e3 Wild Year 1: Fingerprints of God

This has been a wild year. Wild economically. Wild politically. Wild on the high seas as pirating off Africa is now a growth industry.

It’s also been a wild year at e3. But wild in the good sense, in the exciting sense, in the wonderfully unexpected sense. Wild in the sense that we see the fingerprints of God all over many good things happening.

I am Second. Earlier this year a major donor / friend of the ministry asked one of our staff for ideas for an evangelism outreach in Dallas. The verse burning in his heart was “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. “ He loved the ideas our creative team came up with, and excitedly asked if e3 would do them. “But we’re an international church planting ministry, and this is a local evangelism project,” was our first thought. But we concluded that this was God opening a door, so we accepted his request.

There are three parts to the I am Second strategy. One is lots of local media—billboards, TV ads, radio spots, etc. They point people to the second part of the strategy-- a web site with videos of famous people and ordinary folks sharing how Jesus is first in their lives. The third part is to hook them up with local churches that have committed to follow-up with them. Check it out at http://www.iamsecond.com/.

Now comes the wild part. Over 100,000 visitors hit the web site in its first 10 days. From 130+ countries. A “fan club” on Facebook gets over 500 new members a day. We’re already hearing sweet testimonies of people accepting Christ after listening to the videos and talking to their friends.

Lots of hard work has gone into this project, but it came up out of the blue. Totally unexpected and unsolicited. With the fingerprints of God all over it.

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e3 Wild Year 2: Michael Jordan of Church Planting

Last Spring we hosted a church planting “celebrity” named Dr. Curtis Sergeant in our office. We have known about him for several years, mainly watching from afar as he spoke at conferences. Curtis pioneered many of the strategies now used by missions agencies around the globe to initiate church planting movements. We were honored he even took the time to come by our office. But we were more than shocked when he shared that God had awakened him at 4 am that day with the message to “join e3.”

Since he’s an acknowledged world-wide expert on church planting, we were willing to make whatever changes he suggested to our ministry. Early on I asked him, “What do you think of our First Steps church planting curriculum?” Since I have spent much of the past several years writing, testing, editing, and prototyping First Steps, and then training our national networks of coaches how to use it, it was with fear and trepidation that I even asked that question. Much to my joy and relief the answer was that it was “right on,” with simply the need to add some tactics to accelerate church planting even more.

Again, something totally out of the blue with the fingerprints of God on it.

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e3 Wild Year 3: Shark Fin Impact

Notice the “shark fins” below? We look at 3 key things as we evaluate the effectiveness of our ministry—people equipped, people evangelized, and new churches established. The foundation of our ministry for 20 years has been our US teams and staff. The foundation lines of each graph are the blessed fruit the Lord of the harvest has given our US teams and staff the past 10 years.

Three years ago we began to build on that foundation. We focused more attention and resources on developing networks of national church planting coaches to continue the ministry after our teams return home. The “shark fins” below show the multiplied ministry God has given us from that added strategy. (The reason there are dips at the end is that not all the stats are in for 2008.)

Equipped Nationals: blue is by US teams and staff / red is by national trainers

Evangelized (professions of faith): blue with US teams / red by national teams

Established (new churches): blue with US teams / red by nationals

Wild, isn’t it? Again, the fingerprints of God all over this “shark fin” ministry acceleration. And this is before the impact we know God will bring through Curtis Sergeant’s influence and coaching.

You are a Big Part of these Blessings. We thank the Lord for our faithful partners who support us financially and prayerfully. Your investments of time and treasure bear much eternal fruit.

May the Lord Bless You Richly in the New Year.

Mike Jorgensen

Asia Visit Slideshow

Woodlyn and I had the joy of visiting A, L and E in Asia for a couple weeks. Our first grandbaby, Elizabeth Grace (they call her Ella), is now 5 months old. Here's a short slideshow that captures some of the joy of our visit. Warning: it is unapologetically grandparentish!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Bolivians Go On Mission Trip

Here's a report from Julia in Bolivia about a team of Bolivians who did an e3 style campaign. This mission trip was to an area where about 20 people (including a pastor) were killed several months ago in a clash between a crowd supporting the socialism of Bolivia's president and a pro-capitalism group. The area has been under martial law since then.

God showed his glory in Cobija, even the enemy was trying to discourage the missioneries and local workers using the police and sickness, nothing stopped the plan of our Mighty God! According to the testimonies of the missioneries; the people never thought that God love them and to see people go to their own houses to share about it was a surprise for them. The families open de the doors not only of their houses , the door of their hearts. Some were afraid because all the social problems that happened, but God showed them with hope and love.

Thanks for your economical support, for your prayers; you make possible these.

God bless, Julia


COBIJA - PANDO

CAMPAIGN: November 14 - 22, 2008
Missioneries: 22
Local workers: 48
New churches: 6
Strengthened churches: 1
Gospel presentation: 805
Professions of faith: 624
Follow up: 434 (70%)
Attending Celebration Meeting: 350