November 01, 1989 by Bill Bright

Adapted as an interview with Bill Bright, chairman of Campus Crusade for Christ.

Mission Frontiers: Dr. Bright, your organization has become well known for its ministry to college students. What part does Campus Crusade play in helping reach the world for Christ?

Drawing on 38 years of ministry as a servant and catalyst to churches around the world, Campus Crusade for Christ has developed a comprehensive global strategy to help accelerate the fulfillment of the Great Commission by the end of this century. It is a collaborative effort, designed to work with other organizations. Since its focus is to help bring the wonderful news, that every person can experience new life in Christ, to every person by the end of the next decade, it is called New Life 2000.

MF: What is the basic New Life 2000 plan?

New Life 2000’s goals include:
• provide training in discipleship, evangelism and spiritual multiplication through 5,000 New Life Training Centers,
• provide tools for wide-ranging evangelism strategies,
• help present the Gospel to more than 6.5 billion people during the next 10 years,
• help introduce 1 billion people to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord,
• help establish five million New Life Groups, which will help train more than 200 million Christians, and
• establish New Life Training Centers and plant ministries on 8,000 campuses worldwide.

The plan of New Life 2000 requires the miraculous, yet there is no reason not to expect miracles. Scripture teaches that it is God’s will for His followers to go and preach the Gospel and make disciples of every nation (Matthew 28:18-20), and promises that He will enable His followers to do whatever He commands them to do (I John 5:14-15).

MF: How do you propose to establish 5000 training centers?

New Life 2000 strategy has divided the world into 5000 regions with a population of approximately one million people each. The strategy in each region will be directed by a New Life Training Center. The training center coordinates a step-by-step plan to give each person in the region an opportunity to trust Christ as Savior and Lord and to continue to spiritual maturity.

MF: Will you send out a whole army of Americans to staff these centers?

The New Life Training Center in each region trains local Christians in evangelism and discipleship. Young believers are taught to become spiritual multipliers—disciples who share their faith in Christ with others and in turn train them to win and disciple still others, multiplying generation after spiritual generation (Matthew 28:20, II Timothy 2:2).

These New Testament strategies, when used by believers controlled and empowered by the Holy Spirit, are as effective now, near the end of the twentieth century, as they ever were.

For example, in Brazil a school teacher called the church looking for help. The pastor’s wife visited her and Sueli decided to follow Christ. The pastor’s wife began to study the Bible with her and taught her to evangelize others. In seven months Sueli had led more than 60 people to Christ and was leading them in several home Bible study groups. As church members were trained and new Christians in their fresh zeal immediately told others about Christ, the church doubled in membership in ten months, from 200 to 400, and another 300 people were meeting in home Bible studies.

MF: Does your plan depend basically on teaching to witness?

In each region, trained Christians will develop group evangelism strategies to tell others about Christ. Within that there is the emphasis on personal evangelism, of course.

One of the most successful strategies, especially in areas where there is little knowledge of Christ, has been the “Jesus” film, a feature length movie based entirely on the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel can be seen and heard even by those who cannot read. Since it has been translated into 136 languages, the “Jesus” film can be used around the world.

Don Richardson, who worked as a missionary among the Sawi Indians in Indonesia of Peace Child fame, reported, “Missionaries working among the Sawi Indians showed the ‘Jesus’ film to several hundred tribesmen. Sitting there in the audience were about 150 Sawi people who had heard the Gospel for years, but had not responded. When they saw the film, everything became real to them, and they trusted Christ.”

MF: One of the criticisms of mass strategies in the past has been follow-up. What do you have to offer here?

As local Christians who have been trained in New Life Training Centers deliver the Gospel, person-to-person or to a group, tens of millions can be expected to come to Christ. These new believers will be placed into New Life Groups, where they will be nurtured in their new faith and trained to multiply themselves spiritually by telling others about Christ.

In northeast Thailand, New Life 2000 has led to unprecedented results. Early in the 1980’s the area was saturated with “Jesus” film showings. New Life Groups started cropping up as Buddhists who had never heard of Christ accepted Him as Savior and Lord after seeing the film. Six New Life Training Centers in the country have trained leaders for the New Life Groups. The leaders then teach group members about the Christian life and train them to tell others about Christ.

For his doctoral dissertation, Roy Rosedale traveled to Thailand to research the results the training centers have seen. Roy is a Campus Crusade staff member

As trained local Christians deliver the Gospel, person-to-person or to a group, tens of millions can be expected to come to Christ.

and is completing his doctorate in missiology at the Fuller School of World Missions. In an article written for the October 1989 issue of the Evangelical Missions Quarterly, he concluded that between January 1985 and December 1988:
•16,632 New Life Groups were started,
• 2,338 house churches of 6 denominations were planted, growing out of some of those groups,
• and the total membership of groups is 153,310 people.

MF: Not easy to pass that off as just a biased report from a staff member, right? Seriously, you mentioned planting churches. How will you work with existing churches?

Through the work of church members trained in the New Life Training Centers, churches grow, daughter churches are planted, and New Life Groups are formed.

One example of this church growth comes from French-speaking West Africa. Reverend Kassoum Keita reports that he was frustrated after seeing only four people come to Christ in 10 years as a pastor of a 40-member church. When he heard how to train his members using the New Life Training Center materials, the tide turned. In three years membership climbed from 40 to 700, and nine new churches were formed.

Another example of church growth comes from Indonesia. A large church in Central Java had 250 members when it invited a team to train members in 1979. The training was an early form of what is now the New Life Training Center curriculum. The first year, church membership doubled to 500, and in the next two years it doubled again to 1,000 members as laymen took the initiative to tell others about Christ. Membership continues to grow. Last year church leaders reported Sunday attendance at 6,000 and more than 130 New Life Groups meeting in homes.

MF: Your plan seems comprehensive enough to blanket the whole globe. Where does the cooperation come in?

At the core of New Life 2000 is the belief that neither Campus Crusade for Christ nor any other single group or organization will be able to accomplish world evangelization by itself. Currently Campus Crusade has the privilege of working with millions of Christians, with thousands of churches of nearly every denomination and with scores of other Christian organizations.

For example, agreements have been reached with the great international Christian Broadcasters: Trans World Radio, HCJB, Far East Broadcasting, and ELWA (SIM) whose broadcasts cover the entire globe every day.

One joint project with the radio ministries is, so to speak, to show the “Jesus” film over the airwaves. A narrator describes what is taking place, interspersed with the dialogue and over the background sounds and music. Several radio ministries plan to beam this version into North Africa in March 1990. Wycliffe is helping with film translations. There has been great cooperation in using the film for evangelism. The Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, OMS International, Christian and Missionary Alliance workers and the United Methodist director of Christian education in Zaire have used the film for evangelism and church planting. Never before has it been so imperative for the worldwide Body of Christ to pool resources and work toward the goal we all share.

Dr. Ted Engstrom, president emeritus of World Vision and chairman of the New Life 2000 International Committee of Reference, said, “I count it a rare privilege to be involved in New Life 2000. It is a thrill to see so many denominations and mission agencies all over the world working together to share the good news. This is a realistic, feasible plan to help fulfill the Great Commission.”

Everyone will hear the Gospel only when Christians around the world lock arms and cooperate in the proclamation of the most joyous news ever announced.

MF: Where do you plan to make a start in putting this plan into action?

Most aspects of New Life 2000 will be modeled in Manila, capital of the Philippines, during 1990 in a series of four to eight week projects called New Life 2000: Manila. The projects are planned to run from April to September of 1990 so that 7,000 to 10,000 people from around the world can come to the project that best fits into their yearly schedule. There are two main objectives of New Life 2000: Manila.
• One is to accelerate the whole New Life 2000 movement by bringing Campus Crusade staff members, students and other participants together from around the world. In Manila they can see, learn, and participate in most parts of New Life 2000. Then, they can go back to their countries ready to take part in New Life 2000 there.
• The other objective is to reach every resident of Manila with the message of new life in Christ. Using the New Life Training Center strategy, each participant will be equipped to be a spiritual multiplier, and to help equip Filipino believers. Then when the project ends, trained Filipinos will follow up those reached through the project, and will continue to reach others throughout the Philippine New Life 2000.

MF: Dr. Bright, you sound very confident that this plan will work. What do you base that on?

Never in history have there been more people in need of hearing the Gospel. Never in history has humanity faced the cumulative threat of a worldwide epidemic of AIDS, fear of nuclear holocaust, over leveraged economies and valueless societies giving birth to despair, alcohol and drug abuse and moral decadence.

Yet never have there been more Christians committed to sharing the good news of Christ! For the first time we possess the technology, financial resources and media ability to take the Gospel to everyone, everywhere, even to the uttermost parts of the earth.

MF: Will New Life 2000 repeat the classic missiological pattern of tackling world evangelization but bypassing isolated unreached people groups?

We are definitely committed to reaching every people group in every area. One way we will do this is with the “Jesus” film. We are going to be putting the film into 300 languages and 1000 dialects. We plan to go into every people group in either the mother language or a trade language.

MF: What is your personal feeling about actually completing the Great Commission by the year 2000?

God is indeed able to raise up millions of godly men and women of every culture and language with a singular commitment to Christ and His Great Commission. In the power of the Holy Spirit, they will tell of Christ. His last command on earth can be fulfilled by the end of this century!

Since New Life 2000 is a cooperative effort, questions about opportunities to help are welcome. Contact: New Life 2000; Attention: Berry Feiss; Arrowhead Springs, San Bernardino CA 92414 USA.