Thursday, November 6, 2008

Jesus Bubbles

I recently had the privilege of attending a banquet for International Cooperating Ministries. Their mission is to nurture believers and assist church growth worldwide to see people, transformed through Jesus. http://icm.org/ ICM partners with already established ministries to provide further opportunities to spread the gospel.


One facet is nurturing believers through the Mini Bible College (MBC). Translated into dozens of languages, the MBC provides a four year bible study from Genesis to Revelation. It is broadcast via radio, and an amazing hand held, solar-powered audio player along with written study materials. This study program was written by a man in a wheelchair and now his love for the scripture reaches around the world. It’s amazing how God can go where we can’t.


The second focus is giving a permanent home for bodies of believers who don’t have a church building. ICM has built nearly 5,000 churches around the world. They will only construct a building for active churches who commit to planting at least five daughter churches in their country. Although the church is not the building, their experience shows the multiplied growth of new believers when there is a focal point for spreading the gospel.


The best part of the evening was meeting Bishop Mgullu Kilimba from Tanzania. Jesus absolutely bubbled from Mgullu. I could picture the springs of living water as he told of planting more than 100 churches - and that was even before he started working with ICM. You can meet Mgullu at http://cmftz.org. He is a part of Christian Mission Fellowship. As we visited during dinner, his easy, infectious laugh reminded me what the joy of Lord really is. As he described the ministries through CMF he was so animated, I imagined him dancing as David did. Besides planting churches he helps provide wheelchairs for the disabled, medical aid missions and drilling wells or boring holes as he calls it.


Mgullu is probably close to my age and I felt small. Not because he made me feel that way, but because He is such a dynamic part of God’s plan for Tanzania. How blessed I am to meet a believer across the globe so I can pray for him and his ministry. What an encouragement it is to see how God is working all over the world by Christian ministries and believers coming together. It makes me realize what a BIG God we have and how small this earth is to Him. I want to see what God is doing and climb on board. I want Jesus to bubble.

1 comment:

Brenda said...

WOW! That is a very exciting ministry. Thanks for sharing it.