fishermen nets sunrise

The Evangelist Committee had a full and productive year in 2015. We are excited about the fresh perspective brought by the 40% new members to the team after the most recent selections for the next three year term. Douglas Arthur was chosen as the chairman for the next 18 month term. With all of the transition, we are developing a tremendous spirit of unity and passion to fulfill our charge in serving the brotherhood.

We continue to progress in our four primary areas of focus: Global Missions, Church Growth, Kingdom Events, and HOPE Realignment. Following are specific reports from each of those sub committees with the progress and development they have experienced through April 2016.

Church Growth Subcommittee Report

Chairman: Randy McKean

Report from Jamaica Meeting October 2015 (includes history)

  1. Membership: (men) Koko Enrile; Jeff Wong; Ron Quint; Randy McKean
  2. History:
  • At the Jamaica Meeting in October, Ron and Randy were added to this group as they were added to the Evangelists Service Team; Mike Fontenot had served as the Chairman of this committee but is no longer serving on the EST; Koko acted as the Interim Chairman; Randy was asked to become the Chairman.
  • In Singapore, Mike Fontenot presented to the Delegates Meeting that a plan was needed to provide help and encouragement to congregations that had not been growing in the past 3+ years. Concept included Chairmen of Family Churches identifying and dealing with their non-growing churches. If there was a continued lack of growth, it would come to the EST. It would then be determined if help outside the family of churches was needed.
  • It was decided that the way to define church growth is membership + baptisms + restorations – membership withdrawals = real growth (idea that people should not feel penalized by move-aways and not be credited for move ins).
  • Unresolved: when to collect stats. 1 or 2 times per year?
  • Questions asked: How to help the big churches grow? (ratio of number of disciples to grow by 1 much larger in the big churches than in smaller churches) / What is the definition of a healthy church?
  1. Vision:
  • Help for churches that are not growing in a positive and not a punitive way. Assume everyone wants to grow and assume that those who are growing want to grow more. (Assume the best of each other.)
  • Have a CULTURAL EVOLUTION in our churches in how people (including leaders) can be made to feel. (‘I’m in trouble’; ‘I never do enough’; ‘I’m not good enough’; etc) Positive preaching and positive discipling taught and practiced reducing dramatically the number that walk away from our churches every year…6500 to 7000 using 2014 & 2013 stats. For every 1000 who do not walk away, it would represent about a 1% increase in worldwide growth.
  • Making people experience and feel that their lives have been made so much better by being in the kingdom. Programs, opportunities and help at critical times in life that make a significant and unforgettable (and un-walk-away-able) impact.
  • Understanding and having sensitivity to the different seasons of people’s lives.
  • Women feeling fulfilled, needed, teaching women, having more marriage opportunities.
  • Having a teaching program (kingdom-wide? / by world regions? / by nations?) for the membership so that everyone has the opportunity to learn the basics to build a strong, effective, lifetime Christian life. This would include the needed training/information for people to bring people to Christ. This being done to have significantly more people being baptized into Christ (approx. 8000 per year now…every extra 1000 baptisms would represent about a 1% increase in growth worldwide) as they are rooted in the Word more effectively, and so, helping them to remain faithful. Ratio now worldwide (using 2014 & 2013 stats) is that it takes about 13 disciples per baptism per year and it takes about 40 disciples for an increase of one disciple per year.
  1. Timeline:
  • March meeting having some specific goals with specific time lines.

Gathering the Team (February 2016)

The team is:

  1. Mohan Nanjundan: Leads London Church / on the evangelist’s service team…great sustained growth for the last 3 years
  2. Koko Enrile: Leads Manila Church / on the evangelist’s service team
  3. Jeff Wong: Leads Hong Kong Church / on the evangelist’s service team
  4. Todd Asaad: Leads Dallas Church / Fastest growing church over 1000 members Growth over last 8 years = 38%
  5. Rob Skinner: Leads Tucson Church / Fast growing re-planting from 0 to 100
  6. Chester Umaguing: Leads Colorado Springs Church / Taken over a non-growing smaller church and moving it forward
  7. Randy McKean: Leads Northern Virginia Church / on the EST…fastest growing church for last 8 years (140 to 460) with churches ranging from 200-499 members.

March 2016 Meeting in LA

Randy, Jeff and Mohan met together for discussion (Koko was unable to make the meeting due to the death of his mother). Randy met with Todd for discussion.

  1. Atmosphere:
  • The need to take a positive approach
  • Trust people’s heart they want to grow and give God the glory
  • Not ‘in trouble’ feeling
  • We are all together in this great endeavor
  • Don’t know the challenges by just looking at stats
  • Acknowledge difference in openness / different fields
  1. Using the organization we presently have
  • The 32 Church Family Region Leaders
  • Identify churches that need help to grow
  • Work with the one who wants the help the MOST
  • Focus on them for 6 months…not worrying about the others
  • NOTE: if it’s a large church then focus on a region
  • Those who don’t desire the help…maybe trust issues…will in time want help as they see how others are treated with respect, love and they see the progress made
  • After 6 months decide to stay focused on the same place or to focus on another
  • This would mean that in a year approx. 40-50 churches would be significantly helped. Maybe 30 would make significant progress…in 3 years over 90 churches would make significant progress
  • A key is to develop a culture of wanting to be helped … and so not wasting time where the help will not be wanted and so not impactful
  • This does not overwhelm the main leader because he let’s go of what he is not focused on.
  1. A cultural evolution in our churches.
  • Has to do with how we make our members feel (in trouble, never do enough, never good enough, a negative environment, what you’ve done wrong instead of what you’ve done right, seasons of live sensitivity, figuring out people)
  • Instead of get more baptisms (which Bible never says)…get more faith and more love…the two things the Bible consistently calls us to have more and more of…an increasing amount.
  • Faith and love are POSITIVE…our churches should be the most positive places on earth!
  • People need to be taught how to love
  • 9000 come in and 7000 go out each year for an increase of about 2000 or 2.3%.
  • Way too many walking out
  • Change the culture and in 3 or 4 years could reduce walk-aways by 50% and that alone would increase growth by 3.5%
  1. Global Kingdom Training for Members
  • We have kingdom kids curriculum
  • We have global ministry training
  • What if every church has Kingdom Training … so when people move they know where they are at in their training and the leadership knows where they are at….to ensure a strong foundation

We requested a time with all the 32 Family Region Leaders in St Louis to explain this.

HOPE Transition Subcommittee

Chairman: Sam Powell

The HOPE Transition Subcommittee is assigned the task of realigning HOPE worldwide with the ICOC family of churches as expressed in the HOPEww / ICOC Alignment Proposal passed enthusiastically by the Delegates in 2015. Though HOPEww is dear to the hearts of our disciples and is an icon in our fellowship, the relation with many of our churches has been far from ideal. This has led to churches focusing on local projects while losing interest and connection to HOPEww as a worldwide benevolent effort. Consequently, financial support has dwindled to the point where HOPE has struggled to meet its financial obligations. The HOPE Transition team is assigned the task of reshaping our relationship with HOPEww and getting US churches giving at a productive level.

Only 42 of 158 churches in the U.S. meet the goal of $1 per member per week. The HOPE Advocates team, a group of influential church leaders and supporters of HOPEww, was formed to assist in the HOPEww reconnection effort. In February of this year this group met in San Diego with Robert Carrillo and walked away with a faithful plan to meet the $1 per member goal. Those attending the meeting were Doug Arthur, Dave Mitchell, Michael Lamb, Ken Lowey, Terri Loso, Ed Anton, Andy Erickson, Brian Perkins, Jon Sherwood, Matthew Smith, Todd Asaad, Ron Conklin, Matthew Bridges, Carmen Hamilton, Jim Mackie, John Lusk, Darren Overstreet, Karla Overstreet, Bill Ellis, Kelly Saindon, Steve Morici, Tony Newsom and Shane Engel.

Members of this group who were in L.A. for Service Team meetings convened to revisit plans for HOPEww. Regular meetings will continue to take place as we work to meet relational and financial goals for HOPE worldwide.

Kingdom Events Subcommittee Report

Chairmen:  Mike Taliaferro, Ron Quint

The Events Subcommittee main initiative over the fall of 2015 and first quarter of 2016 has been to draw up the Non-profit Proposal. (See attachment). Steps going forward will include: 1) Getting feedback 2) Incorporating feedback 3) Putting it to a vote 4) Forming and setting-up the non-profit and its governance.

During the meeting in Long Beach we also discussed how to enhance the quality of our large events. For the Global and Continental Summits, we identified the need for a manual to guide those hosting these events. We recommend that Jeff Mannel and his team develop this as they finalize the St Louis Summit. We also recommend that the bid process for hosting a summit remain formal and be done six years out from each summit.

For International Leadership Conferences, we recommend an ongoing review of past events. We’d like to see the 2016 ILC Director A.T. Arneson and this year’s ILC planning team put together a manual to pass on to future ILC planners. We see value in the following: 1) Clearly delineating the approval process for lesson titles and topics, speakers and teachers 2) Having a checklist of components of the ILC 3) A peer review of the entire program in advance 4) A site visit when it is in a new and unfamiliar location 5) An after-event review to add to the ongoing pool of best-practices knowledge. We recommend that the bid process for ILC remain formal and be done four years out from the event.

For meetings of Delegates we see the need to make clear that future meetings are worldwide delegate meetings. We’d like to hear feedback on how the continental delegate meetings were received. We recommend that the bid process for future delegate meetings be handled at each Delegates meeting and decided two years out from the event. We recommend this same procedure be adopted for the bid process regarding the hosting of Committee meetings. Finally, we recommend the development of an official events schedule through the year 2024.

Finally, at our meetings in St. Louis in July we intend to discuss the life span and future of the events subcommittee. Is there a way to set up these functions and processes so that they can be entrusted to appropriate individuals?

Global Missions Strategy Team Update

Chairman: AT Arneson

Team: AT and Marci Arneson, Doug and Joyce Arthur, John and Barri Lusk, Chris Zillman, Mike Rock, Sebastian Serra, Chris Ogbonnayo, Rafael Lua

The Global Missions Strategy Team (hereafter, GMS) began its work in 2012, coming out of the World Discipleship Summit in San Antonio. Early on, the goal was to evaluate global progress in regard to the dedication of resources (people and money) in the various missions efforts going on around the world. This first “wave” of work became known as GMS 1.0.

Heading into the 2014 International Leadership Conference in Singapore, GMS 2.0 continued the effort of gathering missions information from across our entire fellowship. Additionally, GMS 2.0 added a focus on the positives and negatives of our missions work in the past (the World Sector model) as well as what was evolving in our current missions work – Missions Societies. In our presentation to the delegates in Singapore, the GMS more clearly communicated the vision of reforming a more definitive structure that would include all of our churches around the world. Our vision was to officially embrace the formation of Missions Societies that serve, quite literally, every nation in the world. We also emphasized the “Cost of Chaos,” presenting a challenge for the delegates to count the cost of “doing” as well as the cost of “not doing.”

Coming out of the Delegates meetings in Jamaica we officially entered the next phase of work for the GMS team – GMS 3.0. At this time, our goals were to finalize a comprehensive evaluation of our connections, collaborations and efforts in all 667 churches in the world. Our sights were set first on the recent Service Team meetings in Long Beach and second on the Reach2016 Conference in St. Louis in July.

We spent the months between November 2015 and March 2016 compiling and publishing a draft of a booklet that comprehensively gathers all of the data and missions information in one place. The draft of this report was printed, handed out and presented in LA. Though not complete, the information contained within this report shows that we (ICOC global fellowship) have made huge strides in developing a definable structure for missions since Singapore. In fact, 14 Missions Societies have emerged and include the collaborative efforts of a large percentage of giving churches.  The churches connected in one of the 14 missions societies are giving in greater measure, training future leaders in greater number, and finding themselves connected to their targeted receiving churches more consistently and definitively.

The sights of the GMS are now set on the Reach2016 Conference. We are working to finalize and polish the ICOC Missions Report in full. A copy will be handed to every attendee of the ILC. In addition, we are working to invite each of the board members and church leaders connected to the Mission Societies to a luncheon meeting on Wednesday, July 6 at Reach. It is here that we will give a full update and cast our vision for how we can best strive to fulfill the goal of going to all nations. Finally, we are working to produce a powerful nation countdown video that will accompany the main session gathering on Saturday night of the Reach2016.

Please pray for us to have energy and clarity as we work to finalize our plans and vision for greater unity, faithfulness and collaboration across our global fellowship. To God be the glory.