Recently, I spent a week in Mexico City, one of largest cities in the world. The population is anywhere from 8 million to 19 million, depending on what you read. I even heard while I was there that the entire metropolitan area is around 55 million. Any way you look at it, it’s bigger than Carbon, Texas. The population there went back down to 224 when we moved to Mexico. We had a great week, had good response from the people, had several want return visits and Bible studies in their homes and we saw maybe 20-25 come to faith in Christ. But what is that among so many? Our missionaries there are laboring faithfully. But what can so few do to make a dent? And that’s just one city in one country. Where Terri and I live is in the very heart of what our missionaries call The Heart of Darkness. The need is overwhelming.

But God is on mission in His world. Winning the world is not a task He has left us to accomplish with our own ingenuity. He is doing a new old thing. It’s the same thing that was happening in the Book of Acts. Years ago we called it The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church. In recent years, a fresh wave of evangelism, missions and church growth has been termed Church Planting Movements. It’s not really new (Acts), it just obvious that the Lord of the Harvest is stepping up the pace. It’s a rapid multiplication of new churches that are reproducing themselves at exponential rates. We used to hear about multiplying disciples, and obviously that’s the foundation of CPM’s. But it’s happening at a breathtaking pace now in many parts of the world…India, China, Mongolia, Cambodia, Africa, the Muslim world, Latin America and even, to a lesser extent, parts of Europe and North America. It’s not a matter of “waiting” on God, rather of hurry up and join Him in what He is already doing.

Where we live ranges from 0-2% Evangelical. We are simply trying to do our little part in being a human catalyst for a CPM here. It’s the only way we’ll be able to impact a nation for Christ.

Correction: It is the way God is going to impact our nations for Christ. I urge you to find and read Church Planting Movements (How God is Redeeming a Lost World) by David Garrison.

Thank you for those who continue faithfully in supporting us financially.

Dan and Terri Grindstaff
Chapala, Mexico