The cities of America are filled with new ethnic groups that are virtually unreached. Surrounded by the megachurches of the majority, they go ignored because they are different, because they speak a funny language, and because the church members are absorbed in lives that barely notice them.

The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention is working hard to re-educate the church on reaching the lost cultures inside their own American nation. If you are nearby and want to have your eyes opened, I exhort you to go to their conferences; New York, N.Y. (Oct. 20-22, 2011)     |     Houston, Texas (Nov. 17-19, 2011)     |     Vancouver, Canada (May 3-5, 2012)

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/user7495452/ethnecityvideo[/vimeo]

This past Sunday was the first ever service for the Prestonwood Dallas church campus. Despite spending the week assembling furniture, cleaning rooms, and setting up the sanctuary–activities that culminated in the carpet install finishing at 5am Sunday morning–we were ready for 2,000 guests at 10am on Sunday. And the best part: God was ready to welcome those 2,000 guests.

God has been at work setting up this new church for months now, pointing us to the facility, reaching people in the area with the desire to encounter Him through the church, and equipping people to serve as ushers, greeters, media coordinators, worshippers, pastors, and children’s ministers. Everything from the carpet to the sermon ultimately got its start in His initiative. Stacy and I were simply thrilled to be a part of it, and to feel the Holy Spirit at work in that place. Stacy and I have been growing alongside everyone else during this process–I spent the morning of the first service overwhelmed by my own personal encounters with Him–God had something for all of us that day.

Many months of new beginnings lie ahead for us in this new facility, and if you are looking for a church home in the North Dallas area, please join us! We would love to host you, and God would love to encounter you here…

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ​teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Matthew 28:19-20

"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14

Christian leaders in the United States have high hopes for the near future. Christian movements in India, China, South America, the Middle East, and elsewhere seem to have tipped the scales in our favor, opening the floodgates of the gospel and for more workers to spread the message. For once, reaching all the nations seems to be a goal that we can reach in a generation.

Isn’t that exciting?!

New Evangelism Tools are helping with the spread of information, as radio transmitters, internet evangelism sites, cell phones, and other devices transmit Christian programming 24/7 audibly, visually, and in the heart language of people all around the world. The Jesus film continues to be one of the most amazing evangelism tools in the world today, available in over 1,100 languages at present.

So what does that mean for me? What does that mean for missions?

Unfortunately, the people groups left in the world today are some of the hardest groups to reach…and the quickly expanding body of Christ means we need more people who are willing and equipped to deepen new believers’ faiths – pastors, teachers, and lay leaders. There’s no shortage of need for workers or funding at the present time. More than ever, we need people who are willing to sacrifice the comforts of a ‘normal’ American lifestyle in order to work among people who don’t have written languages, bilingual people, or running water. We need people who will risk their lives to reach people who remain God’s enemies, and our enemies.

If you’re not involved, please, get involved with missions in some capacity. Go, Pray, or Give via the International Mission Board or another agency. www.imb.org

Read more on reaching the world at Christian Post.

Prestonwood Baptist Church announced this week that it plans to purchase an existing church campus inside the city of Dallas and open it as a third church campus this fall. Am I excited? YES!!! And here’s why planting a new campus is good for us…

“There are two reasons to plant a new campus: Reaching Unreached People for Christ and Mobilizing Existing Church Members in Ministry” ~ Jack Graham, Pastor

Our campus in Plano is filling up, opening a new campus in Dallas will free up seats in that location as well—challenging all our members to get out into their communities and reach people who need to come to church. It’s a good challenge when 2,000 of your members live closer to the new campus than the current one—hopefully that means we’ll have a lot of people inviting coworkers and neighbors that otherwise wouldn’t make the long drive.

Closer means more people in ministry too. Stacy and I love our church, but we have a hard time making the drive to Plano during the week to serve. We serve instead at ministries at school and here in our local area. We’re excited about having a campus close enough to minister at more often, and a lot of open needs that our members can help fill. We’re never closer to God than when we get the opportunity to serve others!

Aren’t there enough churches in Dallas? “How many ants does it take to eat an elephant?” Keep in mind that Prestonwood does not want anyone to join us from other churches…our goal is to fill our seats with unchurched people…and there are too many unchurched people in any area of Dallas for one church to reach. We are working with the other churches to reach people—we believe that more churches means synergy in their efforts, and a more fruitful harvest for all.

Reaching the lost means reaching the nations AND reaching our neighbors. A Dallas campus gives us an opportunity to fund more than our own comforts. We get to focus our expenses on greater evangelism locally.

Next stop, an area of greater need: South Dallas. Keep us in your prayers.

Our Movement seems good to the Holy Spirit and also to us. We have had a heart to do more in the city of Dallas for a while. Many members have had this in their prayers for a long time. Hundreds drove past the building to look and pray. We’re leaping at the opportunity. Why? God has placed it on our hearts. The desire to minister is definitely the predominant motivation here. We are not primarily motivated by a desire to expand, look bigger, or get more tithers—although these things are certainly attractive and exciting to some of us.

Our opportunity to buy this building is a win-win situation that the Holy Spirit seems to have driven to us. The church that owns it currently is not fading away—the building has become a financial burden to them, and they want to move somewhere else. We didn’t find the building, and we didn’t offer them pennies on the dollar for it. We are sending them away with the money they need to start afresh, and we are getting a facility that fits our needs for a third campus.

The church’s location will be off Hillcrest Rd, just south of the LBJ/635 Loop in North Dallas.

Pastor Graham’s announcement is here if you would like to watch.

It is not often that I read a book that radically changes my perception of my future career, my concept of what a church is, and my perception of the education I am receiving now. But I find myself a changed man—and I find myself in possession of a book that I MUST READ AGAIN in order to understand its implications for my life.

The book is called Church Planting Movements by David Garrison.

David is a long-term missionary who has coordinated the efforts of fellow missionaries through the largest mission board in the U.S. – the International Mission Board.

He writes this book to share the information they have collected about the churches that are multiplying and reaching entire people groups with the gospel. This is NOT a book about planting a church: it is a book about planting churches that plant other churches, that plant other churches, and plant other churches…until they reach everyone in their culture…and that’s REALLY EXCITING to me. If I help plant a church in the future, I certainly want it to reach more and more and more people until it can say that everyone in its culture has heard the gospel.

Beyond that premise, this book has taught me a lot about the proper and improper way to do church. Theologians, missionaries and missions agencies are often the greatest hindrance to churches that multiply—and even if I don’t work to plant a church, I certainly don’t want to hinder the evangelistic growth of one with my work as part of it. Importantly in this respect, it reminds me that the leaders of the church are typically the people who are willing to accept the largest commitment to discipleship, not the seminary students I am in class with. They are not any more prepared to lead than small group leaders when they begin—they are simply willing to grow through mentorship with an existing pastor and grow into leadership. 

It has also taught me that the New Testament style church still exists today: casting out demons, healing people, seeing visions, meeting in homes, sharing all their possessions together, etc.

If you want to know what missions is really all about, please, please read this book. Nothing could better shape your perception of what needs to be done across the world today.

Buy it at the IMB website here.