Luke Perkins, president of Crossworld, says that working professionals are often welcome where missionaries are not.

“We’re finding in many of the places that have been closed, they are open to people who have some kind of profession or some kind of skill,” says Perkins.

Over the last 15 years, Crossworld has specialized in sending skilled workers to become cross-cultural disciple makers. Some of the areas where Crossworld has found opportunities are in places of Central Asia and the Middle East where many people may never meet a Christian let alone hear about Jesus.

“If we’re really going to move the needle on reaching the unreached and reaching the unengaged, we’ve got to be able to deploy non-traditional, what we would call at Crossworld ‘marketplace’ workers,” says Perkins.

“The sacred, secular divide that has grown over the years in church history really shouldn’t be there to begin with. It’s all sacred. Work itself is sacred and valuable, and God has designed it.”

Crossworld recently sent a man to work for an IT company and a woman to a hospital, both in unreached areas. After workers arrive to their new context, the ministry then provides ongoing support to thrive and make disciples. From language learning to spiritual health, Crossworld workers receive all they need to succeed.

“The complexity of living cross culturally is not something to be taken lightly,” says Perkins. “A lot of people have gotten hurt even, emotionally and in other ways, by trying to do that on their own, or trying to do that with their family on their own.

“We want people to be able to do that in a healthy way and bear good fruit.”

Pray for more workers to go where the Gospel is needed. Learn how you can get involved at Crossworld.org.

Header photo courtesy of National Cancer Institute via Unsplash.

Helen Williams of World Missionary Press says their long-time coordinator in Guinea, Brother Adrian, recently shared the goal he and a group of believers have for 2025. They want to train a group of 150 Christians how to share their faith and make disciples.

Williams says, “Guinea is on the west coast of Africa. It’s a French-speaking country—primarily French, some Arabic, […] 85% Muslim, about 13% Christian, and two [percent] are traditional. So, it’s basically a Muslim country in terms of faith and expression.”

Discipleship training

The plan is to have a training session in January, February, and March. Each session, lasting 10 days, will teach 50 individuals about their faith and how to share the Gospel. They’re asking World Missionary Press for help make these training sessions possible.

(Photo courtesy of World Missionary Press)

“They’re going to need literature,” Williams explains, “So they have a plan to work with the existing group there and really touch this country for the Lord. So, this is really encouraging for us because our literature is just fit for this. The booklets explain the Gospel, clearly.”

In addition to their booklets, World Missionary Press also has three Bible studies available in French that Williams says are great for helping a new believer ground their faith in Scripture. This is a great foundation, too, for them to be able to talk about God and the Bible with others.

Answering a need

Brother Adrian has requested two 40-foot containers full of these materials. And World Missionary Press has been busy answering that call with the hopes that the containers can ship out sometime next month.

“That’s four million booklets,” Williams says.

While a large order like this could feel overwhelming, it is also a sign that God is working in Guinea through followers of Jesus.

“This kind of thing—it encourages me that God’s in this. That there’s an order and a plan and that there will be a harvest.”

Asking God to move

Brother Adrian asks for prayers for the training sessions, the participants, and that God would provide for all the logistical needs.

Photo courtesy of World Missionary Press.

Williams says, “This plan is good, but it needs to be covered in prayer. […] They want to see a vital Christian community all through Guinea. I don’t see any reason why we can’t pray for that. That’s probably the heart of God, as well.”

You can also pray for World Missionary Press as they work to meet these needs. Pray for the production to go smoothly, for the printers to function as normal, and that the shipping would not be delayed.

God is moving in Guinea, and not only through this group. You can be praying for another group of believers in Guinea who are awaiting a small shipment of materials from World Missionary Press right now. Ask God to go before these materials to prepare hearts to receive the hope of Jesus.

To learn more about how you can partner with World Missionary Press, click here.

Header Photo by Kurt Cotoaga via Unsplash.

Voice of the Martyrs Canada supports persecuted Christians and helps them to remain firm in their faith. Stephen Wesley explains their needs today.

“What we’re seeing happening is that in the persecuted church, there is a need for understanding why persecution is happening, what they are going through, and how God has used persecution to bless and strengthen the church,” says Wesley.

“Where there’s persecution, it’s primarily for the reality of their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.”

Last month, Chinese authorities raided Beijing Zion Church and arrested a dozen people. Most were released the same day, but one church elder was charged with “organizing illegal gatherings” and kept in custody for a 14-day administrative detention. Similar stories regularly occur in countries with limited religious freedoms.

Persecution is more common and severe in some areas of the world, but it is a shared experience of all disciples of Jesus. On the last night with them before his death, Jesus told his disciples, “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours” (John 15:20).

Wesley says, “We have to recognize that if I’m going to look like Jesus in the world, all those who live godly in Christ Jesus, will suffer persecution.”

So how do we respond and support fellow Christians enduring persecution? Wesley says we can start with prayer. Jesus set the example when he prayed for his followers and for all those to come:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:20-23).

“We need to pray for unity,” says Wesley. “We need to love one another as Christ has loved us.”

Jesus gave this same command to His disciples the night before He was crucified (John 15:12).

Wesley says, “The world is looking at us. They are hearing our message. But then they’re saying, ‘Am I seeing in your activity the reality of what you’re teaching?’”

To pray further for the persecuted, use this resource from VOM Canada. Want to learn more about what the Bible teaches about persecution? Read this book.

Header photo courtesy of VOM International.

An estimated 2.16 million Filipinos live abroad as migrant workers, according to 2023 data from the Philippine Statistics Authority. It’s a reality which Lito Sampan with A3 and others see as both a gospel opportunity and something with risks to watch out for.

Filipino pastors
(Photo courtesy Asian Access)

“We are always reminding the churches to come alongside these Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and their families and help them establish their purpose, why they are working abroad, and at the same time equip them [so] that they will be responding to the Great Commission of making disciples,” Sampan says.

“Because whether you are here in the Philippines or abroad, we still have to make disciples.” 

Sampan is a volunteer partner of A3. He has also served with Global Filipino Movement to help churches support the unique needs of Filipinos working abroad. He explains why a recent report from Lausanne 4 lists the Philippines as number 4 on the top sending countries of Christian missionaries. 

“They’re counting these [Christian] Overseas Filipino Workers as part of these ‘migrant missionaries,’” he says. 

Preparation is essential

There are a few key conversations Sampan believes must be had in order for Filipinos to be wise and effective overseas.

“A lot of them do not really have the purpose why they’re going abroad, except  to earn money and then send it to the Philippines,” Sampan says. “I saw a lot of OFWs working there for 20 years, 30 years. Stopping is not included in their dictionary or in their vocabulary, because they have never really established that purpose.”

Photo of Filipino men working in Brunei courtesy of Jpquidores via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

He says A3 can train leaders on how to support OFWs through having intentional conversations about being witnesses of Christ and establishing a timeline for working overseas. 

As with most things, there’s a mix of good and challenge in these opportunities. (Read more on that here.) Filipino men and women are resilient and willing to serve, which makes them welcome employees. They also have a knack for languages. 

“To God be the glory, we have a kind of tongue that can learn the different dialects,” Sampan says. “Whether it is Southeast Asia or Asian or Middle East, whatever, it’s easy for the Filipinos to learn their language and dialect.”

Dangers abroad

But along with these open doors comes the dangers of abuse by employers, which can come in many forms, and damaged family relationships back home. This is true not only for Filipinos but also other South Asian Christians.

“We have also Indonesian working abroad, because we are meeting each other in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia. We have Nepali now. How can we help them?” Sampan says.

“Please pray for them and for the churches, that they will have a united effort in establishing why they are working abroad. Pray for their families — there will always be a vacuum or a gap the moment the member of the family [leaves to] work abroad, like the father or the mother.” 

Ask God to call and equip Christians in South Asia for wise gospel ministry wherever they live and work, and then bring them back home to their families. 

Header photo from 2016 where President Rodrigo Duterte, foreign affairs and labor department officials, and overseas Filipino workers do a fist gesture at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City on August 31 (Photo courtesy of KING RODRIGUEZ/PPD via Wikimedia Commons)

Founded by Jordan Whitmer in 2015 while he was still a high school student, the HowtoLife Movement spread quickly across the country and is now reaching young adults globally through youth-led evangelism events, social media outreach, and national and global conferences. 

“One of the themes that we’ve had, and even put on some of our t-shirts for our HowtoLife Movement youth work, is just, straight up, ‘Jesus is the hope for Gen Z,’” Whitmer says. “And they like to rally behind that, and knowing that in such a hopeless world and hopeless generation with so many…problems, there is hope. And that hope comes through Jesus, and turning our lives over to Him completely, and serving Him, and walking with Him.”

HowtoLife remains committed to helping older teenagers and young adults, ages 16 to 22, since they are an often overlooked demographic, especially in mobilizing for missions. 

This movement explores the answer to a question often asked by young people: How do I do life?

“‘How to life’ is the gospel,” Whitmer says. “It’s Jesus, living life with Him. And it’s a great conversation starter because people know where you’re going with that…And we want to help people learn how to do life, ‘how to life’.”

Typically, young people hear about this movement through social media or through friends.  HowtoLife leadership then engages with those people and provides them leadership manuals and training to lead events in their areas. 

These local youth event directors are encouraged to come to a training retreat so they can engage with other leaders and be inspired and discipled before leading their own events. 

“There’s a process, but within that, though, there’s a lot of creativity,” Whitmer says. “These leaders can pick their speakers and their concepts and their worship songs. And there’s a lot of freedom to plan a really unique program, but also some things we want consistent, especially with sharing the gospel message. And we train people on how to do that.”   

Globally, HowtoLife has engaged with dozens of different countries. Their first digital conference in 2020 saw attendance from 47 U.S. states and close to 40 countries.

Though globally, in non-western countries, evangelism might look a little differently due to social media restrictions or local laws surrounding freedom of religion, HowtoLife is still equipping local leaders in these places to lead people to Jesus. 

“I want to invite anyone who’s listening to consider praying for using this unique movement of mobilizing Gen Z, reaching, discipling, and mobilizing Gen Z around the world for Christ,” Whitmer says. “We have a lot of young people who have interests and are wanting to organize things, but they need people praying for them.”

He encourages people to pray for the Lord to send Gen Z workers into the world to raise up more Gen Z and Gen Alpha young people for Christ. 

“My prayer is that the Lord would send more workers into his harvest field and raise up more people in Gen Z and eventually Gen Alpha and really every generation we need more laborers,” Whitmer says. “But specifically with the nature of our work to raising up laborers in the next generation is definitely a massive prayer request that I’d want to encourage.”

Learn more about the HowtoLife Movement at www.howtolifemovement.com or through the GenZ Today podcast.

Header image courtesy of Brooke Cagle via Unsplash

Rob Myers with DOOR International shares the good news that this kind of generational multiplication happens among the Deaf around the world. 

(Graphic courtesy DOOR International)

In 2000, a leader Myers calls Sanji came to know the Lord through the ministry of Deaf missionaries who came to India. 

“Sanji began to share the gospel with his local community. Another person came to faith and Sanji began to disciple him. Then that person ended up moving to a different part of India. As he shared his faith with a number of people, another brother came to know the Lord,” Myers tells us. 

Four or five “generations” down this line, a leader Myers calls Matthew felt the Lord leading him to travel beyond his community. 

“He moved to another country in South Asia, where there at the time were only about 20 believers out of a population of maybe 300,000 Deaf people. He, alongside another brother, began to share the gospel in this new community, and more leaders came to faith,” Myers says. 

Praise God for how He is moving among Deaf communities worldwide! 

Myers says that DOOR hopes to see local churches not only established and strengthened by disciple-making, but also carrying on a vision for disciple-making and church-planting beyond their region. 

“What you’ll often see as the outgrowth of this kind of thing is that disciples becoming missionaries into new communities,” Myers says, adding that there are Deaf missionaries from Kenya now serving in Mozambique, South Sudan and Angola. 

(Photo courtesy DOOR International via Facebook)

DOOR is beginning to plan what they call “outposts” in strategic areas of the world. 

“One of the things we recognize is that there are still major regions of the world where Deaf communities are cut off from the gospel,” says Myers.

These outposts would be launching points into key areas where the gospel isn’t present yet. Missionaries would enter the region to share the gospel and raise up indigenous leaders — “with the hope not just that the gospel would come to those specific Deaf communities,” Myers says, “but that through them sending missionaries out, it would flood into the surrounding communities.”

Would you come alongside DOOR in prayer for these bold, missional efforts by the Deaf to the Deaf? Visit doorinternational.org and find their monthly prayer calendar as well as learn about Deaf leaders who you could specifically partner with. 

Finally, would you share this story with someone today? 

“This might be the first time that you’re hearing about Deaf ministry and others may not be aware of it at all. So it would be a great opportunity for you to spread the word and let others know that they can be praying, that they can be supporting the work that God’s doing in these Deaf communities,” Myers says. 

Header photo is a representative photo courtesy of Dikaseva/Unsplash. 

It wasn’t just blind optimism.

Joe Handley with A3 explains, “The reality is that church life can become institutional. And in [this] case, there [were] a lot of those dynamics going on.”

The loss of a church’s building frees its leaders from maintenance needs and disputes on design or decorations and from larger pressures.

“Sometimes it’s political. The government is trying to shut down the church and you get into this massive legal battle that’s expensive and consuming the time of the leaders,” says Handley.

“All of their energy is sucked into that, rather than on spiritual aspects of what it means to be a disciple in Christ and how you reach new people for Jesus, and plant new fellowships to reach this country.”

Isn’t it like God to bring good even out of persecution toward the Church?

“So when my colleague said, ‘Closing churches is actually an avenue to real, effective disciple-making,’ it switches the conversation from the life support systems of the institution or organization or the building, and shifts it to purely the disciple-making spiritual components of who we are in Christ,” says Handley.

Pray that A3’s leadership development groups help North African believers pursue discipleship in new, wise ways during a challenging change. 

Click here to read more about A3’s ministry among believers in North Africa and how you can partner with them.  

Header image courtesy of Tucker Good via Unsplash.

Scott Cheatham was the President of e3 Partners since July 2021 before stepping into this new role as CEO on April 1st. Previously, he also has experience church planting in Louisiana and as a missionary to northern India.

Suffice it to say, Cheatham is passionate about sharing the Gospel, especially with the least reached. His heart and vision position Cheatham well to lead an organization like e3. The ultimate goal of the ministry is a domino effect of discipleship, evidenced by the Made to Multiply initiative.

“The vision is to see a multiplying church amongst every people and place. So that’s what motivates and drives us every day as an organization,” Cheatham says.

From left to right: Jim Shannon, former CEO of e3 Partners, and Scott Cheatham, e3’s new CEO. (Screengrab courtesy of e3 Partners)

“We have launched an initiative about 18 months ago to see one million people trained in North America in Gospel conversations training, which leads to a deeper dive in discipleship and hopefully assimilating people into long-term mission activities, short-term trips, and mid-term sending. So we want to see movement right here in our local context, and that will spin out to mobilization to the nations.”

Within three to five years, e3 hopes to send 1,000 missionaries to the 10/40 Window, a region of countries largely unreached with the Gospel.

Brad Prizer with e3 has this to say about Cheatham’s leadership: “He always encourages us to think bigger than we’ve thought before. With that kind of excitement and enthusiasm and leadership style, it really encourages the rest of us to really go above and beyond maybe what we were thinking before. What are new ways for us to do what we do?

“We’re seeing him bring together other ministries like e3 to help people get trained and mobilized to share the Gospel in a bigger and more effective way going forward.”

Cheatham asks, “The first thing is continue to pray for the least-reached. Continue to pray for those folks who are on the frontlines working in some of the hardest places in the world and then bringing the Gospel to some of the most difficult, persecuted places in the world.

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners)

“The second would be to go — go locally, go to your neighbor, go to your friend, go to your coworker, and share the Gospel. If you don’t feel equipped to do that, we would love to have the opportunity to equip you on how to share the Gospel, how to make disciples, how to assimilate people into a healthy church, and how to start healthy churches.”

If you’re in North America and want to know more about e3’s Gospel conversations training, click here!

Also, please pray for Cheatham, his wife, and their three daughters.

“My family, intentionally, we try to stay on mission. So you can pray for us,” says Cheatham. “This is not their dad or my wife’s husband stepping into a job. This is a calling that God has placed on our family.

“As we step into this new opportunity to lead, [pray] that God will protect us but also keep us on mission, that the Lord would continue to invigorate and put the passion and desire in our hearts to see the world reached for the Gospel.”

Header photo courtesy of Brett Zeck via Unsplash.

That’s the question that faced American missionary couple Warren and Brenda Pfohl. Their story was recently shared by Jesus Film Project.

Despite frustrating circumstances, this couple is still “on mission” no matter where God has them.

Warren and Brenda Pfohl (Image courtesy of Jesus Film Project)

When they sensed the Holy Spirit calling them to be missionaries in Poland, the Pfohls sold everything they could, packed up the rest, and followed God’s leading. They learned the Polish language, established a team, and even started a church.

But after some time, Brenda Pfohl got very sick. Heartbroken and confused, the couple had to leave Poland and go back to the United States.

The Pfohls started searching for other ways to get involved in missions.

Then they learned about Jesus Film Project, the ministry that has produced the JESUS Film in over 1,800 languages! They were amazed by stories of communities who’ve never heard the Gospel coming to Christ after watching a movie about Jesus in their heart language.

The couple began giving to fund more translations of the JESUS Film.

Brenda Pfohl says, “Jesus Film [Project] is our favorite organization to give to because of how committed they are to the Great Commission. They are so committed to reaching the world for Christ.”

JESUS Film showing in Tanzania. (Photo courtesy of Jesus Film Project)

By continuing to support Jesus Film Project, the Pfohls are faithful to their calling to make disciples – something that is true of all Christians.

“We thought our missions was done, that we had failed,” says Warren Pfohl. “But the JESUS Film has given us this ability to continue to be a part of this calling that we were so clear that He wanted us to be a part of.”

Learn more about how you can live out your missions calling with Jesus Film Project here!

Header photo depicting Warren and Brenda Pfohl courtesy of Jesus Film Project.

Like the 2020 Middle East Conversation, the Consultation will be livestreamed due to continuing COVID-19 restrictions. Unlike the 2020 event, which was spread out over several months, MEC 2021 will take place from September 30 to October 2.

The themes

Brent Hamoud from ABTS says the event will discuss the future of the Middle Eastern Church through the current crises in Lebanon. “The three days will have three different themes that will all bring us back to the question of ecclesiology.

Hamoud outlines these three themes. “Making disciples: what does this mean and how does it look? Developing leaders: how do we bring up people who will bring churches and ministries forward? And engaging society: how do we think about the role of the Church within the social and public arena? How can the Church be a light and witness within the larger dynamics of society?”

Want to join this conversation? You can sign up and learn more here.

Hamoud also asks readers to pray the event will reach many Christians leaders in the Middle East and beyond. “We’re seeing a Church that is in a dynamic moment. So there’s much to celebrate, much to recognize, and much to rejoice in. But there’s also much to learn. There’s much to question and much to consider.”

Header photo courtesy of ABTS.