Easter and EE—time to rejoice as GDP grows ministry posted by jwatson on Mar 18, 2011

IFWs standing in front of the EE training centre being built on the grounds of the African Bible College in Malawi.

Easter is a day when we celebrate life through our risen Savior, Jesus Christ, who paid the ultimate penalty for our sin and rose victoriously, conquering sin and death. Through this act of boundless grace, Jesus secures life and life eternal for those who profess Him as Lord and Savior. EE has dedicated its mission to train others how to share this story that they, in turn, can train others, and that millions will accept this free Easter gift.

Sarah Abadines teaching one of many sessions to further equip the people as witnesses and leaders. These sessions consisted of note-taking, discussion, and reflection.

For more than 49 years, EE has spread its mission to places unheard of like Windhoek, Siem Reap, Lipetsk, Timisoara, Cuillacan, Saint Catherine, and Malaita. These are just a few of the countless number of cities representative of God’s global reach through EE on every continent.

Today, in this new millennium, taking our mission of impacting lives for Christ as an urgent exhortation, we have multiplied this outreach like never before through our Global Development Project (GDP).

Now through two years of GDP, there are 3,558 new churches implementing EE and counting.

Interns painting a house in Nawaicoba village as a community service project. The group loved being able to serve in this hands-on way to bless those in the surrounding area.

Back in 2004, EE set out on a mission to fix a problem—only 20 percent of pastors who were trained in evangelism around the world were able to implement an EE ministry in their church. Why? Many pastors are overburdened with responsibilities and didn’t have time to coordinate implementation of EE on their own. So, EE began testing a new idea that we later called the Global Development Project (GDP) to offer support to these pastors. EE placed trained workers in the field to help pastors implement EE. As a result, implementation of the EE ministry in churches soared to 50 percent and upwards to 90 percent in some areas.

EE implementation field workers (IFWs) work with pastors, side- by-side, to develop and strengthen their EE ministry. Through GDP, more than 400 field workers will be raised up in three years. Today, after two years, we estimate that all of our goals will be met and exceeded! Ultimately, what this means is we’re multiplying the number of people equipped to share their faith and, therefore, making huge gains for the Kingdom of God. Praise our God for this opportunity and accomplishment!

Following two years of GDP, 232 IFWs have been identified, recruited, trained, and are assisting pastors. We have also built a GDP infrastructure with team leaders and coaches to not only train our IFWs, but also keep them focused and provide assistance. Most encouraging to us is the more than doubling of the implementation rate of churches that participate in EE training in areas where IFWs serve! The project goal for the IFWs after two years was to add 2,191 churches to the list of those using EE. Our church count is currently at 3,558, or 176 percent of the goal!

We can only guess at the number of lives impacted for Christ and hope that as a partner of EE, you are as pleased as we are. That is wonderful excitement for Easter!