Funding Status June 2010

We are doing our with funding from

• Mission Donors in the US
• Love offerings at events in Latin America
• Tent Making through product sales and speaking fees in the US.

Your partnership with financial help through PRMI enables us to serve here and throughout Latin America where resources are scarce.

Currently only at 35% of budgeted need.

Our current reality is that pledged support each month and expected product sales is only at 35% of our need.

We’ve still got a lot of fund raising and new product development to do.

Your partnership matters

We keep praying that we’ll make an impact where we live, planting a church that plants churches.

It’s not easy work by any means.

We’ve walked through seasons of stress like we never had before.  But in the end, is it worth it?  By all means.

Your partnership not only helps us in this church plant, but is helping us train other pastors and leaders throughout Panama and Latin America.

As we step into the summer, would you consider making a gift or joining our team on a monthly basis?

Monthly Donors

We invite you to consider joining our team on a monthly basis to help us cover the 65% need that we still need to raise.

We look for monthly gifts of $25, $50, or even $100.  Some are able to share over that.

Sample ideas for gifts:

Here is was a special gift enables:

• $500 currently provides rental of a hotel room for one church service.
• $500 provides an airline ticket to give training in another country.
• $400 provides a day long seminar in Latin America for pastors.
• $250 provides training for a church in a evening meeting.
• $700 provides health insurance for one month for our family.
• $100 provides a month’s access to virtual training for pastors around the world via the internet.

Action

Dowload the Donor Response form to print out (Box to the right) and mail to PRMI, or work through the steps of donating on line.

I’m working on a simple paypal button from PRMI, but for now, you’ll have to use ACS.

Launching a new resource

Many of you support our work not only with your monthly gifts, but buying our stuff.

On June 15, I’m launching the CD set of the Fear Free Evangelism Seminar. 

The 5 CD set will be printed and shipped to your house.  Many of you have encouraged me to do that, and that day is here.  My 6 hour seminar has been condensed to 5, plus a resource CD that contains additional audio teaching on personal evangelism, handouts to print, and a study guide.

If you want to save $10 on the pre-launch (launch will be at $49), you can pre-purchase your CD set here:

Options

Base Price $39.00 Special Gift Version $50.00 Gold Member Version $100.00

Options:

Base package pre-sale $39 plus 8.95 Shipping.

Special Gift Version: $50.00 + shipping

Gold Verison $100 + shipping.

Some of you may want to give over and above, so I’ve given you that option with the other versions.  There is no special distinction between the versions.

Funds are collected at purchase, product will be shipped to your door on June 15 when it is live.

100% of the proceeds benefit our work here in Panama.

This post will come down on June 15.

Buenas Nuevas Panama

This coming Sunday, May 9, we launch our first preview service: “Starting Over.”

We’ve been praying for this event and eagerly excited to see what God will do with this new church development.

Here are two videos of the impact that the small group has had

Likewise, here is a video of his wife Marionee, sharing some of her story.

Couples Marriage Retreat

Fresh air outside the city.

Mountain views and pine trees.

14 familes.

In the middle of April 2010, we participated in a couples retreat as part of the launch process of Buenas Nuevas Panama, the church plant we are helping out.

Love Languages

The theme was love language, based on the popular book.  It’s been translated into Spanish, and Pastor Pedro and his wife did a great job introducing the material and leading the workshops.

By hosting this workshop, our church seeks to strengthen families through Christ’s help:  Parents that

• love each other,
• are loyal to each other,
• and for those who are able, raise honorable kids who will be future husbands or wives.

I’d love to share the stories that we heard that day.

All I can say is that your support helps us strengthen and or restore these families.

Though the retreat was just for the day, we know that it’s making a great investment in families and their future.

Thanks to our supporters for keeping us here!

Finding the person of peace opens new doors

I’ve started meeting regularly with one of the men who comes to our core group.

He too is a recent immigrant, and fleeing the political unrest from their home country.  Truly, they are starting over.

We’ve started meeting recently to discuss topics like

• How to study the Bible
• How to prepare a message.
• How to effectively evangelize

The Man of Peace

There is a church planting principle about finding the “person of peace.”

It is a phrase that comes from Luke 10, when Jesus sends out the 72.

In Luke 10:5-6 Jesus said, “When you enter a house, first say, `Peace to this house.’ If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.”

This shows a level of spiritual receptivity. Gary Rohrmeyer write:

How does one discern if a Person of Peace is in his or her life?  Here are a few things to look for:

1. Did they receive you openly into their lives knowing that you are a follower of Jesus?
2. Are they open to spiritual conversations? Meaning, you can dialogue with them about spiritual issues without them shutting down emotionally.
3. Are they willing to look into the Scriptures with a curious spirit and not a critical one?
4. Do they have influence with others? Are they in a position of influence over their family, friends and within the community?
5. Is their home a hub of activity for the neighborhood and extended family?
6. Do they have the ability to introduce new people into their sphere of influence effectively?
7. Do they have a natural ability of including and bringing others to small groups, events or worship services?

The person of peace is essentially a “point person” through whom a church planter can make lots of new connections.  This person may be spiritually seeking, or already a believer who has lots of unchurched contacts.  Sometimes it’s a person who has many people seeking them out for spiritual conversations.

Next Steps

This man I’ve stared meeting with seems to be a “person of peace.”

He has several people approaching him with lots of spiritual questions that he can’t seem to answer. He’s very amicable and open to hosting events in his condo.

He wants to help his friends and has turned to me for help.  We’ve started meeting for that very reason.

I think in a few weeks, we’ll have  a gathering in his house with his friends to talk about their questions and search for answers together.

Planning a new service

In just a few weeks, the local church we are helping launch will hold a “taste of” service.

It’s a big event, where we are renting a hotel room, ramping up the personal invitations, and marketing and all the other regular elements of a church launch.

We’ve been talking for a few weeks about doing this in our regular Sunday night meetings, and it is fun watching the momentum build for that April 18 date.

Our theme will be on “Starting Over.”

As most of our core group are immigrants from another country, all recently arrived within the last 12 months, and they are starting over.  Some are finding faith in Christ along the way.

I hope to prepare a video with one member to help explain what we are doing, and how you can help us fund this project.

Event Summary of 2009

In 2009 we set this following targets:

Our target is to plan for 15 events in Panama, 12 events in the United States, and up to 3 events in other countries in Latin Americas (30 events total).

In preparing our annual report for the Presbytery of the James, as well as for PRMI which provides our covering here are some interesting statistics:

Live Events (conferences, sermons, classes): 46

• IPET Classes in Panama/Costa Rica: 16
• Preachings: 13 sermons in 10 churches.
• Live Conference Events: 17

Countries Served: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, United States, Guatemala

Virtual Events (on-line or by telephone): 56

• Virtual Webinars: 11
• Evangelism Coaching: 39 individuals / churches.
• Virtual Sunday School class: 1
• Expert Interviews: 5

Not only did we meet our event goals for 2009, but we far exceeded them.

God has been gracious in opening doors for us, and then providing for us through His people.

Hear directly from Vida Joven Leaders

National Leader Vida Joven Nicaragua Testimonial from Chris Walker

Kevin Suywan shares about the ministry of Presence

Another leader from Vida Joven Guatemala explains how learning about the Holy Spirit has helped her minsitry. She’s been receiving Dunamis teaching from PRMI at Vida Joven Nicaragua’s annual training camp

RSS Readers May need to Click through to see the 3 videos.