ReachGlobal Partnering with the Perspectives Course
With over 200 classes across the U.S., Perspectives is a revolutionary teaching movement igniting missional living
in the hearts and minds of participants. Touching every corner of the U.S. church and beyond, Perspectives is a movement serving the missional vision of Christ’s Body across denominational and organizational lines through its intensive missions training. EFCA ReachGlobal is beginning a unique partnership with this solidly biblical, broad historically, culturally insightful, and strategically challenging movement.
Coming in April 2012: Intensive Perspectives Course for EFCA Leaders
Through this new partnership, EFCA ReachGlobal is offering a unique opportunity for EFCA church leaders to learn more about and be involved with Perspectives by attending a powerful and abbreviated Perspectives course. April 9-17, 2012, ReachGlobal will host this Perspectives course at the EFCA national office in Minneapolis, MN. ReachGlobal is praying for 100 EFCA church, mission and business leaders to attend this unique week of peer-to-peer interaction guided by ten speakers who are experts in each of the fifteen live-sessions of the Perspectives course. In addition to helping you codify your local to global missions vision, this unique opportunity will serve as a catalyst to broaden the interest and involvement of the EFCA in the Perspectives movement—encouraging the share of information, strategies and cooperation among ourselves and others.
Registration Details for the April 2012 Perspectives course
Beginning of Perspectives
In the late 1800’s there was a four-week conference which gathered 250 university students where D.L. Moody was the featured speaker. Through this great orator, God drew 100 of the participants to sign a pledge saying, “We hold ourselves willing and desirous to do the Lord’s work wherever He may call us, even if it be in the foreign lands.” This gathering was the catalyst of the Student Volunteer Movement which launched 20,000 to serve in international missions and 80,000 to support them and serve in the Layman’s Prayer Movement which dramatically impacted the US.
A little over one hundred years later at the Urbana student missions conference in 1973, another dramatic commitment was made where 28% of those attending indicated that they were eager to commit their lives to missions – a 300% increase over those who had done so at the same conference just three years before. Dr. Ralph Winter, then professor at the Fuller School of World Mission, realizing that students would base their decisions to serve in missions on the information they had available, designed a course which would help fill in the gaps which likely existed for these students. That course became, Perspectives On The World Christian Movement and it has become an international movement.
Perspectives Today
Today over 100,000 people have taken the Perspectives course in North America and over 30,000 in other countries. In the U.S. this year, there will be over 200 classes taking place with an average attendance of over 7,000 participants. Each becoming a more missionally minded, knowledgeable and activated community member. Tapping into this motivating course for personal and missional growth will multiply local and global outreach for Christ.
Why is ReachGlobal partnering with Perspectives?
As Ralph Winter realized, information empowers missional action both local and global. Many EFCA churches are already hosting the course and have several members who have completed it - some of whom are even trained as coordinators. What if each and every EFCA church understood and could take advantage of this information; use it to be a catalyst for their local ministry and global vision; share their best practices with others; cooperate where possible? What would that do to the EFCA movement? What would that do for our communities? What impact would that have on global missions? Partnership with Perspectives means the EFCA will be intentional in encouraging and serving the involvement of our churches in this course and the follow-up with our churches and members who are challenged to consider its impact in their community and world.
