The Center For Pioneer
Church Planting – 2007 Opening Session
On any campus, the weekend before the opening of a new semester brims with
excitement and anticipation. It was no different for the beginning of the Center
For Pioneer Church Planting (CPCP) 2007 session. Students from Texas, Alabama,
New Jersey, and Saskatchewan, Canada arrived in Los Fresnos, Texas on Friday,
January 5, joining a family from Ohio already on site. Long and short term
faculty and staff trickled in from New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Mexico.
For many, arrival on campus meant reuniting with old friends from mission trips
and conferences; for others, all the faces were new. As the weekend progressed,
the CPCP population began to feel more like family, and less like strangers.
(Director of the Center for
Pioneer Church Planting - Bill Dorman)
Monday morning dawned with crisp temperatures, sunny skies, and eager faces.
Kevin and Jennifer Davis, students from Ohio and parents of five, welcomed early
arrivals from off-campus with a pot of coffee. By 8:30, everyone had assembled
in the classroom, and Director of Education, Bill Dorman, began orientation.
Although the classroom is furnished with three long tables, each able to seat
six people, as well as two easy chairs in the back, we required extra chairs to
accommodate everyone. If God continues to increase the number of students,
faculty, and staff, CPCP will soon outgrow its current classroom and office
space, and we will find ourselves once again praying for God to provide more
room. He answered our prayers beyond our expectations with this building, which
we own, debt-free, a mere five months after he led us to it; we have no doubt
that he will do the same as we seek his will for this new need.
(President of TETM - David
Sitton)
David Harrell, Executive Director of To Every Tribe Ministries (TETM), opened
with prayer, and then played his guitar while we sang “Amazing Grace.” The
founder and president of TETM, David Sitton, considered the purpose of God’s
amazing grace as he asked what it is that Jesus wants: for what did our Lord
pray? According to John 17, Jesus asked God to reveal his glory, to disseminate
the knowledge of him, to unite his people to him and to each other, and to save
and sanctify his disciples. The means by which God accomplished this was the
persecution, suffering, and death of his Son (Mark 10:45). And He calls those
who love him to follow that same servant-hearted path to glory as he uses them
to harvest his elect from among all nations, tribes and peoples.
(Belinda Faulkner)
After David Sitton finished his opening remarks, two members of Brownsville
Community Fellowship, Aaron and Veronica, demonstrated their servants’ hearts by
leading us in songs that allowed us to contemplate God’s sovereignty, power,
majesty, and love. As we meditate on God’s love for us, manifested in Jesus
Christ, we desire to model his love to others. David Sitton reminded us that
this life of love will be costly. January 8, 2007 is the anniversary of the
martyrdom of the Ecuador 5. Fifty-one years ago, Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed
McCully, Pete Fleming, and Roger Youderian lost their physical lives as they
sought to bring the good news of God’s love to the vicious and violent Auca
Indians of Ecuador. God used the families of those five men to continue to
minister Christ’s love to this lost people, and today, nearly ninety percent of
the tribe believes in Jesus. Not only did God use the persecution, suffering,
and slaughter of five men to initiate the harvest of his elect from among the
Auca, he also used it to motivate more than 40,000 new missionaries. David
challenged the students of the class of 2007 to demonstrate that same
servant-mindset as they radically and aggressively invest their lives in
spreading the fame of God’s name among the nations.
(Kevin and Jennifer Davis)
Orientation continued as faculty, staff, and students shared stories of how God
equipped and called them to serve him in the setting of CPCP. Some will be
teachers, some will be church-planters, some will be medical missionaries, some
will be team leaders, and some will be behind-the-scenes servers of the
servants. All of us will do whatever we do in this ministry for the glory of
God, because if we are not making God’s name famous, we might as well die right
now. TETM missionary Steve Henry summed it up well when he said that the
ordinary mindset for those who love Jesus Christ is simply this: “Here I am God,
do with me what you will.”
(Cara Bebee, Kirby Myer,
Chris Johnson)
Please continue to pray for the CPCP staff and students as God leads them
through the coming year.
