A heart for the world

The Muslim looked at his Christian friend and asked, “If this salvation gift is so important, why did you wait six years to tell me about it?”

Chad Vandiver, SBTC’s missions strategies associate, related that anecdote in explaining the People Group Champions Project (PGCP) he directs.

“The PGCP represents our efforts to help churches embrace and reach for Christ the ethno-linguistic people groups in their city who may be Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists,” Vandiver said. “The project provides training and coaching so church members can serve as missionaries to these people groups.

“During the training, we lead students by taking them to the people group’s places of worship, and to their restaurants and grocery stores so we can model what’s being taught,” he said. “We never want to teach theory only. We find opportunities for the church to get engaged.”

The project is designed for participation at differing levels of involvement, Vandiver explained: “the praying church, the adopting church and the transforming church.” The ultimate goal is for each church to progress into “a modeling church.”

The modeling church is one that has successfully completed and is implementing all phases of the PGCP, and is also training other churches via the PGCP curriculum. Training includes recognizing and/or fostering a church planting movement among the people group.

“We teach students to recognize the global networks of the people group and how to utilize them so immigrants returning to their homeland may take the gospel with them,” Vandiver said. “We ask the question: ‘How can the local network tap into the global network for the sake of the gospel.'”

Each phase of the training “is critical because it teaches the best ways to intelligently engage people groups,” Vandiver said.

The “praying church” option raises a congregation’s awareness to people groups in their area, teaching their basic culture and ultimately leading the church to prayer-walk where the prospects live and work.

“This classification is for churches not yet ready to personally engage people groups, but willing to pray for them and for opportunities to reach them,” Vandiver said.

The “adopting church” training option introduces students to the worldview of certain people groups. It also prepares students for long-term relationships with the prospects in their communities, and to look for ministry and evangelistic opportunities among them.

“It gives students biblical methods of implementing contextualized evangelism among the people group,” Vandiver said. “Though it’s limited to the pastor, certain staff members, and select spiritual leaders in the church, once a passion for the people group takes over, the church is ready to move to the next stage of training?becoming a transforming church.”

The transforming church training option is available to all church members. It instructs students how to develop meaningful, cross-cultural relationships, and teaches biblical passages for use in leading members of the people group to faith in Jesus Christ. The training prepares the student for all aspects of relationship evangelism.

“We provide students with the people group’s history and other significant cultural information so they can become the ‘Jesus expert’ among the people group,” Vandiver said.

“There’s a missions movement happening in the U.S. with multiple people groups coming and living among us,” he added. “We either decide to join in or we don’t.”

A Transformed Church
First Baptist Church of Euless?now a “transforming church”?has joined the PGCP and trained many of its members for the purpose of reaching the thousands of Muslims in the area.

“The PGCP is a great resource for encouraging believers to begin seeing Muslims through the lens of the cross and empowers the local church to make an eternal impact,” said Greg Love, evangelism pastor at FBC Euless. “Simply put, the program moves believers from awareness to action.”

However, “Cultivating this response is a challenge due to the negative emotions of most American church members toward Muslims,” Love said. “This is why the PGCP is so helpful. It serves as a catalyst for transforming fear into awareness and action.”

An additional motivation, Love said, is that the birthrate among Muslim families is four times greater than most other ethnic groups. “This is why First Euless seeks to offer the PGCP training throughout the church. Our desire is to be positioned for kingdom impact,” Love noted.

FBC Euless members have prayer-walked Muslim neighborhoods, visited local mosques and shared fellowship meals, frequented Muslim-owned businesses, and established “first-name” relationships with many local Muslims for the purpose of sharing Christ. Future efforts include offering English classes within mosques.

“Our desire is to impact our community with the gospel,” Love said.

The PGCP training has motivated a broad spectrum of First Euless members, Love said. Retirees are visiting mosques to meet people and prayer-walk. One member built a relationship with a Muslim woman, visited her home and was able to converse about salvation through Christ. Later, this same Muslim woman visited worship services while her children visited Kidopolis, the children’s ministry of First Euless.

“She’s not a believer yet,” Love said. “But, she’s heard the truth about Christ.”

Another FBC member is considering moving into an apartment complex concentrated with Muslims to establish relationships and share the gospel. This single woman “became so incredibly burdened for Muslim women trapped in darkness that she began equipping others in her sphere of influence to reach Muslim women for Christ,” Love said.

For Love, the PGCP is far more than just a method to reach local Muslims: “This resource helps church members develop a heart for all the nations.”

“The people groups are here,” Vandiver added. “And I believe God has called us to be missionaries to them. He has given us the Great Commission, and it’s a command, not a suggestion. We need to be reaching these people groups in our communities and overseas. We cannot neglect either field.”

For more information on how your church can become a PGCP church, contact Chad Vandiver toll-free at 877-953-7282 (SBTC) or e-mail him at cvandiver@sbtexas.com.