I love browsing bookstores. Whenever I learn about a new book, I’m frequently excited simply because it’s NEW, and I forget that it actually isn’t new at all. Instead, every new book is the culmination of a journey, with time spent thinking, researching, writing, and rewriting.

That exactly describes the journey of WME’s “new” resource, Embrace: Showing and Sharing the Love of Jesus. It began as an idea, which grew into my PhD dissertation, which then grew into material I’ve been teaching in Africa, Europe, North America, the Pacific, and South America. Now it has grown into the “new” study that we launched last month.

It’s exciting to see the impact Embrace has made as it journeyed through all it’s different shapes, and we can already see that its newest form is making a huge difference as well. The time is clearly right for the Embrace approach to evangelism.

Our world is dramatically different than it was a few decades ago. In many ways we are more connected, but in other ways we are more divided than ever. We need a way to show and share the love of Jesus that transcends divisions, builds bridges, and allows room for the Holy Spirit to work for transformation. Embrace offers just that.

Embrace sets out six essential values that lie at the heart of authentic evangelism: humility, clarity, prayer, integrity, worship, and urgency. In focusing on these values, Embrace encourages faithful discipleship and graceful faith-sharing and enables people to become comfortable showing and sharing the love of Jesus in ways that are authentic and natural. Embrace provides a holistic understanding of the gospel and of faith-sharing, rooting all of our sharing deeply in spiritual disciplines and habits, and integrating it into other ministries of the church.

I’m energized by the ways we are offering Embrace. First is the study book, which is designed for individuals or small groups. It’s divided into six sessions, with introductory material followed by five sessions focused on the essential values. The study book provides basic theological and scriptural foundations for evangelism, and includes opportunities for both reflection and action. You can learn more about the study book here.

Embrace can also be experienced in a workshop environment. Like the study book, these workshops are divided into six sessions, an introduction followed by five sessions focused on the essential values. Workshops are designed for both laity and clergy, and are a blend lecture, storytelling, small group discussion, and individual reflection. Through this strategy of learning, verbal processing and discussion, personal sharing, prayer, and reflection, participants are equipped to share their faith as well as to empower others to share as well. Like all Embrace material, there is an emphasis on theological and scriptural understanding, as well as a holistic approach to both the gospel and evangelism. You can learn more about hosting or attending an Embrace workshop here.

Though we share many things in common, each of our cultures and contexts is unique. A strength of Embrace is that it takes both those commonalities and differences seriously. In offering essential values rather than rigid practices, Embrace recognizes that all faith-sharing is contextual. Our practices will likely change from place to place, and from time to time; however, there are certain values that remain constant no matter where we are or what culture we live in. Working through these essential values, Christ followers are able to connect their personal experience of faith with a holistic understanding of the gospel in a way that restores their confidence and responsiveness to the Holy Spirit as they show and share the love of Jesus in their daily lives and in their trusting relationships.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

One of the joys of leading WME is the opportunity to have a front row seat for the powerful movement of the Holy Spirit around the world. Our God is on the move and we are blessed to be able to join in that work!

 As you read this, I am traveling to a women’s conference in Nigeria. 500 women from the Methodist Church Nigeria will be coming from throughout the country for this annual gathering of worship, bible study, fellowship, and learning. The Methodist Wesleyan family is a vibrant witness for Christ in Nigeria and I can’t wait to see what the Spirit will do!

WME is guided by the principle of multiplication – we empower others who go on to make an even bigger impact. One of the exciting things about multiplication is that amazing things happen when we aren’t even present! That’s the case in India.

Last year we were able to provide evangelism training in India. Several young adults attended the seminar and were trained in the Embrace approach to sharing faith. The Holy Spirit moved powerfully during the seminar and these young men were hoping to follow up on their experience by attending WME’s international young adult gathering, Metanoia, later that year.

Unfortunately, they were not able to receive travel visas, but were determined to participate in whatever way they could. During our Metanoia gathering in Costa Rica, Vijay Bannet, Amber Massey, Augustine Frederick, Nikul Masih, and Anosh McLain Charan held prayer vigils from India and connected with us via Facebook Live and other social media.

The Holy Spirit was clearly not finished working. These young men – all of whom are under 25 years old and all lay persons – were so inspired by the concept of Metanoia and the desire to share the gospel that they made plans to launch their own Metanoia in India.

And that is what they did. (See Metanoia India group photo above.)

Pooling their savings and with a small amount of help from their local churches, in October 2018 the first Metanoia-India was launched and reached over 150 young adults with the gospel. In October, a second gathering will take place and they are expecting even more. They have even set the date for a third Metanoia in November 2020. God willing, I will be able to join them.

God’s Holy Spirit is moving across our planet in meaningful and dramatic ways. Young people are coming to Christ and praise God they are not waiting for permission from others – just the leading of the Spirit – to move forward in faith that the world might know Jesus Christ![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

A crucial source of guidance for WME comes from our Regional Secretaries who are located across Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Europe, North America, Pacifica, and South America. These global leaders help us identify the challenges facing the church in their part of the world. We recently gathered the WME Regional Secretaries in Seoul, South Korea to create strategies for WME’s ongoing work worldwide. We are grateful to Rev. Chungsuk Kim, WME’s Regional Secretary for the Far East and Senior Pastor of Kwanglim Church, for hosting us so graciously and are excited about the upcoming initiatives that will unfold over the next several years.

Christians worldwide face many hurdles as they share the good news of Jesus Christ and WME is committed to coming alongside our sisters and brothers to equip them to meet these challenges. During our time together, we were able to create strategies to address a wide range of issues such as:

• the deliberate and strategic expansion of Islam
• the prevalence of nominalism, secularization, and pluralism
• the challenges of migration, poverty, and access to health care
• the need for the translation of teaching resources
• the need for church planting and inner city church revitalization
• the importance of reaching the next generation

Much of WME’s current programs such as the Order of the FLAME and Embrace evangelism are well suited to address these challenges through training and education and we have begun plans to expand this work to Indonesia, Brazil, Kenya, Russia, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe. The various components of these training opportunities will be shaped by the unique issues of each area. Our ongoing collaboration with Vision Africa to provide Media and Communication education has proven to be extremely effective and we have begun plans to broaden the reach of that annual training opportunity as well.

Planning is well underway for the 11th gathering of Metanoia, WME’s international young adult gathering, in Sweden in 2021. We are also excited about the possibility that Metanoia will be held in 2023 in Africa. This will be the 12th gathering and the first on that continent.

Translation efforts are also underway for a variety of WME’s evangelism resources including Embrace: Showing and Sharing the Love of Jesus, and based on the discussions in Seoul, we are developing a range of online evangelism resources as well.

We are grateful for the commitment of our Regional Secretaries and their willingness to come alongside WME with their wisdom and guidance. God has blessed WME with creative leadership and we are energized by the exciting opportunities that lay before us all.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

In March the Order of the FLAME gathered at Epworth by the Sea for its annual week of Holy Spirit inspired worship and learning. What a blessed time! Over 130 members of the Order were able to share together as we explored what it means to be a mission evangelist in our current age. When we see Facebook posts proclaiming that the FLAME was the single best training a young clergy had experienced in ministry, we are encouraged that our work is having a significant impact.

At the Order of the FLAME gathering, we explore holistic evangelism using three lenses – word, deed, and sign. In other words, we seek to answer three questions: How do we effectively communicate the good news so that others might hear and respond? How do engage in ministries of reconciliation, justice, and mercy in ways that authentically demonstrate the Gospel? How do we become channels of the Holy Spirit so that lives might be transformed?

This year we were blessed by a variety of answers to those questions, with teaching on preaching for response and communicating the Gospel to the next generation, on reconciliation, multi-cultural worship, and community outreach, and on the powerful movement of the Holy Spirit from the beginning of the Methodist movement to our current age.

In addition to the outstanding teaching and powerful worship, a highlight of our FLAME gatherings is the boundary breaking nature of our time together. The FLAME community connects the entire Wesleyan Methodist family – AME’s, AMEZ’s, CME’s, Evangelical Methodists, Free Methodists, Nazarenes, United Methodists, and Wesleyans. At FLAME gatherings denominational boundaries fade, racial and ethnic barriers are broken down, and cultural obstacles are overcome. This year it was exciting to welcome people from 24 different states, some traveled to Georgia from as far away as California, South Dakota, New York, and Maine. Our farthest members arrived from Indonesia, Romania, and South Africa.

In John’s Revelation we see that one day God will gather all the peoples of the earth and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. At the Order of the FLAME we are a microcosm of that image – a diversity of people bound together by our faith in Jesus Christ, a reconciled people joined together by our commitment to being mission evangelists in our communities, a Holy Spirit led people linked together by our willingness to become channels of God’s prevenient grace to all people.

We thank God for the many blessings we received during the 2019 Order of the FLAME gathering and we are already looking forward to returning to Epworth by the Sea March 9-13, 2020. We will welcome another class into the FLAME community, which already numbers over 2500. If you are a member of the Order of the FLAME, we encourage you to make plans join us and to nominate a promising young leader to participate in this transformative experience.

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”62059″][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”Evangelism Today! Evangelism Training in Portugal” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center|color:%23bf302b” google_fonts=”font_family:Abel%3Aregular|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”][vc_separator][vc_column_text]For more than three decades, World Methodist Evangelism (WME) has trained indigenous, front-line evangelism leaders. We continued that important work in January, in partnership with our World Methodist Evangelism Institute and the Evangelical Methodist Church of Portugal. The theme of the seminar was “Evangelism Today! That the World Might Know Jesus Christ.”

Students from Candler Theological Seminary and Gammon Theological Seminary worked and learned alongside pastors and lay leaders from Portugal. WME staff members Kim Reisman and Rob Haynes offered original material around the subjects of “Embrace,” a model for relational evangelism, and “Evangelism in the age of new technologies.” WMEI Executive Director, Wesley de Souza, Candler professor faculty Jehu Hanciles, and Gammon professor, David Whitworth taught as well.

Along with training indigenous leaders across the globe, such international and regional evangelism seminars also provide Wesleyan Methodist seminarians in the United States the opportunity to explore the nature and practice of evangelism in a cross-cultural environment. Additionally, the seminars are occasions for pastors and laity to earn continuing education credits while experiencing evangelism in other cultural contexts. These transformative experiences are critical to building bridges across both geography and tradition and to promoting preaching, teaching, and witnessing grounded uncompromisingly in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Plans are underway for the next seminars:

• Peru, August 2019
• Sri Lanka, January 2020
• Fiji, August 2020 (Pastor’s Continuing Education track available)

If your seminary would like to be involved in these opportunities, or to find out more about the Continue Education options, contact Rob Haynes, rob@worldmethodist.org.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Strong hearts and gentle hands

As the hopeful anticipation and spiritual preparation of Advent gives way to the joyous celebration of Christmas, I pray that you might experience the depth of God’s love for you. It is a love that boggles the human mind – embodied in a tiny baby boy, born into poverty and rejected by those he came to love. It is a love that will always be larger than we can comprehend with our limited hearts and lives, but a love so radically unconditional, so dramatically forgiving, so magnificently gracious, righteous, pure and just, that it has been transforming lives for centuries.
One of my favorite Christmas cards my family has sent out over the years includes the following message:

The Dream of God shall be carried in strong hearts and gentle hands.

At World Evangelism, our hope is that we are able in some way to be either a strong heart or a gentle hand in bearing an admittedly partial rendering of God’s dream to the world. More importantly, we pray that you, and Christ followers across the globe, will be inspired to be that strong heart and gentle hand, bearing God’s dream wherever you find yourself.
A joyous Christmas to each of you…
Peace, Kim