we couldn’t exchange… you name it, and it went wrong!  Nevertheless, the Lord led us through the process.  We were able to register those that had come early for a special training session that was to occur before the rest of the conference started.

The people invited were leaders of leaders in their respective nations.  They sat around in a U shaped formation and listened as Steve cast the vision for the training that would ensue the following evening (after another round of registration!).  Many of the African Nationals were French speakers, so everyone wore headphones and communicated through translators.  It was humbling to see people from 15 different African nations praying together, learning together, and preparing together for the conference.  Once again, I heard God’s voice, “Look what I have done here.”

Across language barriers, across cultural barriers, across distance barriers, across political barriers, God had assembled a group of leaders ready to die for the advancement of the Kingdom of God in Africa.  Some of these men left their homes, walked (and ran) thorough the night to catch a bus at 4:00 am, and traveled for 30 hours across Africa without air conditioning in order to be at the conference.  And I had moaned and groaned about my 3 flights, on which I read a book, watched a couple of movies, and even slept with a blanket over me because the AC was turned up so high.  I was taken aback as I heard story after story of how far people had traveled in uncomfortable situations.  But the thing is; they didn’t advertise their suffering.  We found out by asking how they had come.  Some of them showed up a day early because the bus only comes to their town every other day!  From as far as South Africa to as near as the other side of Accra, God brought people together to receive training for the advancement of the Church in Africa; and He gave me the grace to be there to witness it.

I felt like a spectator standing below Michelangelo, watching him paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  Before my eyes, God was painting a picture of unity in diversity.  A sense of excitement washed over me as I thought, “This is for real.  God is really, truly, moving in a mighty way here.”  I want to be a part of it.  I want to make myself available to God to be used in any way, shape, or form that brings Him glory in the advancement of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Jesus prayed, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”  The Kingdom of God is truly coming (even now) to earth.  This has never been more real to me.  It has been a part of my doctrine.  It has been an exciting part of my theoretical knowledge.  But now the reality of the coming of the Kingdom of God to earth is as real to me as my own personal existence.  Think I’m nuts?  Come to Africa; watch men from different nations, different denominations, and different traditions standing together, holding hands, and praying for vision and ability.  First the reality sets in; then the burning desire to act.

There was a knock at my door around 8:00 am on Sunday.  I opened the door and saw Vava, a church planter from Brazil (who lives in America now) standing there.  He said, “Are you Matthew?”  Then he told me that Bart wanted Nathan and me to meet him downstairs for breakfast.  He told me not to worry about what I was wearing and that he would go get Nathan in his room.  I went downstairs in gym shorts, the wrinkled dress shirt that I had worn on the plane, and my sneakers; a fashion statement for sure.  I walked in and saw Bart enjoying a piece of toast and a hot cup of coffee.  Nathan arrived shortly after.  Bart said we’d be visiting a couple churches in Accra that day after breakfast.  I ate some toast with mango jelly on it, Bart let me send a text message to Hana on his phone, and then I went up to get ready for the day. 

We were picked up by Humphrey (an employee of Scripture Union) and driven to the first church we would visit that day.  When we arrived, their worship service had already begun.  We stood near the side, but were then ushered up to the front row (which was uncomfortable for us, but it was culturally important for them to put us in a place of honor).  Shortly after we sat down, an assistant pastor gave a number of announcements in Ewe (pronounced “ay-way” in this native Ghanaian language) followed by the same announcements in English.  They began to worship in song and dance.  As the music played, first the women came up and danced around in a circle (sort of like a conga line); after they finished, the men came up and danced around.  They swung their handkerchiefs around in the air and shouted praises to God.  A choir sang (angelically), the band played, and the worship continued.  Eventually one of the men grabbed the four Presbyterians sitting on the sidelines and brought us onto the dance floor.  We danced around in circles with big fat smiles on our faces.  I fought back the tears that kept attempting to well up in my eyes: tears of joy, tears of “Wow God… Wow,” tears of excitement. 

Later, they called the four of us up front and recognized us and the work we had come to Africa to do.  Steve preached a short (but, three-point!) sermon, and then we sat back down.  The service went on and on (in a good way).  They brought up all the children and anointed them with oil; then the single parents, then the parents of children who do not yet know the Lord.  It was powerful.  In my heart I continually heard God telling me, “Look what I’ve done here.”  A people that once worshiped idols and animals and worthless false gods are now worshiping the one true God in a vibrant and growing church on the outskirts of Ghana‘s capital city.  They had been set free, and the weight and texture of their joy was not only tangible, but immense.  I had never seen anything like it.  The profundity of the situation left me forgetting to breathe.  I kept thinking, “Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from heaven above, with wisdom power and love, our God is an awesome God.” After the service Steve prayed a blessing over the church and the choir, and then we visited with the pastor in his office.  From there we got in Jude Hama‘s Car (Jude is the president of Scripture Union).  He took us over to another church; one much bigger and fancier.  When we arrived they were performing healings (the minister placed his hands on a woman who violently shook and then fell to the ground).  We sat down near the back, but were once again ushered up to the front row.  They had a choir with a least 80 people in it, singing beautifully.  Steve was invited up to speak briefly about why we were there and what we would be doing the following week.  This service was a lot more like a service you’d experience in the U.S.  However, outside the worship center were two things that revealed to us that this church viewed the Gospel somewhat differently than we do. First, there was a large set of pictures of people that had been healed at the church.  There were pictures of people with diseases, rashes, and all sorts of problems.  Many of the pictures were quite disturbing.  Yet, the display consisted of before and after pictures.  The second thing was the fact that the people at this church were not poor.  Many nice cars lined the outside of the worship center.  Christ may not be being preached the same way at the second church as He was at the first, but He was indeed being preached.  Let me be clear, I believe God heals people today (as He always has) but my heart’s jury is still out on whether or not God continues to give certain people the ability to heal others.  And secondly, I believe that the Gospel is good news for individuals as well as communities and that prosperity (yet, not extreme wealth and over-abundance) is to be expected as Christ ushers in the fullness of the Kingdom of God; yet I do not believe blessing should be expected to come in the form of a BMW for those in a poverty-stricken city.  I suppose we can echo Paul‘s notion in Philippians 1:18 in cases such as these.  John Piper has said that it is not the receiving of a new car that portrays God as magnificent, but that when we are in our deepest struggles, our deepest pain and loss, we can shout, “God is enough!”  “That,” Piper says, “makes God look glorious.” From there we drove back to GIMPA, but not before Jude Hama pointed out the two towers of a Mosque that overshadowed the surrounding buildings.  It’s interesting how God provides glimpses of His glory amidst our fears.  As we sat and looked at the Mosque in the distance, a father and his three kids walked passed our car on their way home from church.  Our thoughts were so focused on threat of Islam that we almost didn’t see the glory of God radiating from the smiling faces of the man and his children.  I felt as if God was reminding me to keep my eyes on my King, not on my King’s enemies.  And I realized that I do that a lot.  I stare, in fear, at what I’m up against in life instead of gazing upon the glory of the sovereign, all powerful King who will lead me through everything He leads me to.  “The LORD is my light and my salvation– whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life– of whom shall I be afraid?” (Ps. 27:1).  

After nearly 24 hours of travel, Nathan and I arrived in Accra, Ghana with all our luggage (!!).  We were tired, but excited.  I remember being nervous waiting in line to go through immigration.  I always think they’ll suspect that I’m up to something and take me in some small room with one light-bulb hanging from the ceiling.  “What are you really doing here, Mr. Ryman?  If that is your real name…”  At that point I would pass out. But, that didn’t happen. 

Everything went quite smoothly and we walked out of the baggage claim area where there was a mob of people standing behind a fence and armed guards pacing back and forth.  Then we saw it, a white piece of paper with our names on it held by a man named Daniel, who works for Scripture Union (a GCA partner organization).  His smile was warm and inviting.  Nathan recognized him from the previous year.  He led us through the crowd over to the parking lot, where a man (that I didn’t know) grabbed tightly onto the handle of my suitcase and said, “I’ll take this for you.”  I said, “No, I’ve got it.”  He tightened his grip and said, “Let go, I’ll carry it.”  I didn’t let go.  So my new “friend” and I walked side by side, both gripping the handle to my suitcase with all of our might.  I didn’t know what to do.  I wondered, “Does this guy work with Daniel?  Does he even know Daniel?  Is this guy trying to steal my suitcase, with me attached?”   Finally, Daniel turned around and noticed that I was a little confused and he told the man to back off.  I later found out that he wanted to carry my bag, so that I would owe him a tip. We got into Daniel’s car (a pick up truck with a big bubble type back, good storage space), and waited for Daniel to go and pay for parking.  We sat there with the windows down, surprised at how hot and humid it was.  Then my old friend from the suitcase-war returned.  He stuck his head in the window and said, “Can you give us a better tip?”  Daniel had given him one Ghana Cedi (about $1 U.S.).  I told him I didn’t have any Cedis (which was true).  Eventually, he left.  He wanted a bigger tip for doing something we didn’t want him to do in the first place.  The gentleman in the next car, with his lip crinkled up to one side and shaking his head, watched me shoo the suitcase man away.  Apparently this was normal.

Daniel eventually returned and we left for GIMPA (the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration), where the CPI was going to be held.   We checked into our rooms and went to bed.  I laid there for a long time, partly because the AC unit in my room didn’t work, and partly because I was in Africa.  Africa!    As I was lying there, I realized that in the same way that I wouldn’t let go of my suitcase, my Lord had promised to not let go of me.  Even when the enemy grabs on to me as tightly as he possibly can, hoping to gain something; my mighty King holds tighter, stronger, and without any fatigue.  I was then, as I am now, in good Hands.  I prayed that the Lord would watch over Hana (my wife) back home and that He would prepare me for what was to come.  I had no idea what I was in for.