Annual Report to the Assemblies of God Missionary Fellowship June 2011-May 2012
Dave and Debbie Johnson
Assemblies of God Missionary to the Philippines
www.drdavejohnson.blogspot.com
[Every year the missionaries on our field write an annual report to our colleagues, in preparation for our annual field meeting, to keep them abreast of what’s happening in our ministry. I thought I’d send ours along in case you missed some of our newsletters, are new to our mailing list, or would just enjoy a concise report of the last 12 months of our ministry. Hope you enjoy it. Dave]
Dear Friends,
This is the first time in quite awhile that we have had to file a report for Annual Meeting, and we are thrilled to do it!
Last September we completed our fourth itineration cycle and, one more time, bade our families a heartrending goodbye. When I was a new missionary I (Dave) was naïve enough to think this would get easier as time went on. Like many of you, we are dealing with aging parents issues, mostly on Debbie’s side of the family.
We took all of October just to get well settled in before beginning ministry. If you’ve been here awhile, you know the drill. Find a good house, spend a small fortune getting a zillion things fixed or modified to suit your needs and tastes, move in, set up house, and bring the dog home from where he had been staying with friends. We had a lot of fun getting reacquainted with our Filipino friends, many of whom pitched in to help.
While in the States, God spoke to Dave that we needed to “get better before getting bigger.” In response we spent November, part of December, and most of January, thoroughly reviewing every aspect of our evangelistic ministry and church planting program and making sweeping changes. All of this was done in concert with our evangelistic team and the district leadership. After all, we aren’t in this alone. We spent February and March preparing to make these changes, which we rolled out to the pastors at the district council in early April and are now just beginning to implement them.
Regarding our evangelistic ministry, our research revealed a need to shore up the spiritual vitality of the churches as well as our follow up program. Therefore, we switched from a three night outreach format to a one night revival meeting at the host church, then an afternoon training session followed by a one night outreach at an outdoor venue, and then a one day strategy session and follow-up kickoff. We are also moving towards greater accountability and ongoing training, hopefully expanding our churches and resulting in more church plants.
Researching regarding our house church planting program revealed that while we have planted 207 house churches in the last five years, the multiplication rate is not as high as it could be. The research also demonstrated that more training and better oversight of the workers is needed. In response, this June we will implement a second tier of training that will be built around a long term mentoring program.
We love Filipinos and are so privileged to serve with you!! Dave and Debbie
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