MINISTRY PARTNER UPDATE - 9/23

As a church, we prayerfully and financially support a number of local, stateside and foreign ministry partners. In the past we have made efforts to educate and communicate updates about our ministry partners through a printed monthly/quarterly missions update. Going forward we intend to provide regular updates on our ministry partners and other missions initiatives through the blog on our website.

Bruce Koch - Frontier Ventures Ministry

As a church, we have supported Bruce Koch for many years. He has even taught a Perspectives course at our church several years ago. This month, the missions committee would like to highlight Bruce’s ministry and explain a little more about it. Bruce works with what is most commonaly known as Perspectives Global, which is part of a larger ministry by the name of Frontier Ventures Ministry.

What is Perspectives?

Perspectives on the World Christian Movement is a 15-lesson study program designed to educate and mobilize believers to participate in global missions and see the gospel proclaimed to the ends of the earth.

Quick Facts:

• The Perspectives course currently is in 9 nations with translations into 38 different languages!
• National Perspectives programs seek to mobilize and unite God’s people for
  effective engagement in fulfilling God’s mandate to establish movements within
  every people group on earth that will worship, obey, and glorify Jesus.
• The course examines four “perspectives” of God’s mission - Biblical, Historical, Cultural and Strategic - exploring the why and the how of being on mission with God.
• First developed for college students in 1974 by Dr. Ralph Winter and the US Center for World Mission, Perspectives has emerged into a global movement attracting Christians of all generations and nations.
• Almost 50 years of history has demonstrated that the experience of “taking Perspectives” results in transformed lives and transformed churches, ensuing in the transformation of unreached people groups as the gospel spreads within their midst.

Perspective’s global team works primarily through hosting catalytic events to launch and support national Perspectives study programs. Our aim is to educate and motivate the global body of Christ to work with Jesus to see his kingdom come and His will done within every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

Over the past one hundred years the Church in Africa, Asia and Latin America has expanded so rapidly, it now represents two-thirds of the global Body of Christ. Whereas in the past, mission was perceived as “from the West to the rest,” today there is a growing global mission force, passionate and ready to be deployed. They often live geographically or culturally near the least-reached people groups.

These new missionaries are dependent upon an equally engaged and mission-aware church to send them. That’s where Perspectives Global comes in. Perspectives is the oldest, most-recognized mobilization tool to produce a deep level and sustaining transformation in churches and individuals.

Most Recent Update From Bruce:

“Besides my ongoing responsibilities overseeing the Perspectives Global Service Office and the 5th Edition Revision Team, I am involved in many other activities to advance the Gospel. As Perspectives continues to expand globally, we have found it helpful to form regional networks, the most dynamic of which is the network that unites and serves all of the Spanish-speaking countries. In the next few years, we will be forming an English-based network and a French-based network in Africa.

We will be addressing many other program development issues, but the formation of the Anglophone African network will consume a large portion of our time in the near future. Some countries, like Nigeria have been offering Perspectives for decades. Some like Ghana and Malawi are just starting.

I have one primary prayer request: that the Holy Spirit clearly leads and guides the 17
African leaders to envision and begin the first steps towards a collaborative network that will enhance and accelerate the work they are already doing.

In May, I traveled to the United Arab Emirates to encourage and support our coordinating teams and alumni on the way to India to teach in our emerging program there.

In July, I attended a three-day consultation on catalyzing Jesus movements in the 293 frontier peoples with over 1 million in population.  These people groups, which are predominantly Muslim and Hindu, represent over 47% of the population of the over 7000 remaining unreached groups. It means we can make the gospel available to almost 50% of humanity currently without churches in their culture by reaching just 4% of the remaining groups!"

If you would like to contact Bruce with questions or make a donation in addition to what our church does, you can reach him at Bruch.Koch@frontierventures.org. He’d love to hear from you!