April News and Update

Dear Friends of Mission Surge,

I wanted to give you an update before April turned into May. I depend so much on your faithful prayers! I appeal to you to please please take time to pray for us and our work. You do not know how much we appreciate it.

First, I want to give you an update on the Oblivious Documentary. It was our goal to have it complete by the middle to end of this month, however we are behind our original schedule. The winter months were so wet and cold that it made it difficult to get out on the street and interview people. We kept having to postpone our on-the-street interview again and again. If we can remain on schedule from this point on, all filming should be complete by mid May. Then the film can be edited and released. Please pray that we will not fall farther behind. I really believe that this is going to be a tool to help awaken the people of the Bible belt to their need for the gospel. Please pray.

I also want to ask you to pray for me as I speak at Hopewell Baptist Church in Crystal Springs this Sunday morning. I will be sharing about the Great Commission and the work of Mission Surge. I still have several Sundays available this year if God would lead you, or your pastor, to host a harvest day, revival, family discipleship conference, or missions conference. I am also available to come and share about the work of Mission Surge with your church on Sunday night or Wednesday night. Please pray that God would continue to open doors!

Before I traveled to the Dominican Republic I promised to blog some quotes and notes from the autobiography of John Paton. I will begin posting those notes and quotes on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning next week. Please go to kevinivy.blogspot.com on Tuesdays and Fridays if you are interested in gleaning from one of the richest missionary biographies I have ever read! You can also follow my blog there if you have not already done so!

We are laying the ground work for beginning a mission here in Crystal Springs. We covet your prayers for this endeavor as well. We hope to have a Back Yard Bible Club this summer and get a Good News Club started in the local elementary school next school year. We have also found a location for an evangelistic Bible study to be held on Sunday nights. Now, we just need help and some converts! Please pray that God would lead, guide, direct, and work through us to reach this area with the gospel.

Please pray for our partner ministries: Refugee Ministries International, Coram Deo, and ECCI. Our new website is set to launch over the weekend (barring technical difficulty). You will be able to go to www.missionsurge.com and click on “From the Field” and read about their respective ministries, follow them on Facebook, read their blogs, listen to sermons, and give as the Lord would lead. We all covet your prayers. I ask you to please be in prayer as well for a couple who are prayerfully considering going to Southeast Asia as full time missionaries with Mission Surge. They are out of the country now seeking God’s leadership, guidance, and direction in this endeavor. Please pray for them and for us that God’s will be done.

Finally, for the past several years I have been praying about and meditating on and thinking through an 8 part discipleship study based on 2 Peter 1:5-8. It says, “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self- control, and self- control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter seems to make an outlandish promise in this text. He seems to be saying that if we make every effort to add to our faith these qualities and increase in them that they will keep us from being ineffective or unfruitful! This caught my attention because it seemed as though Peter was giving us a step by step process of growing into maturity. I wanted to take this list of qualities and formulate a discipleship study on each quality that would build upon the one before it. I wanted this to be something that was reproducible and geared for 1 on 1 or 1 on 2 discipleship. It has been like beating my head against a brick wall for the past 2-3 years! I could not get anywhere until 2014. God has been unfolding link after link in this chain over the past few months! I am overwhelmed at the progress that has been made. The rough drafts of the first 5 qualities have been completed! Each are 2 weeks in length (except for faith) and are easily reproducible and geared for 1 on 1 discipleship. I am super excited about utilizing this in our work in Crystal Springs and in our church as God would lead! This study will be available for down load as soon as the kinks are worked out. I hope that you will find it useful to you as well.

One of the kinks that needs to be worked out is a name for the study. I have come up with a few possibilities on my own, but I am not super “creative.” I have considered “The Matrix.” A matrix is like a womb, an environment perfectly suited for growth and development so I thought, this study, rooted in 2 Peter, would be like The Matrix of Spiritual growth. Another option is The Network. I want this study to be a net that fishers of men can cast into a lost community and make disciples with. I want it to be used for net-work so to speak. I also want it to be reproducible and used to form a network of disciple making disciples. Finally, since Peter (the rock) wrote the outline for the study, I thought about calling it Rock Solid. I am also open to suggestions. Are you willing to help me name this discipleship study? If so, I want to ask you to take 15 seconds, follow the link below, and choose the title that you think is the best…OR write your own suggestion! I would appreciate it if you would take time to follow the link and give me your opinion. I would appreciate it even more if you would lift me up and this study up in prayer. 

Name the Study here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FVX9PCW

Thank you so much for your prayer support, your financial gifts, and your willingness to spread the word about Mission Surge! If you know of someone that I can add to this newsletter, please have them email me at kevin@missionsurge.com We need all the prayer support we can get.  If you haven’t done so you can...

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/missionsurge 
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mission-Surge/145423062144598
Follow my blog: http://kevinivy.blogspot.com 
Listen to sermons online: http://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=missionsurge 

Thanks again for your faithfulness to pray for us and encourage us!

Until next time… 

Feb 2011 Mission Surge Update

Dear Friends of Mission Surge,


I would ask you to please be in prayer about the following things.

I. The Dominican Republic

Please be in prayer for Ministerio Visión Emmanuel, a ministry that is led by one of our Dominican church planters and pastors. This year this ministry will be focusing on 4 rural areas of Santo Domingo and Haiti.

1. La Cuba

We have already started two bible studies in La Cuba. Last week we had a great opportunity to share the Gospel with a local witchcraft-man. This man allowed us to visit his Church of Satan and Wilfrido had the opportunity to share his personal testimony with him. The witchcraft-man knows that he is under Satan's chains and he reconized that only Jesus can set him free. Pray for the Lord to give us His power while we are testifying His Word and greatness. Please pray that the Lord would break the evil that reigns in La Cuba.

2. Invivienda

We have a new church plant in the DR that is slowly growing. Please pray for the members to grow deep in their faith and that many in this neighborhood would come to know Jesus as their Savior.

3. Santa Rosa

Please pray for this poor neighborhood. Pray that God would raise up workers to work in this neighborhood, planting the seeds of the gospel. Pray that many would respond to the truth and that a new church plant would spring up in this neighborhood this year.

4. Jamiaca

Pray for Jamiaca, another poor neighborhood in Santo Domingo. Please pray that the Lord would call out "people of peace" in the neighborhood that will open their homes to begin weekly Bible studies. Pray that many would come to know Jesus as their Savior this year in Jamiaca.

5. Pray for our church planter/missionary training coming up in May (tentatively) and a mission trip that is
scheduled for May 9-16 to help advance the work of Ramon Sosa and Wilfrido (two of our key church
planters).

II. Kenya

Airline tickets have already been purchased for the four men who will be going to Kenya, May 30-June 10. Dr. Paul Young who is the chairman of our board of directors will be teaching approximately 400 pastors in Kenya how to properly read, interpret, and teach the Scriptures. Please be in prayer for this trip.

1. Pray for funds ( a minimum of $1500) to help feed and house the Kenyan pastors who are traveling to the conference.

2. Pray for Bibles. There will be about 120 pastors from Uganda who do not have Bibles. Mission Surge plans to purchase these pastors Swahili Bibles in Kenya. They are approximately $9 each. For 120 we will need approximately $1080.

3. Pray for the four men who are going. Mission Surge would love to be able to help these men with the cost of their trip, especially Dr. Young. Pray for God to raise up help for them from their personal friends and through Mission Surge.

III. Southeast Asia

Please continue to pray for our Vietnamese church planters who are being trained in Southeast Asia. Also, be in prayer for our missionary on the ground there, who will be coming in August to personally share about the work with the Vietnamese.

IV. India

Please pray for a pastor connection we have in India. He desperately needs to raise $20,000 to provide the land for his orphanage or the government will shut him down and the boys he houses will be sent to Muslim orphanages that are approved by the Muslim government there. If his orphanage does not comply with the land and space requirements, it will be closed. We are praying that, if it is God’s will for him to relocate, the money will be raised. Pray with us about this.

V. Opportunities

Finally, please pray for opportunities to share about and raise awareness of Mission Surge. We will be at Audobon Drive Bible Church in Laurel, MS March 4-6, Union Baptist Church in Brookhaven March 26-30, and Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Quitman, MS September 18-21. If you know of a church that would allow us to come and share about the work of Mission Surge, or who would be interested in hosting a conference on the Gospel, the Family, the Church, or the Mission please let us know ASAP.

I know this is a lengthy email, but we desperately need your prayers. Please, please take time to forward this update to everyone that you possibly can. Spread the word. If you have received this as a forward and you would like to be added to the contact list, just email me kevin@missionsurge.com your name and address and I will add you to the list.

Thanks for praying for us.

Mission Surge Update

Dear Mission Surge Friends,


I wanted to give you an update of what has been going on with Mission Surge over the past few weeks and an idea of what the future holds so that you can join us in prayer.

First, we are grateful for how God has worked. A team of 4 men just returned from Southeast Asia and training Vietnamese pastors and lay leaders related to Operation Backdoor. Mission Surge was prepared to spend $600 for this training. However, just before we left for SE Asia, the number of pastors and lay-leaders increased so that we had to pay $1100 to cover the expenses (travel, food, etc). This took $500 out of our fund that we had planned to use to purchase laptops for our contacts in the Dominican Republic. We chose to follow God’s guidance step by step and trust Him for the funds for the laptops if He wanted us to have them. So, we spent the $1100 in SE Asia.

I returned from SE Asia and discovered that our DR trip (to deliver the laptops I could not afford) had to be postponed. In the meantime, God placed on someone’s heart the burden to purchase the remainder of the laptops. Through that time, the trip was rescheduled for a couple of weeks later. The trip was postponed in the Providence of God. God impressed someone to meet the need. The laptops have been purchased, and will be delivered Dec 6 to the DR God willing. God is Sovereign and He is our provider and we give Him thanks. When we learn to wait upon Him, He will accomplish what He wants done.

Last weekend we held our first ever Mission Surge Conference. We had many great men of God come and share with us over the weekend. Everyone was encouraged and challenged. Video and audio of the conference will be available in the near future.

I also want to inform you guys that the Mission Surge website is live. Please take time to go check it out. Over time we will be adding video of the sermons preached at the Mission Surge conference last weekend. We will also make available different Bible studies, resources, and helps to encourage you as individuals, families, churches, and in our mission to reach the world. Most of these resources will be downloadable and therefore free! The website is http://www.missionsurge.com/ Please go check it out and share the link with your friends, post it on Facebook, forward it through email, and help us get the word out.

Next week we hope to apply with the Federal government for 501(c)3 status. We have been approved by the state and given a state tax ID number, but we have not filed federally yet. That process is supposed to begin this coming week. Crossing this bridge will allow people to receive tax credit for their gifts to Mission Surge. Pray that it goes smoothly and that the funds necessary are made available.

Pray that God’s will be done concerning the timing of our upcoming DR trip Dec 6. Many important things are going to take place on this brief trip that will lay the groundwork for the future. The DR is our most stable work and we need this trip to solidify some things. You can learn more about our work there at: Reaching Santo Domingo

Lift up those pastors and lay-leaders trained through operation backdoor. Continue to pray for God to raise up individuals to support the financial needs in that ministry. You can see these needs at: Operation Backdoor

Finally, please be in prayer about a possible open door in Kenya. Mission Surge has the opportunity to be involved in the training of 400-500 Kenyan pastors in April of 2011. We have been quietly praying that if this is God’s doing He will call out the right pastor to go. One of our board members has indicated that he is feeling led to take on this training opportunity in Kenya. Now, we are waiting on God to prepare the funds to host the conference (transport, feed, and house these Kenyan pastors who do not have the funds to attend otherwise). The cost is estimated at $5000. I know that is a big chunk, but when you think about it, we can train 500 pastors in Kenya for a week for $10 apiece. Not too bad? Please pray that God will raise up 10 people to give $100 a month for November, December, January, February, and March. That will provide the needed funds to do the work. Pray that God would put it on someone’s heart to contribute the total amount, or on 5 people’s hearts to give $1000 each. If He wants this to happen in Kenya, He will raise up the needed support. Please pray that He would do His will in the matter soon so that we can begin making preparations on this end to go.

Finally, forward this around to your praying friends. If you are reading this on the Mission Surge blog, through Facebook, or if a friend has forwarded it to you and you would like to receive email updates directly from Mission Surge, please email kevin@missionsurge.com and put UPDATES in the subject line and you will be added to our email list.

Thanks for praying for us.



In Christ,



Kevin
kevin@missionsurge.com
http://www.missionsurge.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Florence-MS/Mission-Surge/145423062144598?ref=ts
kevinivy.com