USA (MNN) — Is your church looking for ways to be more involved in Gospel outreach? e3 Partners is helping congregations across the United States embrace a missional heart through partnership!
Jeff Johnston with e3 Partners says their church partnership programs are very holistic and hands-on.
“We have a goal of having a full-on ministry partnership with a church. That includes helping them train their congregation for local evangelism, taking people from their congregation on short-term trips with us, having them choose a location abroad that they’re passionate about,… and potentially even sending people long-term from their church.
“Ultimately, it’s about as much us partnering with the church as it is them partnering with us. We want to serve the Kingdom alongside them.”
(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners)
One church in Tulsa, Oklahoma knew there was more they could be doing to reach others with the hope of Jesus.
“They wanted to be a congregation that met people where they were, that went and sought out the lost rather than waiting for them to come into the church.”
This body of believers heard about e3 Partners and reached out. Johnston says e3 met with them and conducted Gospel conversations training, “which really teaches you simple tools to share your testimony, to share the Gospel, and then when people come to faith, to then start discipling them.”
From there, it ignited a passion in this church for the Great Commission.
“They started going out into their community, praying for people, sharing the Gospel with people, sharing their testimonies with people, and seeing a lot of people come to faith through that.
“They got hungrier and hungrier for more training, for more opportunities to just pour into the lives of these people. So then our team came back and did another training with them.”
(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners)
This time, e3 conducted their 4 Fields Training. This training is more in-depth and really delves into church planting, discipleship, and the biblical grounding for those ministry practices.
The Tulsa church also started a residency team that would meet weekly to talk about how they are growing spiritually, debrief on evangelism initiatives, provide accountability, and worship together.
“Then they go out for at least an hour or two every week and knock on doors, pray for people, share the Gospel with people, and then go back to people that have taken hold of the Gospel and disciple those people.”
But they weren’t content to stay local. Eventually, the congregants wanted to get involved with ministry in Asia as well. So e3 Partners got them plugged in with short-term missions trips.
“A lot of people on those trips felt like God was calling them to long-term missionary work. So we continued pouring into those people and having them continue to learn more locally and seeing them raise up disciples locally,” says Johnston.
“Eventually, over the course of the last year, a lot of those people have been trained up…and are now being sent out abroad long-term.
“Now, we really see that holistic approach to that church. They have people that are going abroad long-term. They have people that are going on these short-term trips. They have people that are not only taking part in trainings, but are also now doing trainings themselves locally and evangelism locally.”
The transformation of this church body in Tulsa had a profound impact on their community.
(Photo courtesy of e3 Partners via Facebook)
“We’ve just seen so many people come to faith from this congregation. We’ve seen their congregation really grow and their congregation really grow together. They all talked about how they just feel like they’re a tighter-knit community now, how they hold each other accountable, [and] how they really feel like a family. It’s been a really amazing thing to see.”
If you would like to learn more about church partnerships with e3 Partners, click here to visit their website!
Johnston says, “I would just encourage pastors [and] churches, if you feel like your church is stagnant or you have this desire to equip your congregation more or to just get more involved in missions work, I would just really encourage you to check out the church partnerships page.
“We truly just want to serve the Kingdom of God alongside you. We want to do whatever we can to equip the churches across the US because we know there [are] so many people in each neighborhood, in each community that still need to hear the name of Jesus. The Church can be a great vehicle to spread the Kingdom.”
Header photo courtesy of unsplash
