A St. Louis pastor and respected church planter raised the alarm about a societal problem he calls “ban,” which are males that are not quite boys nor men in their maturity level.

A ban is “somewhere in between” a boy and a man and can take the form of a 30-something male playing three hours of video games a day.

“I personally believe that the reason we have a societal crisis with men is because we do not have strong churches that draw out trained, equipped, empowered, challenged men,” said Darrin Patrick, pastor of the Journey Church in St. Louis and author of Church Planter: The Man, The Message, and The Mission, in a recent video interview with Desiring God ministry. more >>

The contemporary church growth model can only reach a maximum of 40 percent of the American population, said a leading thinker in the missional movement on Thursday.

This is a problem because 95 percent of American churches are using a model that even if successful will reach less than half the population, said Alan Hirsch, an internationally recognized missiologist and founding director of Forge Mission Training Network. He spoke at “The Genius of And” conference, hosted by Granger Community Church in Granger, Ind.

Most churches target the 40 percent of the population that’s within the cultural distance of the church, he explained. Meanwhile, attractional churches that have more of an external focus and cultural relevance will, again, only work for 40 percent of the American population. And after a few years of coming to Christ, most people are socialized out of their context and into the context of the church, which removes them from their sphere of influence. more >>

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – A gentle and calm spirit descended on the closing ceremony of The Third Lausanne Congress Sunday night as the 4,000 attendees soaked in the majestic music of the grand orchestra and choir and prepared their hearts to return to the mission field.

Lindsay Brown, the international director of The Lausanne Movement, gave the closing address in which he stated that the Lausanne leaders’ vision for the conference was to bear witness to Jesus Christ to this generation in every area of the world geographically and in every sphere of society. He noted that it was too early to determine what legacy the conference would have.

“We must recommit ourselves therefore to the lordship of Christ in every area of human activity,” said Brown. “One of our hopes, therefore, is that we would leave here equally committed to passionately communicate the Gospel of Christ to the ends of the earth and also to demonstrate the eternal truth of scripture has application to the whole of life for Christ is the Lord of the whole of creation.” more >>

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – Women are powerful partners in the mission field and have proven to be effective church planters, according to a couple whose ministry has equipped hundreds of female Christian leaders.

Leslie and Chad Neal Segraves, co-founder of 10/40 Connections, shared on Sunday with thousands of mission-minded Christian leaders how their mission organization has equipped over 1,200 Indian women over a four-year period. These women have gone on to plant over 41,000 churches – each with a minimum of 10 baptized adult believers – from 40 different unreached people groups.

Equipping these Indian women began when an Indian couple asked the Segraves in 2001 to train 100 Indian pastors about the relationship between male and female in the Church from a strong biblical basis. After the training seminar, the Segraves later received an email from a participant who wrote, “Praise the Lord! I went out to preach and 35 people received Christ in an unreached village. Praise the Lord! My wife went out and preached an unreached village and 315 people responded to Christ.” more >>

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – There is hope in Africa – a continent ravaged by conflicts, poverty and HIV/AIDS – because God is at work in this land, said African Christian leaders Friday at the Lausanne conference.

In the last century, the African church has grown 3,000 percent, said Daniel Bourdanne, general secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students and international deputy director for the Lausanne movement, during the evening plenary focused on Africa. Even though Africa does not have money or technology, Bourdanne said, Africans can celebrate because God’s grace has been poured out on the continent.

“This (church growth through the Holy Spirit) is more than technology, more than money, more than anything that we can have,” declared the African leader from Chad, drawing loud applause from the 4,000 attendees of Lausanne III. more >>

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – Hundreds of imams and mullahs from West Africa have been coming to Christ in the past decade and in turn sharing the Gospel with their peers, said a former Muslim who witnesses to Muslim scholars and clerics.

Brother Daniel (last name withheld for security reasons) said that the initiative he started has exposed over 10,000 scholars, clerics and mullahs to the knowledge of salvation through Jesus Christ over the past 10 years. From that number, some 1,000 have come to Christ with 500 of them having completed discipleship training. Currently, 58 former mullahs, imams, and scholars from the initiative are sharing their faith in Christ, exclaimed Daniel to applause from the Lausanne III crowd.

“The Muslims that are around us are good people; they are sincere in their beliefs,” said Daniel Friday morning. “[But] even though they are very sincere, they are sincerely wrong.” more >>