The Xingu Mission (XM) is taking intentional steps to plant a Church Planting Movement (CPM). When we first started this mission us missionaries met together to pray about some goals. Planting churches that plant churches and working ourselves out of a job were among those goals. Other specifics included planting 1,000 churches that were healthy, growing and planting more churches.
In the business world this is sometimes called a BHAG, a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. We realized that without God we could not reach this goal. In the fifteen years since those meetings God has continued to grow this movement. Countless people have pitched in to help. The Brazilian leadership is rising up. We have over 50 churches and church plants. Some are very small, but some are well-established city churches. We are well on our way to 1,000.
Things are changing for us missionaries. We are learning we need to pass the leadership baton over to the maturing Brazilian leaders. We still have much work to do as we continue to reach into new regions to plant new churches and raise up new leaders.
As I think about this mission and movement it feels like it is alive, growing and healthy. As we raise our four girls, when we finally get comfortable with one stage of their lives they are already moving into the next stage, from diapers to children to adolescents to teen-agers. In a few weeks we will have a 20 year old daughter! This is how this church-planting movement feels to me.
End.
PS This is a photo of a leadership conference in Altamira earlier this year.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.