live school ... mobilizes local churches!

The Live School passionately believes that the Local Church, in whatever forms it is found ("For where two or three come together in My name, there am I with them." Mt. 18:20), is God's vehicle through which the Kingdom of God is established.

The Body of Christ is strategic in influencing the society in which it lives and the people among whom it lives and works.

04_aIt is also strategic in fulfilling the Great Commission ("Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Mt 28:19-20).

Often, however, local churches are not involved in what is called missions because they know little about it.

What church leadership may have been taught in Bible school or seminary has not adequately equipped them to understand neither their strategic role nor their responsibility.

They are either afraid of it or prefer to do little or nothing about. In some cases, they take a leap of faith and appoint a missions committee, becoming so-called "churches with missions."

This is not what the Lord had in mind; instead, He is seeking "Mission Churches," churches with the Great Commission in their DNA and existing to expand the Kingdom. These are more interested in the purposes of God than the next exciting fad to come along, enticing them in a new direction.

The Live School sets out to mobilize churches in an affluent part of a country or region to partner with a church in a developing region or nation. The goal is to start a Live School in that lesser developed area.

Sometimes, other local churches end up sending people to be trained or, during the outreach phase of the training, students are sent to work alongside other churches in other towns and villages.

The mobilization of the local church, in effect, ripples out into the region as more and more churches become involved in evangelism, church planting and discipleship.




Real life examples

In 1996, on WMC's first trip to Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, we met with two pastors which resulted in a cell-church conference with 119 in attendance in 1997. In 1998, WMC began training leadership using the forerunner of the Live School and, that year, the Cell Conference grew to 300.

The third year, the Malagasy leaders decided to host a national missions conference at which the mandate of the Church to see the lost saved and brought together in local churches would be clearly presented. The 740 pastors and church leaders who attended were roundly confronted to become practically involved in missions.

They were challenged by the Malagasy leadership to adopt two villages each and commit visiting them within 12 months to determine if there was a church or not. Where a church was found, the goal was to find the best way to encourage its growth; where there was none, the goal was to plant one. That day, those pastors adopted over 1300 towns and villages and, in 2002, at possibly the largest Malagasy church leadership conference in the history of the country, over 6000 Malagasy leaders gathered in an indoor stadium to hear the reports of what the Lord had done during the previous year.

The Antananarivo Live School was founded in 2001, replacing its predecessor and becoming instrumental in the mobilization of the Malagasy church, providing trained manpower to physically work with and alongside the local churches. Over a four-year period, the mobilization of local churches by World Mission Centre and the School resulted in the largest missions/leadership conference in Madagascar.

At last report, many of the churches represented at that conference have continued in church planting, with hundreds of new churches making it one of the fastest church growth processes in the region.