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.

EVP of Operations Scott Cheatham says different wings of the ministry will come together to accomplish this. “We want to leverage our media ministry. You know, I Am Second birthed from the idea of people telling their stories of how God has transformed their lives. And it has done a really good job of that the last 13 years. So how do we move people from viewing other folks telling their stories to actually telling folks themselves about how God has transformed their lives? And how do we leverage all of the church relationships that we have over the last 30 something years of organizing short-term mission trips?”

When these million people have been trained, they will serve in their own local mission fields: from towns to schools to families. You can get involved with this work and become one of the million new missionaries. Read more here.

Cheatham says, “About 2% of evangelicals share their story and the Gospel. We have an opportunity to come alongside and serve our churches to help equip their people to share the Gospel. We know that is what transforms our hearts and lives and communities.”

Eventually, e3 Partners wants to see this training impact mission fields in countries around the world. Keep an eye out for more MNN coverage.

(Header courtesy of Free-Photos from Pixabay)