ACTS 20111

2011 October 3 (Monday morning)

Yesterday, we sent out our first ACTS teams on outreach. As I write, they are on planes traveling to Thailand, Uganda, and Kenya to work with local believers to plant prayer furnaces and preach the Gospel to the unreached for the next three months and possibly beyond that. Some of these missionaries are your friends, sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters. I have gotten to know them well over the last three months that they have been with us here in Kansas City and they are some of the best and the brightest young people I have ever met. Their passion for Jesus and compassion for the lost is beautiful to me. Their love for one another is one for the history books! They have given themselves to three months of intense schedules of prayer and worship, rigorous Bible and theological studies, and practical training to prepare them as intercessory missionaries to go to the hardest and darkest places to plant prayer furnaces and reach the unreached. Of course, they had fun along the way too!

To me personally, this is a dream come true.

For the past several years, the Lord has spoken to me about finishing the task of the Great Commission in this generation through worship and intercession. Of course, we desperately need conventional foreign missions and local evangelism to continue on as it always had to finish that task, but I believe that the Holy Spirit is raising up a new kind of missionary - an intercessory missionary - who will go to the hardest and darkest places and exalt Jesus through worship (Ps 22:3) as they partner in prayer with the Great Intercessor for a harvest of souls in the nations. To me, these students are the first fruits of that new kind of intercessory missionary movement.

Over the next few months, these students will share their stories on this blog. I encourage you to pray for them daily and regularly and share this blog site with others in their family or with their friends and their church.