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.

e3 Partners has a goal to reach the world with God’s love. As we enter 2020, e3 has a plan for the next few years to increase the pace in which they share the Gospel.

Jeff Johnston from e3 says, “We want to get more long-term missionaries out on the field. We want to take more short-term trips… and we want to raise up more evangelists here in the States as well.”

Reaching the World in 2020

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners.)

e3 works to plant and support churches around the world. They do this by hosting evangelism trainings, mission trips, and partnering with churches to help share God’s Word with as many people as possible.

By 2025, they hope to have planted 1 million churches around the world.

Johnston says, “Our vision all along is for there to be a local church accessible to every person everywhere on earth…. We just believe that the local church is the vehicle through which God will reach the entire world.”

One way to reach the world is by sharing the Gospel locally. Johnston says e3 offers special training to churches and small groups to equip them to share the Gospel in their communities.

This training, called 4 fields training, focuses on the four fields of Jesus’ strategy to evangelize and disciple. It provides training to help believers share the Gospel no matter where they are.

Click here for more information on e3 training.

e3 also hosts mission trips all over the world.

Johnston says, “We would love for you to come with us as we go to these different places around the world and share the hope and love of Christ with people that may or may not have ever heard the name of Jesus before.”

e3 hosts short-term mission trips each month to help plant and support churches in countries around the globe. Click here to see a list of upcoming trips and more ways to get involved with mission trips!

Helping e3 Share God’s Word

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners.)

Two of the simplest ways to help is through donations and prayer.

Johnston says, “It costs about $13 for us to train someone on how to share the Gospel, plant churches and disciple others.” Click here to donate to e3!

“So as simple as donating $13 should help spark a movement of the Gospel somewhere else across the world or even somewhere here in the United States,” he adds.

e3 also asks for prayer as they begin 2020. Johnston explains that at 10:02 AM each morning, e3 prays a prayer based on Luke 10:2. *

Johnston says, “We set alarms in our phones so that we will pray for God to raise more laborers for the harvest.”

Join e3 in praying that more people will hear God’s Word and that more people would step into the harvest field this year to spread God’s Word to those who have not heard it.

“God has invited us as Christians, as His ambassadors to be a part of His work. I think it would be a mistake for us not to do everything we can to get involved,” Johnston says.

*Luke 10:2, “He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (NIV)

Header photo courtesy of e3 Partners. 

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners)

I Am Second is about encouraging viewers with true stories of God’s work in the world. e3’s new initiative focuses on helping viewers take the next step.

Jeff Johnston from e3 says, “What we really wanted to do was take people from viewing some of our I Am Second content, viewing stories of the power of the gospel, and then taken them down a path of viewership to accepting Christ if they haven’t done so already.”

He explains that Live Second is about guiding viewers to begin truly living their faith and challenging them to put Christ first.

Three Easy Steps

Live Second has three easy steps to help viewers begin their faith journey. Step one is “Become Second”, step two is “Connect with a Live Second Coach”, and step three is “Take the Challenge” by experiencing four days of hopeful stories.

During step one, a video gives a presentation of the Gospel and offers viewers an opportunity to choose to dedicate their lives to Christ.

Step two provides an opportunity to connect with a “Live Second coach” to help guide new believers. This a real person, trained to connect with and support those who have just made the choice for Christ.

Johnston says, “They’re just kind of a spiritual coach to help you grow closer to God.”

“[The Live Second coaches] can help disciple these people. You can go through Bible studies, you can ask them questions, they’ll pray with you, they’ll pray for you,” he adds.

Step three offers next steps for those learning how to Live Second. e3 developed a series of hope to give guidance and encouragement to those making this decision with their series, “4 Days of Hope”.

“Christ has changed our hearts and has changed our lives. And that’s really why we created this challenge. We want people to experience that same hope,” Johnston says.

Choosing to Live Second

Johnston explains that choosing to put Christ and others first can transform someone’s life.

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners.)

He says, “I’m confident that when you truly live second, that you will have more hope. You will have more joy and your life will just flourish in ways that you couldn’t even imagine before.”

Do you want to choose to live fully for Christ and support e3?

Johnston says, “Christ calls us to more than just belief, He calls us to action. So, Living Second is a way to take that action to live out our faith.”

Connect with the I Am Second and Live Second movement here or on Facebook here. Donate to I Am Second here, or e3 here.

You can also pray. Pray that others choose to put God first in their life, whether that’s a first-time decision or a rededication. Pray that e3 can reach many more people with the Live Second and I Am Second movements to share God’s work in the world.

Header photo courtesy of e3 Partners. 

“A partnership could be as simple as we help your church take mission trips to a particular part of the world that you have a passion or a heart for it could be we train your congregation on how to share the Gospel effectively and confidently and how to make disciples. Or it could be a combination of those things, or it could be we help your church with local evangelism,” Johnston explains.

Need for Training

But Johnston notes there is a lack of evangelism in the U.S. He has heard numbers as drastically low as 10 percent for the number of churchgoers who have shared the Gospel this year. In 2018, a Barna study revealed 51 percent of people attending churches are unaware of the Great Commission. E3 is changing these statistics through church partnerships.

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners)

e3 helps churches share Christ in their communities. The organization also helps churches embrace long-term missions work, too.

e3 church partnerships are available to churches in the U.S. and abroad. While most requests for partnerships come from U.S. churches, Johnston says e3’s training is universal and can be applied in various church contexts. It is all Biblically based and follows the patterns Jesus laid out for his disciples.

“What we tell churches and what we’re really all about is just trying to come alongside the church and serve with them in any way that they see fit,” Johnston says.

“If your church is passionate about Ukraine, then we can help facilitate trips there. We can help send some people long-term there. Whatever it may be. If your church is just really passionate about reaching people in your own community, we can help with that, too.”

Reaching Out With the Gospel

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners)

Sometimes a person’s first step to knowing Christ is not attending church, but hearing the Gospel at a coffee shop or in a park. It is an opportunity to ask questions and study scripture on a one-on-one basis.

“We need to meet people where they are, and so what I think these church partnerships do is help congregations, help our churches really embrace that and do that and go from inviting people and instead go to those people and seek those people out,” Johnston says.

Are you interested in a church partnership? Then explore what e3 has to offer here!

“There’s a form on that page that you can fill out and that form goes directly to our team that will then reach out to you and figure out the best way that we can come alongside you or your church and just help you accomplish your mission, your goals, your vision,” Johnston says.

(Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash)

“It really stems from 2 Corinthians 6:2, which says ‘Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation’…What it’s saying is that there is no greater time than right now. There’s no greater time to share the Gospel with someone. There’s no greater time to pray for someone or to pray with someone, to tell someone you love them,” Johnston says.

Vision Behind ‘No Greater Time’ Campaign

God has given e3 the vision to see one million new churches planted worldwide by 2025. To help achieve this, the campaign has sub-themes: No Greater Journey; No Greater Story; No Greater Mission. Each theme digs into the supporting elements of the campaign to reach e3’s 2025 vision.

“There’s no greater time to share the story of Jesus. There’s no greater time to go on a journey to spread the hope and love of Christ. There’s no better time to get involved with the mission of spreading the Gospel to every person everywhere,” Johnston says.

Photo Courtesy E3Partners via Facebook

Along with living into the mindset of No Greater Time, the campaign also presents an opportunity for financial impact. Planting one million churches is going to take tangible resources.

These resources help support training that will eqip people to share the Gospel using a variety of strategies. It also means supporting people called to long-term work in ministry, national leaders e3 partners with in-country, and various programs e3 provides.

Currently, e3 is running a $500,000 challenge for current donors through the end of the year. If the ministry reaches the $500,000 mark, a matching grant will double that amount.

E3 is also running a $1.3 million matching grant for new donors. With both of these matching grants, each dollar given is going further now than it would if donors put off their generosity for a different day. Will you consider giving?

To give to support this vision, click here.

But First, Pray

(Photo by Michael Heuss on Unsplash)

Ultimately though, this vision will not become a reality without the Holy Spirit. Every day e3 staff set alarms for prayer at 10:02 am. Johnston encourages others to do the same and pray for more laborers to reap the plentiful harvest.

Will you join us in praying for this vision and the No Greater Time campaign?

“Lord, I ask that you give us the courage and the mindset to believe that there’s truly no greater time than right now that now is the time of your favor. And now is the day of salvation,” Johnston prays.

“And so, Lord, I ask that you put that on our hearts, that you put that on our minds, and that in whatever way that affects us in whatever way that moves us that you would move us in those directions and move us to just do everything that we can to further your kingdom.”

Learn more about the No Greater Time campaign along with ways to join HERE.

“There’s no greater time than right now. There’s no time to waste…Don’t hesitate when you see an opportunity to spread the light of Christ, to share the gospel with someone…That’s really the heart behind the campaign,” Johnston says.

Header photo courtesy of e3 Partners via Facebook.

Oral Village Suffers Loss

In a village on the vast continent of Africa, an e3 orality team has shared the Gospel message through storytelling. Work in this particular location began in 2017. As the Gospel was shared, those who heard it passed it along and trained others to do the same.

(Photo courtesy of E3Partners via Facebook)

“We’re receiving all sorts of really positive reception; a lot of other people were coming to faith…In 2018, they arranged for a follow-up training to really push these people along even further in their training and raising them up as really strong Christian leaders,” e3 Partners’ Marketing Communication Manager Jeff Johnston says.

However, a tragedy happened. Two African men involved in the training were killed in an automobile accident. This happened days before an e3 orality team was to provide the follow-up training for the village.

“This was an extreme tragedy and something that that really affected the whole village and caused a lot of grief. It was something that our morality team was grieved by as well,” Johnston shares.

“[But] they were also…afraid that this is something that could really derail these villagers’ faith in Christ and their exuberance for sharing His Gospel.”

Hope Perseveres

The follow-up training was canceled to allow for the village to grieve. However, those involved with the trip remained in touch with the village. Despite this painful tragedy, the villagers’ faith in God did not waver. And recently, e3 received a recording from this same village.

(Photo by e3 Partners)

“It’s a recording of this child who’s no older than four or five years old. And he’s retelling the story that they call the ‘Who am I story’ from Matthew 16. This is the story of Jesus asking His followers ‘who [do] people say I am?’ and Peter responds, ‘you were the promised Savior, the Son of God’,” Johnston recalls.

“This recording is in their own native language. But you can hear this five-year-old child retelling this story with passion and with confidence. And even though we can’t really understand exactly what he’s saying, because of the language barrier, it’s captivating, it’s powerful to listen to him speak so confidently at such a young age.”

Johnston says at the end of the recording those surrounding the child are heard cheering. While heartache has pained this community, God has not abandoned it. Instead, He continues to make Himself known.

“God can reach people…even people…that don’t have access to the scriptures in their own language. It’s just incredible what God is able to do,” Johnston says.

Pray for this community as it tells of God’s faithfulness and makes the Gospel message heard. Pray for their hearts as they continue to move forward after the loss of these men. Finally, pray for their community as it grows in Christ.

Find how you can join an e3 team HERE.

Header photo courtesy of e3p.

Lifeway research reported in January that 66% of young adults between 18 and 22 stopped attending church regularly for at least a year.

E3 partners is changing this by working with teens to train them on spreading the Gospel and becoming Christian leaders.

Jeff Johnston from e3 says, “Ultimately, God can use anyone to spread His kingdom.”

He adds, “We think that, especially with kind of the numbers that we’re seeing, as far as people in the United States walking away from the faith, after… they graduate high school, we think that there’s an emphasis that needs to be placed on raising up strong Christian leaders at a young age.”

To do this, e3 works with churches to provide evangelism training, called “4 fields training“. This training works for those wanting to evangelize on a mission trip or in their own community.

Teens Spreading the Gospel

(Photo courtesy of E3 Partners)

Teens have many opportunities to spread the Gospel in their daily lives, Johnston explains. They can ask to pray for others, start Bible study groups, and share God’s Word with those around them.

“There can be this misconception that you really can’t start evangelizing, you really can’t start making a big impact for the kingdom, until you’ve gotten out of youth group and gotten into the real world,” Johnston says.

But e3 wants to give teens the chance to not just listen to church sermons but participate in discipling others.

Johnston says, “We want to give [teens] every opportunity to grow in their faith and grow in their boldness and their confidence in Christ.”

For teens at a church in Oklahoma, spreading the Gospel became a calling after attending a mission trip.

“They started finding opportunities at their schools, to share the gospel with people, to pray with people, to really just get into these relationships with people and help point them to Jesus,” Johnston says.

One girl, Allie, has already reached 70 people with the Gospel in her neighborhood.

Johnston adds, “She prays every morning for God to lead her to the people whose hearts are open and ready to receive the gospel that day.”

 “It was incredible to hear her talk about that,” he says. 

(Photo courtesy of Eliott Reyna via Unsplash)

If you want to know more about working with e3 click here to partner with them as a church, or here to find out what upcoming mission trips they have.

You can also pray. Pray for the work e3 does as they train teens and young adults to become mature Christians. Pray for those spreading the Gospel around the world and in their own communities.

Johnston says, “If there does happen to be any students that hear this, that are feeling called… I would encourage them to ask their pastors at their church about it, or to pray about it.”

He adds, “Contact us and we’ll see how we can help you with whatever you’re feeling called to do.”

Header photo courtesy of E3 Partners.

e3 Orality Cause

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners)

Thankfully, over 70 percent of the Bible is a compilation of stories. These stories tell the overarching story of God’s plan of redemption and reconciliation for humanity. E3’s Marketing Communication Manager Jeff Johnston says e3 is making sharing the Gospel with oral learners a priority. How? Through its e3 Orality Cause.

Short-term trips consisting of first-timers and a dedicated team who work with locals Christians focus on sharing the Gospel in areas with extremely low literacy rates.

“What the orality team has been able to do is train themselves (and all the people that go on trips with them) to be able to confidently share these different stories that ultimately lead to [the] story in the Gospel,” Johnston explains.

Training Local Leaders

e3 is also equipping strong local Christian leaders to continue this work on their own. Some are even being trained accidentally. Translators who work with e3 Orality teams build relationships with the people they translate for. Ultimately, translating the stories of the Bible so frequently means the translators commit these stories to memory. Plus, during their time translating, these translators also learn how to share the Gospel and the stories they have learned.

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners)

“It’s been really amazing to see how God’s been able to use just the passion of our morality team. And the passionate [of] those that go on these trips with them ultimately lead to an explosion of the Gospel in all these different areas where literacy rates are practically zero or where there’s no written language,” Johnston says.

Will you consider helping by joining an e3 Orality trip?

“Our orality team is always taking trips, always looking for new people to reach and new areas to go to, to really just help the Gospel [to] continue to grow in places where there’s no written language, or where it’s hard to spread the Gospel through the written scriptures,” Johnston says.

Learn more about e3’s Orality Cause and how to sign-up for a trip here.

But for now, please pray for the movement of the Gospel in orality cultures. Pray that God’s story will impact hearts and for people to put their faith in Him. And pray the Gospel’s impact as it is shared through stories.

Header photo courtesy of e3 Partners

A Texas High School Tradition

Rewind to a year prior, when Blake found himself on a plane headed to the African continent where he found a world starkly different from his own. Instead of an easily accessed faucet with clean running water, hot or cold, Blake found communities lacking access to clean water altogether. When he returned home, he could not stop thinking about what he witnessed while abroad.

(Photo by Enrique Macias on Unsplash)

“[He] had really gotten this heart for the people there and noticed that there was an issue with the clean water, there’s a lack of access to clean water. It was something that he couldn’t get off his mind and couldn’t get off his heart. It was just always there in the back of his mind…every time he took a sip of water or washed his hands,” says Jeff Johnston, marketing communication manager with e3 Partners.

Inspired by the “I Am Second” video and passionate about the need for clean water, Blake set out to use the homecoming traditions of mums and garters for a bigger purpose. Johnstone says high school football in Texas is as important as college football is for the rest of the United States. Homecoming is an even more serious matter; students will spend between $100-400, or more, creating their mums and garters.

(Learn more about the mums and garters tradition here and here.)

“I Am Second” Inspires Generosity

Rather than spending hundreds of dollars creating mums and garters, Blake proposed a different idea. What if these resources were spent on providing wells for communities in need instead? Thus, the Hope for Africa club was born at Blake’s school.

(Photo by Riley McCullough on Unsplash)

“He decided he should use his high school’s homecoming as an opportunity to really raise money for these people in Africa that need water, to raise money to build wells to get them clean water,” Johnston says.

“Blake’s idea was…he made these little pins that you can just put on your shirt…He started putting the word out across his high school and across other high schools. ‘Hey, instead of spending money on a garter or a mum this year, why don’t you donate that money to go to clean water for people in Africa to build wells for clean water, and instead just wear this pin’.”

Blake’s idea flourished. The Hope for Africa club raised over $6,000 during homecoming from the pin sales. The tangible result was two wells in Southern Sudan.

(Listen to Blake’s story with “I Am Second” here.)

Get Inspired and Pray

For Johnston, Blake’s story is what e3’s “I Am Second” is about—inspiring people for Christ. Will you dare to be inspired and put yourself second? Find your inspiration through “I Am Second” here.

Pray “I Am Second” videos continue impacting people live second and to live for Christ. Ask God to use “I Am Second” videos to make His love known to believers and non-believers alike.

Header photo by Carlos Delgado on Unsplash.

From Finance to Ministry

Shannon, a graduate of Liberty University, spent 30 years in finance working in positions such as a financial controller, Chief Financial Officer, and a Division Chief Financial Officer. He planned to return to this work once the non-compete clause expired. At least, that was his plan. Then, his missions pastor at the time invited him to a Perspectives on the World Christian Movement class.

e3 Partners CEO Jim Shannon. (Photo courtesy of e3 Partners’ website)

The 15-week class on the state of missions and evangelism crushed many of Shannon’s misconceptions. He grew excited about God’s work within and through the Church on a global scale. A passion sprouted in Shannon to rapidly train leaders, both locally and globally.

“God is doing an unprecedented work in this generation, and the church is advancing triumphantly all around the world. It brought to my mind an uncle of mine, who, at the time of World War II, he was underage. He lied about his age, and he got into the Navy,” Shannon explains.

“I remember as a kid asking him, ‘why did you do that?’ I’ll never forget his answer. He told me he knew that this was going to be the defining event of his lifetime and that it was unthinkable not to be engaged in it.”

Convicted, Shannon started pursuing ministry work as a lay-leader at his church. Eight years later, after numerous short-term missions trips and asking God to lead him, Shannon is the new CEO of e3 Partners.

The Three Es

e3 Partners stewards movements of rapidly multiplying evangelism training and discipleship. This work is happening across the globe, including within the United States. Through local indigenous leaders, more leaders are trained to “run hard for the Kingdom”. The scale of work e3 is involved with is exactly what Shannon has longed to see.

The three Es in e3’s name also relay its vision in missions. The ministry exists to equip God’s people for evangelism and establishing healthy, multiplying churches through partnerships with indigenous churches.

The short version–e3 equips, evangelizes, and establishes.

Ministry Requires a Deep Abiding

However, e3’s work has brought Shannon’s attention back to the U.S., where he says the Church desperately needs to do a better job of training and multiplying disciples.

“We’re really good at giving people a lot of knowledge, a lot of spiritual knowledge. But we’re not so good at obedience,” Shannon notes.

Shannon explains a “yes” to God and Kingdom work starts with a deep abiding in Him first. Shannon has learned first-hand how saying “yes” to God takes a person to a place of great dependence on Him and the end of their resources.

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners)

“As long as you’re consistently inviting Him in, He’s going to make provision for your calling. I found that peace can be conditional. You can get really stressed out in ministry, but when you’re working, fighting deeply, and you’re following His call and trusting His provision, it can be a pretty serene existence,” Shannon says.

“When you think about God’s economy it can feel pretty counterintuitive because sacrificial obedience to God’s call can actually be the most self-interested act that you could possibly make. My advice is just [to] do yourself a favor and say yes. Abide deeply. Seek the call of God, and then say yes.”

Saying “Yes”

Perhaps your yes involves e3 Partners.

“The Great Commission is the church’s responsibility. As followers of Christ, it’s yours, and it’s mine…e3 is asking for permission to come alongside you, or to come alongside your church, to help you achieve your goals.”

E3 does this through three specific tracks: training, mobilizing, and media.

(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners)

The ministry facilitates hundreds of short-term trips each year. It assists churches in mobilizing missionaries abroad and domestically. It also produces and distributes media content through its “I Am Second” platform.

“At the end of the day, we package all that up into…this comprehensive strategy that we call the Great Commission pipeline,” Shannon says.

Will you let e3 come beside you to help accomplish goals to further the Great Commission?

To connect with e3, click here.

Header photo courtesy of e3 Partners