USA (MNN) — A new initiative will help not only fund new ministry, but grow the church around the world.
President and founder of Global Action Lars Dunberg says in the last 10 years, "We've trained over 15,000 village pastors, and they in turn have started thousands of churches with about 400,000 converts, having started in the last five years alone."
The training is called Global Module Studies. While it's been successful, Dunberg says it is just the tip of the iceberg. He says now they're trying to give the worldwide church a chance to help expand the work.
To do that, they're launching IStartedAChurch.com. The desire is to encourage the West to help support pastors and to help them establish churches.
"For $50 dollars a month for three years, you get a profile of a pastor," says Dunberg. "You get his name, [the names of] his children and wife, their favorite Bible verse, what ministry they are involved with, and what their dream is about starting a church."
The three-year commitment is structured. The first 10 months focuses on pastoral training. The second year, the support helps provide for the physical needs of the church: chairs, Bibles, books, and other resources that help a new church. Then, the final year, the funding helps support church outreach. That investment helps duplication: establishing outreach opportunities and even establishing new churches.
Dunberg already has goals for IStartedAChurch.com sponsors. "I would like to see a minimum of 3,000 the first year. 5,000 would be wonderful because we could then start this program in many places in Africa which are knocking on my door every week to start this program."
Global Action has representation in Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Ukraine, El Salvador and Honduras. "But as this program starts and grows, we'll see probably another 30 countries added."
He says churches in the United States alone could make a huge impact. "Imagine: there are 300,000 churches in this country; if only 3,000 say 'I'll do one,' there's going to be a revival across the world that nobody's ever seen."
If you want to help Global Action in their IStartedAChurch.com, click here.
