- Missions
Steve Krier, who pastors Ignite Church in Moorhead, Minnesota, saw Molly Brandt’s face light up with amazement as the church secretary looked over at stacks of cards on her desk.
Nearly 200 cards sat on Brandt’s desk a few Mondays ago, a tangible response of disciples to Krier’s sermon the day before. The message about missions stimulated people to pray, partner, learn or go.
“We might have to create a much larger missions budget,” Krier chuckled. “We got a huge response.”
Twenty-one people marked “go” on their response card that Sunday in April. They believe God wants them to go somewhere on a mission trip.
“God is up to something,” Krier said. “I can’t stop talking to people.”
Let’s do what 13-year-olds do
Ignite started 13 years ago as a Converge church plant designed to help people encounter God and impact the world. For the past 12 years, the church has supported missions by giving $250 per trip to those who call Ignite their church home.
That structure enabled Ignite to help fund 125 trips to 44 countries on six continents since 2011. An average of one in four people in the church have participated in these trips abroad or around the United States.
Related: Converge helps every church find out how to embrace missions specifically.
Fourteen full-time vocational missionaries have already gone out from Ignite, an average of one new missionary from the church a year during Ignite’s first 13 years.
Yet this year, as the church reached its highest number of attendees, God motivated 21 more to go and tell, not just come and see. Also this year, a local church that closed and sold property made a generous donation to Ignite.
The former church asked Ignite to use the money to help advance the gospel. Ignite allocated half the money for church planting and the other half for the 14 full-time global workers already deployed.
“Let’s use this as seed money for missionaries,” Krier said of the church’s decision.
He likens the church to a 13-year-old who can be left alone at home or look outside themselves. So Ignite has already started strategic planning so those 21 who marked “go” on their response card act on their response to God’s call for all believers to make disciples.
And that’s not even all the responses because more than 100 people said they would pray, partner or learn more. Ignite is hosting the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement class in the fall.
Related: You can join a global prayer network for Converge workers in Christ’s mission.
“This last fall, we started praying for revival,” Krier said. “I just wonder if this is the beginning of what God has for our church.”
Converge partners with churches to reach the least-reached tribes, tongues and nations from east to west. Together, we are asking God for a gospel movement among every least-reached people group — in our generation. Learn how Converge can partner with your church to help you share God’s love worldwide.
