Like Africa

My wife and I went to Africa in 1983 to be missionaries among the Meru people in Kenya. One of our primary reasons for going was we wanted to work with receptive people, and they were. It was a joy to work among the Meru people. They were hungry to learn and grow in Jesus. We worked with local leaders to help them start indigenous churches, then provided training for them to support their work and growth.

When we came back to America in 1993 I had no idea what we would find--or do. Now we've been working with Kairos for five full years, doing much the same thing we did in Africa: we look for local leaders and provided them training to support their work of starting new churches.

So after such an amazing Easter as this last one I went back to our church growth reports on our Meru work and looked at the year 1988, at five full years work. This is the same place we are at with Kairos. Here's what I found:

	Meru	Kairos
Churches	19	13
Preaching Points	7	5
Attendees	1,048	2,172

In Meru, Kenya in 1988 we were working with 19 churches and 7 preaching points. In these churches there were 524 active members, that's baptized believers. We always doubled that number to get our adherent count, so 1,048 attenders.

With Kairos in 2011 we are working with 13 churches and five "preaching points." The average attendance (adherents) is 2,172. So while we are working with 8 fewer churches and preaching points the number of attenders is double what it was in Meru. All in all, after five full years of work in America we're pretty much where we were after five years of work in Africa!

What does this say to me? It says America is a receptive country. It says we can reach people with the story of Jesus who have not been Christians before or who have left Christian faith and practice. 

If you or your church want to be part of God's harvest in America, contact me at sgranberg@kairoschurchplanting.org.