George, a missionary from Uganda, recently visited the ANM office, and I had the honor of interviewing him about church planting and multiplication.
Rebecca: Tell us about church planting and the goal you have for every church plant to plant a new church within a year. That’s a wonderful goal and obviously the Lord motivates, but what practical things do you do to make that goal a reality?
George: One of the motivators is that I sit with my pastors almost every month. We have the vision of church planting, then we ask, how are we reaching it? Then we set the mission. We say, if we are going to reach our target, this is what we’re going to do. The vision drives us to achieve our goal.
This is how we do it: When we meet every month, we ask every pastor to tell us the vision of that particular church. What are you doing? How are you doing it? One of the things that most of our churches are doing is home fellowships. We meet at every house in a week, so every church member has a fellowship in their home on a particular day. The church members will also invite their neighbors and other believers.
Our messages are always intentional. They’re evangelistic in nature to share the love of Christ and reach more people. By the end of it all, multiplication is realized. We’re not planning to have a big auditorium, but we’re intending to multiply congregations in different communities.
Help multiply congregations now.
So what I’m trying to say is that it is possible when you’re driven by a vision. There’s nothing else that we do or give. It’s just vision.
Every now and again, I remind my pastors that this is where we’re going. Let’s not relax, let’s not sleep. The more you remind them, the more they do it. The more you withdraw, the more they forget. That’s the policy.
Rebecca: Yes, you have to keep that at the forefront.
George: Yes, that’s how we do it. And it’s not very difficult. For a local church to plant another church is easy, especially if there’s willingness in the church elders and if there’s a pastor who is called to be in that place. If the calling isn’t there, if you’re not in the right place, then automatically things are messed up. But if the pastor is called and is in the right place, then anything is possible.
Rebecca: Is there anything else that’s on your heart that you would like to share?
George: I still have a burden of reaching the places I haven’t reached yet. One of my prayer requests is that I need to reach the border of Uganda and Rwanda. I still have a passion to build more churches there. There are mountains and there aren’t many missionaries who want to be there. The road networks are bad. That’s where I want to make sure I’m sending missionaries to plant churches. I pray that the Lord will give us grace and energize the young men whom I’m sending there.
There’s another place in eastern Uganda that’s very chaotic. It’s one of the only places where civilians have guns. Most missionaries fear that area. I feel that I need to reach there and plant some churches and have some fellowships. I know it’s possible because the door in my heart is open. I feel it can be done with my team.
Rebecca: Is there anything that you want Christians in the U.S. to know about Christians and churches in Uganda?
George: The church in Uganda now needs discipleship programs. As I plant more churches, there’s a need for discipleship. That means making sure the Bible schools have enough training, the leaders and the congregations have enough training for discipleship. As I engage in church planting, I also know that there is a need for watering. Watering is the discipleship.
As the Bible says, Paul planted and Apollos watered. So what does that mean? It means that as you plant, you also need to send people to lead the church who are trained at Bible school.
I have a Bible school, but we need books. I take my responsibility seriously to empower pastors to go through their training so they can do a good job.
Additionally, we need more partnership. The partnerships I’m talking about are missionaries who can come conduct crusades and seminars. Having someone come and do crusades together, do school ministry together, do prison ministry together, whatever they can, would be very, very helpful and important. It works.
Rebecca: Thank you.
