The Surge: Churches Catching the Wave of Christ's Love for the Nations

by Pete Briscoe

Overview

When Jesus left the planet, he left a simple directive in his apprentice’s ears: take me to the world, bring them into the family, and teach them to obey me… and don’t worry I’ll be with you every step of the way. So the system was turned on its ear. Instead of “Bring the people to me” Jesus said, “Take me to the people”. This book highlights the imperative need for the Church of Jesus Christ to be a sending culture, taking Jesus to the people who desperately need him. It focuses specifically on the awesome responsibility the blessed church of the West has in this regard to reach out globally. When Pete Briscoe arrived at Bent Tree they had “prophecy conferences.” Desiring to focus on the part of the puzzle that we can actually do something about (the great commission) they immediately shifted the emphasis to a Mission Festival. At that time they were investing just $36,000 per year in world missions, and all but one of their missionaries was on American soil. They implemented Faith Promise giving, gave opportunities for mission partners to make compelling presentations, included mission moments in their worship services, brought in mission experts to speak at a mission festival, increased giving to over $1 million annually, gave 10% of expansion giving ($2.6 million) to the world church, adopted the world’s largest unreached people group and have a desire to see a church planted in every one of the 200,000 villages in the region, and much more…This book is necessary because the American church has forgotten this simple truth: “the church of Jesus Christ exists primarily for the benefit of its non-members.” The Seeker Movement helped to remind Evangelicals of the need to reach out to Seekers, but the model was a replica of the “Bring to” Model of the Old Testament. Pete Briscoe realized early in his pastorate that people in his church viewed evangelism as, “bring them to church to hear Pete.” While obviously there are times when this is a healthy strategy to reach the lost, we are missing the mark if it becomes the dominant method. Add to this, the minimal concern for the vast regions of the world that still have yet to hear of the gospel, and the burgeoning numbers of church leaders around the planet that have little or no theological training, and you start to get a feel for the angst and concern that drives this project. There is an imperative need for an awakening in the Western church to see beyond the boundaries not only of our Church Building, but of our Community as well. We have turned a “blind eye” in attempting to reach our communities. The author would like to encourage us to turn a “kind eye” to those outside our sphere of influence who are inside our ability to touch. This is a call from a Pastor to the Church to “Lift up their eyes (again) to see the harvest.” Here’s what readers can receive from the book:* Examples of a church that has kept mission at the front and seen God do amazing things as a result. * Detailed and simple processes to help church leaders implement some simple strategies to change the culture in their church.* Help to create a paradigm shift in fund raising for missions.* Opened eyes to the enormous need and incredible potential impact the American church has.* Demonstration of how to grow children and youth with a heart for the world.* A workable model from Acts 1:8. Acts 1:8 providing a good framework for strategic expansion. Many churches today are focusing on the Jerusalem piece and the Judea part is covered with the new multi-site phenomenon. But what does a Samaria strategy look like and how do we impact the ends of the earth? Acts 1:8 keeps all four spheres before us.* Sharing of the personal journey of a pastor who leads a mission minded church.* Practical and usable tools such as a grid for evaluation potential missionaries, an evaluation process for current mission partners, mobilization techniques for keeping a church connected to her m

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310323167
Publisher:	Zondervan
Publication date:	11/23/2010
Series:	Leadership Network Innovation Series
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishing
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Pete Briscoe is the senior pastor of Bent Tree Bible Fellowshiop in Carrollton, Texas, a host of the internationally syndicated radio program Telling the Truth, and author of Belief Matters and Secrets from the Treadmill. Pete and his wife, Libby, have been blessed with three beautiful children - sons Cameron and Liam, and their daughter, Annika.

Read an Excerpt

The Surge

Churches catching the wave of Christ's love for the nations

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By Pete Briscoe Todd Hillard

ZONDERVAN

Copyright © 2010 Pete Briscoe
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-28657-8

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Chapter One

The Surge God's Global Passion Unleashed

Surge (surj) noun. A sudden growth in size and intensity; a movement that increases in a billowing or swelling manner, as if in a wave.

Deserts are a reality on this planet, dry places devoid of the water that is essential for life. And sadly, we also find those places in our souls. Throughout Scripture, God uses dry places and dry times to shape the leaders he is preparing to use. Moses, Jesus, Paul - all go through their own versions of exile in dusty places. Is it possible that this is where he has brought his bride in the Western world? Today Western Christianity appears to be in a desert. In our hearts, it feels as though we have resigned ourselves to being on the defensive, struggling for survival as the world, the flesh, and the devil advance.

But nothing could be farther from the truth. To borrow from C. S. Lewis, "Aslan is on the move." The long winter is thawing, spring is upon us, and we are already seeing a harvest that is unprecedented since the first century.

We call it the Surge.

What is the Surge? The Surge is the global movement of our Savior's love, redeeming individuals and entire nations for the fulfillment of God's eternal purposes. The Surge is the accelerating completion of Matthew 24:14: "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations." It's Acts 1:8 in action as the Holy Spirit speaks his truth "to the ends of the earth." And it's the prelude to the uproar of worship John heard unleashed in Revelation 19: "I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: ... 'Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!'" (vv. 1, 6-7).

Today the Surge is the visible sign of what God is doing to redeem this world through the love of Christ. We have read of it in history. We have experienced it in our souls. Now it is being unleashed across the globe.

Snapshots of the Surge

The Surge is visible in the lives of individuals. Several years ago, I met a young pastor in India who was reaching out to a large number of street people living under a village bridge on the Ganges River. The only way for this pastor to reach the people under the bridge was to climb down a forty-foot rope. One evening while climbing back up, his hands slipped and he fell the full forty feet. Six hours on an ox cart later, he arrived at the hospital, paralyzed from the neck down. As word spread, hundreds began praying. Two days later, he walked out of the hospital stiff and unable to bend down. Despite this painful limitation, he returned to the village where he had fallen.

In the same area, a powerful Hindu extremist had been pulling pastors out of their churches during their sermons and beating them, his hatred for Christians flowing through his fists. He was greatly feared, yet this young pastor sensed the Spirit prompting him to go to this man and share the gospel. Deathly afraid and still recovering from his fall, he followed God's lead. The Hindu man went berserk, and the young pastor ran from the house. But the Hindu holy man could not get the seed of the gospel out of his mind. He lost sleep - in fact, he couldn't sleep at all. After four months of being tormented by the truth, he prayed, " Jesus, if you are real, reveal yourself to me or I will end my life!" That night, at 4:00 a.m., a man appeared to him at the foot of the bed. "I am Jesus," he said. The next morning, the man was no longer a Hindu priest but a new creature in Christ. He is now a leader in the little church, making inroads in dark places.

The Surge is also flooding entire cities. In Cali, Columbia, during the 1980s, a ruthless drug cartel dominated the city, moving hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of cocaine in any given month and leaving in its wake a bloody war zone of fear and treachery. Isolated and segregated, pastors kept to themselves as their floundering congregations kept their heads low and tried to survive on streets heavy with spiritual oppression and physical danger. The drug cartel, it turned out, was deeply involved in the occult, adding witchcraft to its arsenal of weapons, drugs, and death.

Soon, however, God moved in the hearts of a few missionaries and pastors, who confessed their independent, separatist attitudes. Together they prayed aggressively against the spiritual and physical strongholds that imprisoned their city. God began to move, and the movement began to grow and grow and grow. Soon sixty thousand believers from across all denominations gathered for all-night prayer vigils in the city stadium. The next weekend, for the first time in several decades, no murders were reported. Within weeks, the leadership of the drug cartels began to crumble. Then one of the pastors was murdered, but his martyrdom only fueled the flames of revival. People by the thousands professed faith in Jesus, including key media figures and top city officials. In a relatively short time, the entire community was transformed. Children and families walk the streets in relative safety; places of worship are packed and overflowing. "God himself is moving in our city," proclaimed one sportscaster. "This is even more significant than soccer!" (And if you know anything about South America, you know that nothing is more significant than soccer.)

Even entire countries are feeling the rush of the Surge. In Operation World, 21st Century Edition, Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk chronicle what God is doing country by country across the globe. (This book is an indispensable reference for anyone who wants at their fingertips key demographic information about every country - a highly recommended resource for intelligent prayer too.)

We are seeing strength and growth in many countries where state-sanctioned persecution is the norm, including Sudan, North Korea, India, China, and Ethiopia. Many countries, such as Turkey, were considered impenetrable only a few decades ago. They are proving to be fertile ground as the gospel is proclaimed with a pioneering spirit. Togo, a small country of 5 million on the Atlantic coast of Africa, has seen its population of evangelicals grow from 17,000 to nearly 400,000 between 1960 and 2000. The Assemblies of God had set a goal of 300 churches and 36,000 members by 2000 in Togo; at the end of that year, they could count more than 110,000 members.

Even continents are experiencing the power of the Surge.

Unparalleled harvests are taking place across the continents of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, causing a massive shift of Christianity's center of gravity to the non-Western world.

That is incredible news, actually. While institutional Christianity declines in Europe and appears to be stagnating in North America and the Pacific, the Surge is on in many other parts of the globe. When we look at the whole world, God is moving, God is healing, God is redeeming in unprecedented ways. And it's happening today.

None of us would deny, on a theological level, that God is at work in the world - "out there, somewhere" - but besides a few missionary stories, it all seems so distant. So much of what we are hearing is so far from our experience that we have a hard time believing it in our heads, let alone our hearts. As credible witnesses are documenting more and more accounts of the Surge around the globe, those of us in the desert are left wondering why we appear to have been left out.

Are we missing something? Do we need a new formula for evangelism? A new prayer mantra that will unleash the blessings of heaven?

I propose that getting into the Surge requires something more fundamental than that. It must begin with a mindset change - a surrendered heart - that transforms our lives and our ministry, even changing the way we interpret familiar passages of Scripture.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Surge by Pete Briscoe Todd Hillard Copyright © 2010 by Pete Briscoe. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments....................9
Introduction: Somewhere in the Desert of Western Christianity....................11
1. The Surge God's Global Passion Unleashed....................21
2. Defining Moments God's Vision for the Nations....................33
3. First Things First The Why and the How of the Surge....................47
4. Virtual Flood Surging through the Digital Age....................61
5. Local Flooding The Nations in the Neighborhood....................81
6. Reservoirs and Rivers Money and the Mission....................101
7. Skinny-Dipping Short-Term Exposure in the Surge....................123
8. Go When the God Who Sends Lives in Us....................145
9. Yes When Adopted People Adopt-a-People....................167
Conclusion: Consumed; Surging toward Eternity....................189
Notes....................197