by Kathy Cranston, Mission to Unreached Peoples

Do you remember the old Herbal Essence commercial back in the 70’s? You know the one….the woman is so impressed by her new shampoo that she tells two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on and so on…till finally the TV screen is filled with too many faces to count.

I did the math today…if they did this, telling just 2 people each, just 30 times, it comes to over a million! Surprised?
But what if instead of shampoo, all these “so on’s and so on’s” were sharing the Good News? Not waiting to have all the answers, but bursting to tell their neighbor they found what they’ve been looking for!

That’s exactly what’s been happening among different people groups all over the world…a phenomenon that has been named “church planting movements.” These indigenous movements grow exponentially, unhampered by the limits of buildings, paid staff, or outside resources.

These CPM’s have been found to have certain characteristics universally in common. And amazingly, missionaries armed with that information have been able to foster new movements of astounding proportions.

So my organization, Mission to Unreached Peoples (MUP), asked, what if we as an organization dedicated ourselves exclusively to fostering church planting movements among the remaining 27.9% of the world with no access to the gospel?

What if we put our heads together with other organizations and national leaders who are also dedicated to fostering church planting movements…coordinating our efforts, sharing know-how, resources, and personnel? What would happen? Imagine!

There are already other organizations and leaders who are eager to partner with us in this effort. To maximize these partnerships, and to be better positioned to recruit the involvement of more organizations and individuals, MUP has made the decision to move to Dallas, planning the move for sometime in the next 4-8 months. And yes, I’m going.

Though I’ve been mobilizing missionaries with MUP for more than 5 years now, this has still been a very hard decision for me to make personally.….I love Seattle, I love Bethany. My roots are here, my family is here.

But my heart is on fire thinking “What if?”

If you would like to pray for, support, or just hear about my work with MUP, I’d love to send you my newsletter!! You can email me at KathyC@gatiwa.com. (MUP address: PO Box 860548, Plano TX 76086-0548; tel. 888-847-6950 or 469-814-8222)