December 31, 2024
Leadership Development: Lessons from Churches Around the World
Churches around the world have a variety of methods for leadership training, even in the midst of persecution. We may be able to learn from them.
Articles for tag: Doug Lucas
December 24, 2023
Christmas: Good News for All People
In today's penultimate Christmas memory, Team Expansion president Doug Lucas describes a scene during a bus ride that opened his eyes in a new way to the great need for Christ around the world. . . .
February 14, 2023
Team Expansion, IDES Rushing Aid to Quake Victims
Christian agencies have mobilized to try to help earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria, but an urgent need exists for financial contributions so that more people can be helped sooner. Team Expansion and IDES both shared some of the ways their ministries are helping that region’s earthquake victims.
September 8, 2022
From Brokenness to Breakthrough: Afghanistan, One Year Later
Doug Lucas of Team Expansion writes: "We have been surprised and amazed that in the 12 months since our troops’ rushed departure from Afghanistan in August 2021, God has raised up more than 100 families in a Christian network that defies anything previously known in that nation."
February 23, 2022
Ukraine: How Should We Respond?
Christian church ministries played a role in the growth of Christianity and churches in Ukraine starting in the 1990s, writes Doug Lucas of Team Expansion. Now, in light of this week's invasion by Russia, you might be asking, "What can I do?" I propose these key action steps. . . .
September 29, 2021
Mission Groups Monitoring COVID-19, but Not Requiring Vaccinations
Leaders of some of the largest independent Christian church mission organizations say they monitor COVID-19 closely, but none requires their missionaries be fully vaccinated against the disease, a step recently taken by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
September 8, 2021
Team Expansion’s Afghan Appeal Sees Record Response (Plus News Briefs)
Team Expansion sees amazing response to appeal to help internally displaced Afghans. Plus briefs from First Christian Church (Lamar, Mo.), ICOM, IDES, Dallas Christian College, Hope International University, and more.
August 25, 2021
Update on Afghanistan: Where Do We Go from Here?
If we want to see God do something big and miraculous, we need to pray. The Afghan people are in a dangerous moment in their history. Pray for a miracle . . . but also pray for endurance and tenacious faith. . . .
October 24, 2020
The Pandemic’s Impact on International Missions (and What We All Can Learn from It)
By David Empson The church in America could learn much from how foreign missionaries persevered during the coronavirus while continuing to advance the cause of Christ. In early April, I received an email update from sisters Megan and Michelle Moss, missionaries serving in Tanzania. At the time, most Americans were still homebound and wrestling with internet issues, virtual meetings, and restaurant withdrawal. Mostly, we were wondering how long this pandemic would last. The Mosses wrote: ________ Many times, as missionaries, we really need you to be there for us. But right now, we’re seeing how God has equipped us in
June 22, 2019
Delivering Education ‘Just in Time’ Cross-culturally
What We Can Learn from Movements Around the World By Doug Lucas In the last couple of decades, researchers have identified more than 700 examples of rampant church growth. New believers have been coming to Christ in such numbers that they are using the term movement to describe the phenomenon. An outside research team recently identified a movement of 2 million believers. It’s nothing short of miraculous. Here is a summary of what typically happens in these movements. Telling + Training = Multiplication These movements usually start with a strong personality with relentless determination who seeks an answer to the
September 22, 2018
The Phenomenon of Disciple-Making Movements
Rural areas in the U.S. may be the best places for rapid multiplication of disciples and churches! By Doug Lucas Over the past two decades, God has been working mightily through an approach commonly referred to as disciple-making movements (or DMMs. Some use the term CPM, short for church-planting movements, while others use T4T, meaning Training for Trainers. These three acronyms are, in many ways, synonymous, with only slight differences between them.) David Garrison was the first to write a book about this phenomenon, and his definition has become somewhat of the standard. In Church Planting Movements (2004), he
June 9, 2017
Church Building the New Testament Way
By Doug Lucas Suppose the Restoration Movement churches (Christian churches and churches of Christ) want to restore the New Testament practice of constructing or buying church buildings. What would it look like? Easy answer. To my knowledge, throughout all the New Testament, there”s not a single example of constructing or buying a building. The book of Acts records exponential church growth without buildings. And, according to Matthew 28:19, 20, our core mandate is to make disciples who will make disciples””not build buildings. Making disciples always needs to be at the center of everything we do, whether it be going, baptizing,
December 30, 2016
Growing the Kingdom
By Bruce Webster The Bible”s mandate is to grow quickly, not to grow large. Look what happens when believers today take their strategy from the New Testament instead of the church in the West. Are you like me? For many years when I read the parable of the mustard seed1, I pictured a tiny seed growing slowly like an oak tree, attaining good height as it matured. But when the people listening to Jesus heard him tell that parable, they had a very different picture. They knew the mustard plant didn”t grow very big””maximum height about 10 feet””but it grew
March 17, 2016
How Team Expansion Missionaries Define Success
By Doug Lucas We”ve tried and learned from a variety of approaches, each with a different definition of success. Here”s where we”ve been and how we”re seeing God bless the approach we”re taking now. When we were starting Team Expansion in 1978, we organized several brainstorming conferences that included some of the nation”s top thinkers and leaders in missions and other fields. At these events, we would ask questions like, “What should Team Expansion try to be? What should be its main goal? In fact, what IS Team Expansion?” It took a while to hone the vision (about 37 years,
February 11, 2016
My Theology and My Calling
By Doug Lucas I might have tried to become a doctor. That”s what my mother wanted. Honestly, my dad didn”t care, just so long as I landed a “secure job.” Perhaps I would have done something with music. Everyone told me I had a gift for playing piano. My high school guidance counselor said my academic test scores were high enough that I could take my pick of universities across the land. And somehow, I managed to finish high school as valedictorian and president of the student body. He argued that I had a good chance at a full-time scholarship
November 23, 2015
Back to the City
By Kendi Howells Douglas Our increasingly urban world requires a commitment to embracing diversity and pursuing reconciliation as we plant churches in cosmopolitan environments. Our world is more urban than rural for the first time in history1, and in addition to rethinking how we prepare people to minister in an urban world, we must look at church planting efforts in light of this new reality. In researching the history of the Restoration Movement in urban areas, I have discovered some factors that have kept many of our churches out of cities in the past. One issue was failure to be
November 15, 2014
How Are We Doing with Missions?
We asked five missions leaders in the Christian churches to answer several key questions about missions progress, obstacles, and opportunities: Reggie Hundley is executive director of Missions Services Association, Knoxville, Tennessee. Doug Lucas is president of Team Expansion, Louisville, Kentucky. Doug Priest is executive director of Christian Missionary Fellowship, Indianapolis, Indiana. Greg Pruett is president of Pioneer Bible Translators, Dallas, Texas. Tony Twist is president of TCM International Institute, Indianapolis, Indiana. What are the most hopeful signs regarding international, cross-cultural evangelism you see in our movement today? Greg Pruett: Many are valuing working among the unreached peoples of the world,
July 10, 2014
Course Correction
By Doug Lucas (From our series “The Best or Worst Advice I’ve Ever Received.”) The best advice I ever received was from Professor Tom Gemeinhart at Kentucky Christian College (now KCU) in 1977. Over the course of the first nine weeks in his class, “Principles and Methods of Missions” (which I had to take as a requirement), we studied the Great Commission as found in five different books of the Bible. We analyzed the story of the watchman on the wall in Ezekiel. We looked at Jonah, Barnabas, and of course Paul. In fact, by the time we were done,
December 9, 2013
ICOM Calls Christians Everywhere to Glorify God Globally
By Doug Lucas It was a global gathering with a distinctly Latino flavor. From the free chips and salsa in the exhibit hall to the mariachi band on the main platform, the International Conference on Missions (ICOM) reminded us of opportunities among Spanish-speaking friends in our country and all over the world. Much of this was due to the influence of 2013 President Jair Castillo who extended his life of influence in Mexico to ICOM. But the convention”s impact extended far beyond the Americas. Meeting November 14-17, 2013, at the Kansas City Convention Center, ICOM hosted church leaders, missions advocates,
November 9, 2012
Websites Help Foster Global Evangelism
By Jennifer Johnson Net Work Many missionaries manage websites, send newsletters, and post videos on YouTube. But for these resources to be helpful, potential supporters must first hear about them””and, as Reggie Hundley says, “Who”s searching YouTube for missions videos?” Hundley, executive director of Mission Services, a nonprofit organization serving missionaries and mission agencies, recently developed a solution to connect churches, individuals, and missionaries online. The new website www.themissionsnetwork.com provides an easy way for people to learn about the missionaries they already support as well as come in contact with new ministries. A “Missions Knowledge Base” shares audio and
