May 01, 2015 by Transform World Staff

The vision for global change is strategic. God wants people to come to Christ and he uses people from all walks of life to be his agents for change in the world. He has brought many servant leaders together, through Transform World, who have a heart to be a part of God’s transforming work. In order to maximize the impact of the 2020 vision, we have created teams to address seven challenges. Each of the teams of leaders is moving forward with a strategic plan.

Please take a few minutes to read these strategies. Allow God to speak to you about your involvement in changing the world for Jesus Christ.

Ideological Challenge of Islam

Facilitator: Iman Santoso
Co-facilitator: Joshua Lingel

Challenge

Islam has grown and moved east and west, competing for Christian souls and attempting to challenge or destroy the very foundation of the gospel and the church. Our response requires a one hundred percent participation of global Christianity to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission among the Muslims. Jesus has put Christians in a debt of love to Muslims. Every Muslim deserves to hear the good news of the gospel! The heart of the Christian is love, empathy, sympathy and compassion for Muslims.

In 1908, there were an estimated 230 million Muslims. At that time there were only twenty-eight known missionaries working among them. Today there are more than 1.6 billion Muslims, seven times the number one hundred years ago. At present, there is only one missionary for every 420,000 Muslims in the world.

Response

We are called by our Lord Jesus Christ to make disciples of all nations. Our response to the Transform World Ideological Challenge of Islam is to seek how to engage together to fulfill the Great Commission among Muslims. Our mission is to glorify God as his global church, as a faithful, global witness to Muslims everywhere.

Purpose

Participants in the Idealogical Challenge of Islam are working to:

• Foster international families of love, friendship, discipleship and mentorship;
• Train and mobilize the global church to fulfill the Great Commission among Muslims;
• Empower and provide a platform for a younger generation of scholarly practitioners to engage the Muslim world;
• Assess existing initiatives as vehicles for fulfilling the Great Commission;
• Mobilize Christian servant leaders, in every church, vocation and nation;
• Focus intercession on the Muslim world;
• Seek the support of Christians with means on the earth to seriously engage the Muslim challenge. 

Family Challenge: 

Giving Strength to the Core of Society

Facilitator: Matthew Ling

We watch… as marriage after marriage in our churches comes to an end.

As our young people, who have grown up in the church, leave the faith.

As church leaders’ families break up.

Though we have scrambled over the years to find ways to stem the tide of family meltdowns in our midst, the results are far from satisfactory for the church. How much longer can the church, presently faced with unabated family breakups of pandemic proportions, continue to effectively carry on as salt and light to the world?

Setting its sights on the transformation of communities around the globe, the Transform World Connections movement (together with the 4/14 Window Global Initiative) recognizes the urgent need to restore the Christian family in the global church, under the auspices of Family Challenge, to their rightful place where they not only live godly lives (including passing on the faith to the following generations), but also have the capacity to heed the call to be the transformational agents that could significantly impact communities around the globe for Christ.

We believe this is the kairos moment for the Challenge. The time is now to respond to this call of God for the church body worldwide to come together to take up this important task. It is the hour for the church to showcase to the world that the real answer to the seemingly unstoppable global pandemic of family crisis lies in God working through the partnership of the church and the family.

Family Challenge Vision 2020

We see church leadership and the congregation jointly championing to inspire and equip the corporate church and the families in fulfilling their respective biblical roles, thereby providing the world with healthy Christian homes that proactively transform their communities.

From the Family Challenge Chairman

Travelling to various regions of the world since the Transform World Global Challenges Summit in November, 2012 in Bali, attending global and regional conferences, and meeting many church leaders who expressed their serious concerns on the families, has taught me a few things about the kind of “Family Challenge” we are in:

• The Church knows that our families are in a lot of trouble and that it is going to get much worse in the future.
• The global scenario is one of the Church giving grossly inadequate attention to building healthy families systematically, the families not being properly equipped and challenged to live healthy lives, and the underutilization of the ready pool of resources that family ministry providers have for building healthy families.
• It is not just about the struggling families. The future of the Church is really at stake when it fails to build the primary institution (the family) that God has intentionally put in place to evangelize and disciple the next generation.

We are excited by what has already been taking place in South East Asia, India, Africa, and the U.S.A. since the 2012 Summit, as we rallied the church body in this single endeavour, building homes that are effective in passing the faith to the next generation.

There is now for us a tremendous opportunity to provide a uniting platform for the family ministry providers (individuals and organizations such as Focus On The Family, FamilyLife, Alpha, etc.) from different regions to come together to serve the global church. This is especially timely with the new partnership we forged with World Evangelical Alliance in developing family movements in their global network of 129 national alliances.

This has never been attempted before. It is historic. We will see more “open-source” resources being made freely available globally. We expect to reap the benefit of the synergy of the development of regional family ministry resources that are culturally relevant to the regions. These are just a few obvious impacts of this development.

We strongly believe that this is a kairos moment for the global church to take the leap of faith in answering God’s call to join him as he builds the last-day church through rebuilding his much-battered families around the world.

Orphan Challenge

Together For a World Without Orphans

Facilitator: Ruslan Maliuta
Associate Facilitators:
Anita Deyneka and Karmen Friesen

Orphan Challenge

One of the biggest challenges facing the Christian church today is the ever-increasing number of children growing up without the loving care of their parents and without knowing their Heavenly Father. These children, totaling 152 million, according to current estimates from UNICEF, live throughout the world–from war-torn Sudan to poverty stricken India, from transitioning Ukraine to affluent nations in Europe and North America. If we brought all these children together they would comprise the 7th largest nation in the world … a veritable “Orphan Nation.” God knows all orphaned children by name, and he has a purpose for each of them. “Father of the fatherless is God in his holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families.” (Psa . 68:5-6)

These guiding principles will underpin our work:

• Not all orphans need a new family. Many of them already live in families and we must support these families and the communities that care for them.
• There is a spectrum of care models for orphaned children which we need to develop concurrently in order to produce a range of family care options for a nation’s children, including the strengthening of their own immediate and extended families. Reuniting children in care with their own families, adoption, guardianship, and foster care are parts of meeting this challenge.
• Orphanages provide the least effective and often detrimental care for orphans. The use of these facilities should only be an emergency placement option for some children.
• If children have lost their own families and there is no hope of reuniting them, then adoption or guardianship should be the aim of our efforts.
• Careful and thoughtful planning should go into any nation’s program model on behalf of orphans. Prevention programs at all levels are critical.

“I’m so excited about this movement. It has changed my perception, and for that reason I am revising the objective of my ministry concerning orphans and I’m going to champion this movement in Ghana.” A pastor from West Africa wrote these words after attending the Transform World Global Leadership Summit in Macon, France in June of 2014. At the summit he participated in the Orphan Challenge track and learned about the vision for mobilizing the Christian community to give all orphans and vulnerable children the opportunity to grow in loving and caring families and know their Heavenly Father. Now in collaboration with other leaders in his home country he is coordinating a growing national movement with the vision for Ghana Without Orphans! This is just one of many examples of a paradigm shift that is taking place in the Christian community worldwide in its response to a huge and devastating global challenge–the orphan crisis.

The latest research revealed by the U.S. government indicates that more than 1 billion children, almost half of all the children in the world, are exposed to violence every year. UNICEF identifies 152 million children as orphans, meaning that they have lost one or both of their parents. Many orphans grow to adulthood without stable family connections, and they often “graduate” to the streets, homeless and jobless, being drawn into lives of crime to support themselves.

The most vulnerable may be trafficked into various forms of indentured servitude in other nations. While all orphans and vulnerable children need a lot of help, at least seven million of them literally have no one in their lives and need a new permanent family.

Historically, orphanages have been the primary solution that many governments and even churches have implemented to ensure that the basic physical needs of children are met. But various research shows that orphanages and other forms of institutional care are not the best solutions for the healthy development of children. A significant change in mindset is needed for many Christians to shift to a family-based approach in caring for orphans and vulnerable children. This includes families, who are opening their home to care for the fatherless, but it may also mean biological families or kinship caregivers who need to be encouraged and strengthened to prevent children from being put at risk in the first place. The realization of this need along with the understanding of God’s heart for orphans and his clear mandate from Scripture for the Church to care for them are at the heart of the World Without Orphans movement.

The initial vision for a World Without Orphans came from the example of Ukrainian Christians. Since 2009 the Alliance for Ukraine Without Orphans has been implementing a strategy to mobilize the Christian community in Ukraine to provide all orphans and vulnerable children with loving and caring families. The movement has been instrumental in impacting the lives of thousands of children and families in Ukraine and transforming the culture of the whole nation as it relates to caring for the fatherless as well as becoming a model for other countries. 

Currently orphan care movements have been started in more than 20 countries on four continents, although many of them are in the initial stages of development. Local churches, Christian NGOs, and other agencies join efforts to mobilize their nations for adoption, foster care, and family preservation, and share successful models and best practices. Christian leaders from many other countries have been exposed to this vision, are interested in it, and are exploring ways of starting a movement in their own nations.

Now, among other things, the WWO team is preparing the first Global Forum for a World Without Orphans, which will be held on February 11-14, 2016 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This will be another critical milestone in the growth of the global orphan care movement and a strategic time to activate, connect, and equip the Christian community worldwide to address the orphan crisis.

The Poverty Challenge

Giving the Poorest of the Poor a Hand Up to Self-Sustainability

Facilitator: Hal Jones

Poverty Challenge’s mission is to:

• Mobilize the global church to “go” and express the Good News and the love and compassion of Christ to all peoples, especially the unreached and unengaged;
• Cultivate an attitude of cooperation throughout various ministries and across denominations that will result in holistic transformation among the peoples of the 10/40 Window;
• Engage the Celebration Challenge and global movement of prayer;
• Encourage creative strategies addressing the unengaged and unreached poor who are in hostile or difficult to access places. Focus strategies on helping to create self-sustaining, self-propagating, self-led, and transformational and community based movements.

Overcoming Poverty by Transforming One Million Villages

By KHALIL

Several leaders started an organization in response to 2000 AD that was focused on unengaged people groups and engaging them with a holistic mentality to both show and share the good news. Immediately we discovered that approaching a village with the capacity to help them solve their poverty problems opened up many areas that were totally closed to the good news before.

We soon discovered that we were not alone as we met other like-minded holistic evangelicals, one of whom had seen a movement of transformation take place in an African country that started with one village and grew to a movement of change affecting over 600 villages.  All the villages were nationally led with almost no western influence.  These are villages that are not only being reached but also being transformed by new believers.  We also found a welcome from many of these like-minded groups that were not UUPG focused, but totally open to making this a key part of many of their national efforts!!

The leadership of Transform World identified the need to mobilize sincere believers in every sphere and in every country to take on the challenges that hinder or stand against kingdom expansion. The poverty sphere was wisely identified as a major challenge to access and credibility for the kingdom. 

The Poverty Challenge membership has been amazed at how the Lord has shown us his favor and his love for the unengaged poor. We have discovered many evangelical great commission groups share our concern and want to help with media, educational, health and other resources so critical for biblical social transformation.  We have been amazed at the number of growing movements of transformation and evangelization among unreached people groups.  From Fulani disciples reaching Tuaregs in the Sahel, to Dari speakers reaching other tribes in Central Asia, we are seeing movements that start in one village of India lead to movements among 200 plus villages in nearby states of India.  Praise the Lord!

The Million Village Challenge 

This is a challenge within the 10/40 Window and beyond and a key part of the Poverty Challenge facing the fulfillment of the Great Commission. One million villages contain almost all of the poorest of the poor and encompass almost all the unengaged people groups. We have come to see that in history and sociology a cultural change happens when an advocacy group reaches 10% of the population.  We believe the Million Village Challenge for Transformation can be triggered when 10% of those villages are engaged in real transformation.  Another practical point is that these 1 million villages are actually part of approximately 100,000 village clusters, with an average of 10 villages per cluster (common throughout the world). Each cluster is really transformed by a Model Village.  So 10,000 transformed village models initiated by any one of 1,000 partners can help transform 100,000 villages, which is the tipping point for transformation in the 1 million villages. Transform World Poverty Challenge members have over 600 partners involved in transformation.  We hope to find 400 more to be a part of the 1,000 partners seeking to transform the 10,000 villages that will become models.

The Justice Challenge

Constructing Societies that Respect Human Dignity

Chairman: Yuri Mantilla

Justice Challenge Tracks:

Casteism, North Korea, Human Trafficking, Corruption, Religious Freedom, Ethnic Reconciliation

The Defense of the Sanctity of Human Life

The dignity of the human being, created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), demands the pursuit of justice. While great human progress has been made, the exploitation and abuse of natural human rights is widespread, particularly among the most vulnerable, including children, religious and ethnic minorities, and the unborn. The advance of justice is one of the most critical callings of the church and one of the greatest opportunities to advance the gospel.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the most important international document in the field of human rights. It provides a philosophical foundation for the universal defense of human dignity, and reflects the resolve of the international community to promote human rights around the world. The principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are based on a natural law understanding of absolute principles and norms.

Post-modernism has introduced the idea of cultural and ethical relativism in the discourse and diluted the effort to find optimal and standard norms in protecting human dignity. There is an urgent need and opportunity to restore the understanding of human rights based on the natural law of absolute
principles and norms.

In order to respond to these great challenges of our day, participants in the justice track are doing the following:

• Raising awareness and prayer regarding these critical issues;
• Researching and disseminating studies, reports and information that highlight these challenges and identify tangible action steps that can be taken by the global church to advance the cause the justice;
• Identifying and establishing a committed and connected network of activists and concerned others who are ready and able to use their voice and positions of influence to advocate for justice in these critical issues;
• Influence the work of Christian international (regional and global) organizations in the area of human rights;
• Support and advocate for law and policy that safeguards and promotes justice.

Justice Challenge Vision 2020

We envision applying the support of the biblical teaching on Imago Dei in justice discourse. We envision promoting justice when and where violations of fundamental natural human rights occur.

Justice Challenge Mission 2020

Our mission is to:

• Promote justice and human dignity in relation to the Imago Dei;
• Support the biblical perspective of law and justice in the human rights discourse;
• Build up Christian transformational movements committed to justice and the rule of law.

The mission of God’s people to the world arises out of God’s love for the world. The demonstration of God’s love for humankind was on display in the act of giving his son, Jesus Christ, to the world, desiring that no human being should perish. Jesus made that possible by giving his own life as a ransom for many. Before departing to heaven from the earth, Jesus commissioned his followers. Christ’s missional challenge to his followers is to make disciples of all nations based on Matt. 28:19-20. Christ’s missional challenge provides the basis for other ministry challenges.

“ . . . If the church does not disciple a nation, that nation will disciple the church. Ideas have consequences, and someone’s ideas will shape society. Social networks that turn ideas into lifestyle will inevitably shape the institutions and life of a nation. If the church is not consciously incarnating the word of God, and thus impacting the world, then the ideas that dominate the nation will govern the church.” (From: Darrow Miller, The Task: The Great Commission in Response to Radical Islam and New Atheism, 2012, page 132)

Christ’s Missional Challenge

Accelerating Breakthroughs Among the Unreached

Facilitator: Frontier Ventures
Chairman: Dick Eastman

Christ’s Missional Challenge Vision 2020

To catalyze the global church to wholeheartedly participate in the mission of God in obedience to Christ’s command to “make disciples of all nations.” (Mat. 28:19)

The major paradigm for the mission challenge is the Great Commission.

Christ’s Missional Challenge Expected Outcomes:

The global body of Christ is called to make disciples by planting a church in every community in the world. Missional Challenge 2020 calls for PRIME Teams to be established in every one of the 50 largest unreached people groups and every one of the 50 largest unengaged people groups by 2020. The PRIME strategy is intended to be comprehensive, integrated and aligned in its representation of the five key facets: Prayer, Research, Innovation, Media, and Engagement.

We Are All Ministers of the Gospel

by Christopher Lucey

I was given ten minutes to share the vision of what it meant to facilitate Christ’s Missional Challenge (CMC) in the prayer room at the International House of Prayer (IHOP) in Kansas City. This was in March 2013 and I had just returned from Bali for the global launch of Transform World 2020. IHOP partnered with TW2020 for this special 3-day event to fully cover this movement in prayer. What was even more incredible was the number of leaders who came to both honor Luis Bush and to join with him in praying for global transformation alongside nearly 3,000 attendees mostly from IHOP. We were blessed to hear from top Christian statesmen such as Loren Cunningham, Mark Anderson, Dick Eastman, Paul Eshleman, Josh McDowell, George Otis, Jr., Steve Douglas, along with Cindy Jacobs and many others. As I watched the interactions between these men and women it was clear they loved and honored one another. They were there to celebrate Luis and Doris Bush, but it was because they had already made a commitment to stand with one another and support each other’s ministries and the work that God was doing in their midst. The monumental task of moving forward an idea like “transforming the world” must come from absolute trust in God and from the belief in servant-leadership through esteeming one another as higher than ourselves.

The camaraderie among the leaders in the prayer room at IHOP in March of 2013 convinced me that God was assembling the pillars of the TW2020 movement. It reminded me that God had said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Joh. 13:34-35). The goal of Christ’s Missional Challenge for the past three years was to convey the thought that we are all ministers of the gospel working towards reconciliation and restoring the hope in people who live in extreme oppression, poverty, and bondage around the world. We know that the remaining task of sharing the unconditional love of Jesus will only come through greater faith and trust in him. It is incumbent upon our generation to fully embrace this biblical mandate. If we choose to humble ourselves and allow the transformation of our own hearts to take shape as John 13:34-35 describes–before we go to the field–then the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit will continue to strengthen those he has called. And they will be able to move forward with the full measure of peace, grace, love and authority to enter into broken places and bring healing to the broken-hearted which ultimately will bring glory to our Father.

The other exciting event that took place was a pre-conference meeting with 70+ leaders who were part of CMC and other TW Challenge and Sphere Facilitators. In short, I gave a brief presentation on PRIME, which is the latest global collaborative initiative to come out of Frontier Ventures (formerly known as the U.S. Center for World Mission). It was immediately embraced and acknowledged at this meeting that a more integrated approach that aligns a broad array of professionals within the body of Christ is needed and PRIME in partnership with TW2020, Issachar Initiative, Joshua Project and other collaborators is an exciting next step in the formation of building capacity towards overcoming barriers and creating new opportunities for engagement in the process.

PRIME was also recognized as an emerging embedded operating system that could provide the kind of collaborative “connective tissue” that has been a vital missing component between and among leaders in various sectors and spheres of influence. the next step will be to formulate a network of LABS which will address each of the 7 challenges and 7 spheres. An advisory team has been reviewing the formation of this strategic network with the hope of launching the first iterations in Fall 2015.

For further information please connect with us and visit the following sites:
Paul Eshleman
http://www.issacharinitiative.org

Dan Scribner
http://www.joshuaproject.net

Christopher Lucey
http://www.frontierventures.org
[email protected]

Celebration Challenge

A Trumpet Call to the Nations

Facilitators: Frederic & Susan Rowe

Celebration Challenge Vision 2020

The mission of the Celebration Challenge is to encourage, build, and connect houses of prayer in the spirit of the tabernacle of David and strengthen them through relationship for individual and corporate transformation.

The Trumpet is Calling

The focus of the “Trumpet Call to the Nations” on building and connecting houses of prayer among the nations has seen significant growth through the Transform World efforts. Out of the persecution, a remnant is rising with a desire to raise up unceasing worship and prayer before his throne. Malachi 1:11 tells us that, “in every place incense shall be offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the nations.” This dynamic movement of worship, prayer, and praise carries within it the heart, vision, and relentless energy for spiritual intervention and subsequent transformation. James exhorted the New Testament church in Acts 15:11, referencing Amos 9:11 saying, “On that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and repair its damages and rebuild it as in the days of old.” This is happening now.  New houses of prayer, in the spirit of the tabernacle of David, are emerging throughout the nations. The desire for his Presence is propelling an awakened remnant into deeper commitment and intimacy with God.  They have discovered the “One thing,” Psalm 27:4 speaks of.

A foundational core value of the “Trumpet Call” is a focus on the great commandments Jesus spoke of in Matthew 22:37-39, to love God and love one another. Through gatherings such as “Trumpet Call Myanmar,” held in January, 2015, groups of sustained, corporate prayer and worship are forming.  Leadership within regions with similar calls to see houses of prayer equipped, strengthened, and connected is rising. We are greatly encouraged to see an effectual collaboration between denominations, regions, generations, and nations emerging and cooperating with local church bodies. 

Communication is key to any relationship formation.  To facilitate communication and sharing, we have had regular conference calls and newsletters and have a recently developed website, http://www.trumpetcall2nations.com.  Along with this, to meet the challenges of today for informed intercession, we have launched a “Strategic Alert System.”  The purpose of the system is to communicate key prayer alerts quickly and accurately, and handle sensitive information securely.  

We are also working with missions and prayer ministries on a new initiative, “Inherit the Nations.”  The purpose of the initiative is to link houses of prayer with unreached/untouched people groups.  Missions organizations, primarily Frontier Ventures, have identified 250 people groups that when reached would cover 90% of the unreached people in the world.  The purpose of this initiative is to link houses of prayer with these groups and the missionaries being sent to them to establish a more tangible and dynamic prayer-missions relationship and exchange. 

In summary, the house of prayer movement is growing.  It is developing and is playing a vital role in God’s plan for the times we now live in. There is a fundamental shift taking place throughout the world…the body of Christ is being transformed into the bride of Christ.  Jesus exhorted us to be the wise virgins, ready with oil in our lamps, “And at midnight a cry was heard, ‘Behold the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’” (Mat. 25:6)  “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.” (Mat. 25:13) The trumpet is sounding…and people are responding to “Prepare the way.”