We aren’t expert missiologists.
We did not grow up dreaming of starting a missions organization. We are not professionals in all things missions related. Nor are we professional fundraisers (you’ve probably already figured that out).
We are administrators. Aadministrators who care about God’s glory among the nations and the lost. Therefore, we are employing our administrative skills to raise funds for training national pastors overseas. This work wasn’t something we dreamed up. By God’s design, we stumbled into it.
The roots of this effort
Good Churches came to life through time, providential opportunities, and meeting the right people. More and more we found ourselves asking, “Why don’t we do this?”
We spent 25+ years in local church ministry. During that time, we founded and operated several major events and pastor-training programs focused on developing church leaders and engaging young people in the Great Commission. It's fair to say thousands have passed through our doors. Most serve in U.S. churches today. But some returned to their home countries—regions where gospel access is extremely limited.
As we visited these international pastors, we discovered they were doing the same type of pastor-training, church-multiplying work we did. They were both pastoring their own congregations toward health while also training national (indigenous) men to plant other faithful churches. This experience shaped our vision for Good Churches.
Could this scale?
We were especially impressed with one man and his team who work in an area where nearly thirty percent of all identified unreached people groups in the world are located. The team was laser focused on making disciples and training pastors. Their budget was tiny, their conditions very hard (by American standards), their task enormous, and their godly ambitions inspiring. We couldn’t help but ask, “Could this training program scale?” If we were able to raise funding, could they train eighty nationals instead of twenty five? These brothers already had their hands full. So how could we help? The most obvious way was to raise American dollars to support this fruitful program.
Efficiency and effectiveness are important to us.
After a year of conversations we began working to help this particular program grow. Our initial thought was to place a giving portal on a website. But observing the work of missions agencies, we recognized that more structure was necessary, beginning with providing accountability and efficiency for donor dollars. We also wanted to take the vagueness out of missions giving, so that churches or donors could know exactly where their dollars were going and who they were supporting on the field. And we wanted partners with a biblical understanding of the centrality of the local church in fulfilling the Great Commission.
So we started Good Churches, an effort aimed at efficiently and effectively planting good churches among the unreached.
It's just a start.
We’re told in Zechariah “not to despise the day of small beginnings.” So we won’t. We are modest in size, but ambitious, like this program we support. Yet we will work to be faithful before the Lord.
