A strategy for cross-cultural church planting of Houston Chinese Church (Texas)

This Ministry Focus Paper is to develop a comprehensive strategy for planting a church cross-culturally in Almaty, Kazakstan.; The early church was slow in obeying the great commission of the Lord to make disciples of all nations. It reached out only to the Jews until there was a breakthrough in Antioch, where Christians from Cyprus and Cyrene first began to evangelize the Gentiles en masse. A new era in the history of missions was born. The Antioch church became the beachhead from which God launched a worldwide cross-cultural church planting operation.; The Houston Chinese Church was organized by a group of university students in 1975. It has since grown to 1,400 active members. It has extensive involvement in missions in the past, supporting dozens of mission agencies and missionaries. More than 80 of its members have answered the call into full-time ministry or missionary work. It has planted six churches locally and in the state of Texas. It is high time for the church to engage itself in cross-cultural church planting.; Almaty, Kazakstan is the second largest city in Central Asia. It is traditionally Muslim for centuries and has been under communist rule for 70 years. With the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1990 comes a window of opportunity for the gospel that is unparalleled in the history of that nation. The Spirit of God is moving. People are hungry for the good news. The field is ripe for harvest.; After extensive study and field trips by this writer, the Houston Chinese Church adopted the city for church planting in 1995. Plans were drawn up to launch the project, known as Operation AA. Ground support was motivated and solicited. Church planting policies were defined. Missionary support system was put in place, and missionaries were enlisted and deployed.; A blueprint for the future development of the church-planting project is carefully presented, mapping out effective strategy and making concrete recommendations for specific actions. It is the culmination of three years of pinning and mobilizing the church for cross-cultural church planting. Great things are anticipated from God.