What God Is Doing In The World

 Elmer Towns, of Liberty University

 - March 2017 Newsletter

1.     Explosion of multisite churches around the world. One church (with one pastor, governance, and DNA) located in multiple locations with a singular vision and values. This new strategy of church planting is a possible way to finish the Great Commission.

2.     National Fellowship of Born Again Pentecostal Churches of Uganda, Africa, is a church of 22,000 and Bishop Alex Mitala has begun over 10,000 additional new churches in past few years.

3.     World Harvest Center, Suva, Fiji, Suliasi Kurulo pastor; (the world’s 164^th poorest nation) has planted over 5,000 churches throughout the islands and other nations. The home church has 5,000 people.

4.     Bethany Church of God, Surabaya, Indonesia, seats 25,000 with a weekly attendance of over 140,000 worshippers not including its 600 daughter churches in every island of the nation.  The pastor told me, “Even though we are the 5^th largest nation in the world with the largest Muslim population there are more Pentecostals in our nation than any other in the world.”

5.     Word of Hope Church, Manila Philippines, David Sobrepena, is pastor of the church that seats 4,000 with attendance of 70,000 each week in multiple services and home groups, not counting attendance in 60 satellite churches.  Plans to have 250,000 through home cell meetings. 

6.     Jotabeche Methodist Pentecostal Church, Santiago, Chile, seats 14,000 with 120,000 worshipers in the Central Cathedral, and 20 temples (attendance 2,400 each) and 80 churches averaging 100, and multiple missions.  There are multiple church complexes like this throughout different cities in Chile with approximately 5 million in Chile.

7.     The Full Gospel Church, Seoul, South Korea, Yonggi Cho, founder, had 760,000 members; the largest single church since Pentecost.  It had 34,000 home cells, and 50 satellite churches.  When Cho resigned 10 years ago, all satellite churches were released to be independent churches; now the mother church only averages 300,000 members.

This shows how greatly our God is turning people from darkness to light.