Despite Opposition,
Church Grows in South Pacific
By S,* OMS Missionary in Asia
Sara* and her hus-
band, who is a sales-
man, make an effec-
tive team. After he es-
tablishes a working rela-
tionship with new contacts,
he introduces them to his wife.
She then shares the Gospel with
them, using the Train & Multiply (T&M) ma-
terials to help guide.
Sara and the leaders she has mentored
have worked hard in the west region of the
South Pacific and, as a result, have seen
much fruit. In 2016, Sara and her team
shared the Gospel with 3,000 individuals!
In the beginning, local opposition wouldn’t
allow her to start a church. So, Sara met with
small groups throughout the week. Now,
believers are able to meet once a month in
a rented church to worship together.
Over the last year, Chris* and Geoff,*
pastors in this nation, have faithfully trained
leaders like Sara to use the T&M materials
to reach the lost in their communities. T&M
is not a new concept to this country, but
it has taken a number of years for it to be
understood and embraced.
When OMS first presented T&M, many
South Pacific church leaders dismissed it
as a strategy that would not work in their
communities. But the updated, practical,
and more concrete
theories, such as the
generational cycle,
caught Chris’ interest.
Geoff, who joined the
Every Community for Christ
team a year ago, says his “aha”
moment came when he learned the
difference between coaching and mentor-
ing. Susan, the OMS church multiplication
facilitator for this nation, explained that
when coaching becomes the plan, the
mentor can focus on the needs of the new
leader and what his or her group needs to
understand and be discipled in rather than
what the mentor thinks they need to learn.
“That has been the problem,” Geoff said.
“We’ve been mentoring our leaders and tell-
ing them what to do when we should have
been coaching them instead.”
T&M also works effectively for tradi-
tional, established churches in the South
Pacific. When Chris first introduced the
concept of T&M to his congregation, three
people stepped forward as leaders and
started groups, but they soon became
discouraged and quit. Chris attributed the
failure to a lack of prayer over the leaders
and groups. So, he spent time teaching his
congregation the importance of prayer, and
together, they developed a prayer strategy,
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