We heart this new, ongoing series–a virtual trip to the coffee shop with organizations to help you go there, serve Him, and love them even better. (For more thoughts about why you might join an agency–and a handful of reasons you might not–make sure to check out He Said/She Said/You Say? “Should I go overseas with an organization?”, both the pros and the cons.)
Today, we’re grabbing a green tea frappuccino with All Nations--perhaps better known as the sending organization of the late John Chau.
To do this, we make disciples and train leaders to ignite church planting movements among the neglected peoples of the earth.
Our passion: To see disciples that love and obey Jesus raise up more disciples that love and obey Jesus.
The North America hub, in Kansas City, has 150 missionaries serving in 23 countries. And we’ve adopted 30 unreached or enegaged people groups globally! (Don’t miss Go. Serve. Love’s printable infographic to help you pray for unreached groups.)
All of our missionaries are involved in starting churches that start churches. Most places where churches don’t yet exist are persecuted countries, so many of our missionaries and church planters also do business. As a result, we have a group that is invested in Pioneer Business Planting to help missionaries plant businesses that provide sustainability to movements of believers.
(Editor’s note: Unfamiliar with Business as Mission? Check out Your Career, Globally: What Could I Do with a Business Degree in Overseas Missions? and recent BAM goodies on our #BestoftheBestFriday page.)
Ahmad and his wife became refugees from the revolution in Syria. Prior to the war, Ahmad had even worked in the Syrian Secret Police force.
But as the war progressed, and he was ordered to do terrible things to the revolutionaries, he decided to defect. Additionally, his twin baby boys died in the first few months of the war, after inhaling toxic fumes from an explosion. Ahmad left everything to bring his wife and remaining daughter to safety.
Since they have been refugees, they have had another son, and there is a third on the way. But life is still tough, especially because Ahmad has to keep a very low profile. As a defector from the Syrian army, there is a bounty on his head. He can’t risk working illegally in his new country where he is a refugee, because if he were caught, he would be sent back to Syria and certain execution.
The last time All Nations missionaries visited Ahmad, he shared his “war story” with them. One of them said, “We are so sorry. This is not God’s heart for you to suffer like this. This is because of human sin.”
Ahmad agreed heartily. “Yes, all of the descendants of Adam have sin, because of what happened in the Garden. But there is good news. God wanted to take our sin away, and so he sent someone special to do that. Do you know who he sent?”
They were stunned. The missionaries actually started tearing up. They had shared many Bible stories with Ahmad, and given him an Arabic Bible, but they had not yet shared with him the full story of the Cross. What would he say?
They replied to his question, “Who? Who did he send?”
Ahmad continued, “Well, he couldn’t send someone from Adam’s line, because every one of us has sin, and God needed to send someone without sin. So, he sent the Holy Spirit on the Virgin Mary. She gave birth to Jesus, and since he didn’t have an earthly father he was free from the sin of Adam. He sacrificed himself on the Cross to take away our sins and the sins of the whole world!”
The All Nations missionaries pushed away tears. “Where did you learn this?”
“In the Bible you gave me,” he replied. “Especially the Gospels: You know, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
The All Nations missionaries shared with him the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10 and conducted an impromptu Discovery Bible Study.
At the end of the study, when everyone was sharing how they would apply what they had learned, he said, “I will see all my friends and family during the holiday this coming weekend. I want to do what Cornelius and Peter did. I want to share with them the whole story about Jesus, and how he sacrificed himself on the cross for the sins of all of us!”
Wow. The missionaries could hardly believe it. This man had been reading his Bible and God had given him full understanding of Jesus’ sacrifice.
Since that day, Ahmad has shared the Gospel with many, baptized about 150 new believers, and planted 45 house churches among his friends and relatives. Some of these are in the country where he is a refugee, and some are back in Syria itself!
Ahmad is only one example of the unusual openness All Nations missionaries are seeing among Syrians. All Nations believes that God is doing something historic that we have never seen in the Arab world. He is drawing many, many people to Jesus in amazing ways!
Grab more amazing stories of how God is moving at All Nations’ blog.
We’d like to make it even simpler than that. We love and obey Jesus.
We believe everyone is called to be disciple-makers. Our training and on-ramp process is simple and reproducible, so that we can raise up indigenous leaders from the beginning.
We really believe our workers should be planning to work themselves out of the job, and raise up local leaders from the start, just as Paul did with Timothy.
Although how we train is simple and reproducible, it provides a lifetime of depth and maturity.
We run a 3-week intensive cross-cultural ministry training called CPx (Church Planting Experience). This is the on-ramp required for all of our cross-cultural missionaries.
We follow this up with a 10-month long internship that is done with experienced practitioners in a group-coaching format. This can be done online or onsite.
We have applications for CPx, the internship, and for long-term field work. Once someone is approved for long-term field work, we provide pastoral care monthly, and provide language coaching and church planting coaching.
We also provide numerous training opportunities for those going to places closer to home and also to sending churches. We help local churches know how to send well, how to be disciple-makers, teach the Bible in simple ways, and how to share Jesus with Muslims. These trainings are offered once a month in Kansas City, on-line, and can be brought to a local area with an All Nations trainer almost anywhere in the world upon request.
We’ve got our eyes peeled for workers who love and obey Jesus and believe that the harvest is plentiful. We’re talking people that will find open and hungry people for the gospel and disciple them to plant churches that multiply. We love people that have a passion to empower the locals they will be working with–people with grit, willing to put in the hard work of discipling others.
We are small, personable, and excited to walk with people on every part of their journey from becoming interested in missions to being a full-time field worker. We have a strong emphasis on pastoral care and coaching, so missionaries can last a long time and see fruit!
Do it! God is at work all over the world. We just need to find out what He is up to and join in. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. We’re praying for more workers!
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I want to join your team in working in India.
My desire is plant many churches.
What I should to join your team.
Love to hear this! Please contact Joshua Johnson at jjohnson@allnations.us. I'm sorry that we neglected to add their contact information in the original post, but it's added now!