I am the new Home Missions Board Chairman, and I am excited to see how God will use home missions in our future. I am grateful to Carrie Corliss and her most capable and inspired leadership in the last few years. I want to take this opportunity to share with you our mission as a board and a vision for the future.
From the Faith and Practice p. 63, “HOME MISSIONS BOARD. In obedience to Christ’s call to follow His example and His Commission to ‘go into all the world,’ this board is responsible for outreach and church planting through home missions.” “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations…” Matthew 28:19.
The Home Missions Board is making disciples through starting and supporting new church plants. We seek out potential locations and church planters and have conversations with them to confirm God’s call to plant and we coach (disciple) them. We help to set up teams (Partner Advisory Teams) to support each plant. We help them follow a journey (Journey Toward Maturity) to help them move forward. We work with plants that are already established that desire to affiliate with EFCMAYM. We are available to train leaders of the plants, and we seek your support and involvement.
We just celebrated the “full church status” of Come and See Friends in Texas City, TX at Ministry Conference. We currently are supporting eight projects, including church plants (projects that desire to reach “full church status”) and mission points, and their leaders. Church plants include Adonai in Ft. Worth, TX – Elisee Mutshipay (Mariam); Iglesia Amigos N. Houston – David Byrne (Joyce); Narrow Gate in Abilene, TX – Theo Amagito (Godeva); Outcalled Friends in Kiowa, OK – Ethan Vanscoy (Chelsea); and mission points include: Irresistible Hope Ministries in Edmond, OK – Nick and Charla Shaffer; Friends of Lawrence – Jeremiah Williams (Wendy); and Wichita Recovery Hub – Sue Banbury (Ray). These are the primary leaders, but they represent many others in each location.
Our success is loving God, loving ourselves and others (Matthew 22:37-39) and making disciples. We cannot choose Christ for others, but we can love them well, be authentic and vulnerable with them, and cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s work in their lives. This means a commitment to coaching our mission point and church planting leaders and a biblical discipling plan for those projects that begins with reaching those who have not yet trusted in Jesus. When I began in ministry, I worked on developing my own plan, but I soon realized I was primarily focused on theological basics and not covering practical daily living for Jesus skills. I decided it would be best not to reinvent the wheel so I began looking for models that I could use. Since my daughter Hope’s death, I began to realize how much grief and loss are a part of life and began searching for a discipling plan that would deal with grief. I found Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. This is a review: Influence Magazine | “The Cause and Cure of Shallow Christianity.” Not only has Emotionally Healthy Discipleship been a tool for discipling others, it has affirmed me and changed my life as well. Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021).
According to George P. Wood, the author of the aforementioned article, “Too often, Christians think of authentic faith as something that leads to more when it comes to money and better when
it comes to health. That is why the prosperity gospel is so prevalent in American Christianity. We have ‘Christianized’ the American dream. Ministers are not exempt from this more-and-better mentality. Too many of us use buildings, dollars, and people in the pew as metrics of our success, as if quality could be measured by quantity.” We want to be careful to use attendance, buildings and cash as tools, not as a measure of success. If we make disciples, we will get the church. If we make spiritually and emotionally healthy disciples and they make spiritually and emotionally healthy disciples, we will multiply spiritually and emotionally healthy disciples. For example, would you rather have $1,000,000 or a penny a day that doubles every day for thirty days? If you double a penny every day for thirty days you get $5,368,709.12 (Would You Rather Have A Penny That Doubles Each Day For A Month Or $1 Million? (thecollegeinvestor.com))!
Since we want to make disciples and plant churches we need new mission point and church planting leaders. Please pray with us at 10:02 AM or PM. “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” Luke 10:2.
Nick Shaffer
New Home Missions Board Chairman
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