Church Updates: Glad to be back, missions, next steps
By Stovall Weems
I am so glad to be back. I am really looking forward to speaking this weekend. Speaking at Hillsong Kiev last weekend was another great experience. Kiev was much more European than I was expecting.
Speaking of that, it looks like we have an opportunity to plant our third international campus in Greece in 2010. Many of you know we have a location in Zimbabwe, Africa now. We also planted a church in Arequipa, Peru, which we have turned over to our friends at Camino de Vida Church. Camino de Vida is an incredible, established church under the leadership of Pastor Robert Barriger and his wife, Karyn. Robert and I are good friends. He has a church of several thousand and over 100 churches in his network. The church in Arequipa is doing well, and it will do even better as part of the Camino de Vida network of churches.
Oasis of Life Church, the church we planted in Africa, is exploding with over 600 people in just over a year. It could grow to several thousand over the next few years and will be part of the Celebration Church network. Pastor Dixon Changara, who many of you met in May, is doing an incredible job there. Through our church in Africa we have been able to really get hands on with being part of the solution for the AIDS pandemic. Through the church and our partnership with Children’s Cup we feed over 7000 children (mostly AIDS orphans) everyday.
Just as our campus in Africa is engaged in fighting AIDS and poverty, our church in Greece will engage in fighting human trafficking. Greece is the number one nation engaged in abducting and selling children into the sex trade. We will raise up a great thriving local church and partner with A21 (under the leadership of Nick and Chris Caine) to help bring social justice in this area.
One of the major goals for our global campuses is to be in an area of the world that is strategically positioned for both evangelism and social justice. We want to go into some of the world’s darkest areas and bring God’s marvelous love and light.
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It is powerful when the church meets the felt need, and then comes behind it with powerful spiritual transforming truth. I don’t always understand how at times in our history as the Christian culture we have so easily separated the spiritual and the natural. Perhaps there is not such a short distance between the two? The impact of vibrant church planting can be seen throughout the world as people rally together and watch darkness shrink back because of the encroaching light. As the church is the pillar on which the WORD is upheld and as it gets darker and darker in our day, it is good to see a place where the Word comes first, and people are being taught to live a God first life. My wife and I visited a Celebration service last week for the first time, and it was good to see an “American” Church with the World on it’s mind just as we have the passion for the nations burning in our insides. Thanks!
Wow! Greece sounds so exciting! And what an opportunity to bring in the love of God. I have a special place in my heart for children so I am especially fired up about helping them in any way that we can. Go Jesus!