Our East Asian Prototype Program ‒ One Year Later
We are nurturing and deepening intimacy with God in the nations.
Brother Z is a top-level leader of a large national church-planting network in East Asia. He took part in our four-month training program for building top-level leaders from around the nation.
The following year, Brother Z visited our current prototype program. He shared deeply about the impact of the training on his own life and ministry, while affirming our models and approach to training in order to exhort the current cohort to give it their very best! He told of being exposed to many different trainings, but how this training is totally different. It always has very clear goals, followed by a design process to actually achieve those goals. Nothing is done just for the sake of teaching a course; instead, it is always strategic.
“So many other trainings focus solely on courses… a course for this, a course for that. But what course could be better than the Bible? That’s the best course! But in order for any seed to grow, good soil is needed. The 4D model cultivates hearts to become good soil in order to receive the good teaching of God’s Word.”
Brother Z’s church network was well known for being strong in teaching and worship ministry, but extremely weak in relationships and follow-through, in terms of actually putting the teaching into practice.
He shared that in the past, they had spent so much time training new leaders, yet, in the end, the new leaders told them, “You have fed us with a lot of plastic apples!” Brother Z exclaimed,
“Wow! That was heart piercing and hard to take. We had worked so hard, but they said it was plastic apples! It looked good and attractive, but, in reality, it was only plastic – no real nourishment, no lasting value.”
Brother Z went on to contrast that with the ConneXions training and how it always targets transformation of lives. He related that in his ConneXions year, he cried more tears than in all his years before combined! He had never been able to cry, but here God was piercing his heart every day through the teachings and touching his life in many ways. Influenced by another brother in the program, he fasted two meals a day during two-thirds of the program, which greatly nurtured and deepened his intimacy with God.
The relationships built in this program are lifelong, not just for the present. So his challenge to the participants was to cherish each other and invest in relationship with each other. When his cohort had their first reunion, it was such a wonderful reunion! They really appreciated and enjoyed their friendships with each other and acknowledged the very precious gift of having one another in their lives.
Brother Z reiterated what a precious opportunity ConneXions offers and encouraged the cohort to be aggressive and take every opportunity to learn and grow in order to receive the maximum blessing.
