We recently completed Catalyst Community #1 in Tbilisi, the capital city of The Republic of Georgia. Here are a few interesting facts about The Republic of Georgia:
- 4 million people live in the Republic of Georgia and almost half of them (1.8 million) reside in the capital city of Tbilisi.
- The capital city of Tbilisi dates its origins to the 5th century.
- Georgia in bordered on the north by Russia (who has tanks parked 30 kilometers outside Tbilisi), and on the south by Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Hence, Georgia is often referred to as the Crossroads, or Gateway, between Western Asia and Eastern Europe.
- Georgia is 1.4% Evangelical Christian (80% Orthodox and 9% Islamic, 10% non-religious)
Unity Among Diversity of Church Expression
The success of what we do hinges largely upon having the right partner on the ground. That’s why we spend a lot of time on the front end building a relationship with potential partners. In Georgia, our point of contact was a man named Gia, and Gia is a great partner. Gia works with CRU (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) and has a network of young house church leaders reproducing among University students and Young Professionals.
One of the characteristics of the right point person is his ability to bring together like minded leaders who are willing to do whatever it takes to see God bring about a movement of reproducing churches in their nation. Gia did just that. He brought together a mix of traditional brick and mortar churches and young house church leaders. What stood out to me was how united these two groups were despite their differing expressions of church. Much of what we do in a Catalyst Community is geared towards building a sense of unity among attendees. It was great to see these two groups working together with common purpose and learning from one another.
Early Strides Toward Network Formation!
Our primary focus is on catalyzing movements of reproducing churches. The most effective way to do this is through the formation of Networks that can work together to encourage one another, provide mutual accountability toward individual goals, and to cooperate in the reproduction of new churches. This usually begins to take shape after our second or third Catalyst Community. However, on day 3 of this conference Gia stood up to talk with our teams on next steps for working together, and they set a date for their first follow up gathering! Be in prayer for these leaders as they gather together April, 9th to work on how they can collaborate to grow the Kingdom of God together in their nation!
Building a Globally Connected Team
I’m often asked about how we move into new countries. The simple answer, it’s a God thing. God puts us in contact with the right partner to begin working with. Increasingly, God is using one of our Albanian Movement leaders to initiate those connections. Kejdis pastors a church in Albania, co-leads the Albanian Movement, and works with the church planting arm of CRU. Kejdis has a special ability for finding the right people to work with. He found Gia, and he also put us in touch with a young pastor we are having preliminary conversations with in Israel (0.4% Evangelical Christian). Pictured below are Kejdis with Gia and Altin with Gia.
Kejdis and Altin came from Albania and helped lead the conference in Georgia. They are training to reproduce what we are doing, and they are great at showing how what we teach worked for them in Albania. Is gives credibility and encourages leaders in one difficult context to see how things worked in another difficult context.
Funding the Gaps in 2019
We have had a busy start to 2019 and we have a lot planned for the remainder of the year, but we need your help to make it happen. We also have some exciting new developments taking shape for 2020, including opportunities for ministry in the Greater Middle East.
Please pray about how God might use YOU, alongside US, so that together WE can continue to catalyze movements of reproducing churches in hard to reach parts of the world!
