Childhood nostalgia first. In my Indian school days—when leftover British customs allowed teachers to discipline students with a stick—I received my share of “education.” Once a teacher asked, “Why did Jesus come into the world?” When no one replied, he walked down the line thumping each boy’s head with a ruler, shouting, “Love! Love! Love! That’s why Jesus came into the world!”

If only he had explained his expectation, we might have fared better. Unlike the teacher, philosophical theology carefully distinguishes between reason and purpose.

• Reason: God’s love—“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8; see also John 3:16).
• Purpose: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).

Two answers, but the two together give us the Merry in Merry Christmas!

Just days ago, I spoke at my old high school—a packed-out auditorium of 850 energetic young people. I saw myself in them, and them in me. I even offered to switch ages (no takers yet). So I did the next best thing: shared with them the love, love, love of God and the save, save, save purpose of Christ—calling them to embody both in their fields of influence.

A dozen factors inclined me to seize this sudden event with two plenary talks in one day halfway across the world. Itinerant proclamation provides for firsthand awareness of human realities with face-to-face expressions of God’s love and Christ’s purpose.

God has reinforced me entirely (it has been two years since major health challenges) and given Bonnie and me: 

• life and breath
• health and strength 
• opportunities and resources
• purpose and activity

Therefore, how could I possibly decline the invitation?

That same spirit carried me earlier this year to the place nobody has ever heard of (as one world leader joked): Lesotho. Five years earlier, I’d had to cancel that trip on the very day the pandemic shut the world down. This time, by God’s grace, I fulfilled my promise. During my time there with political and pastoral leaders—and even in a private audience with their king—I gratefully delivered the message that their nation is known to me and loved by God.

Media proclamation allows us to overcome political and personal prohibition, to go where no outsider can personally go, or at least not easily to go.

We have been stunned by the response to our social media campaigns—tens of millions of impressions, reach, and engagements; millions of outbound and inbound messages; tens of thousands of unique and repeat responders, as well as gospel presentations; and most importantly, thousands of professions of faith, with tens joining a local church, discipleship group, and even being baptized. Praise to the Lover and Savior. 

LifeRocks media outreach initiatives are oriented toward:

• pre-Christ audiences—regions with the largest H**** and M***** populations

• most populous communities—South Asia is the densest region in the world

• youngest majorities—in a nation of 1 billion plus, 65% are under the age of 35

• places least religiously and culturally open to and accessible by the gospel 

• the largest English-speaking, mobile-centric audience in the world

The leader of a historic Christian hospital in one of these regions said, “Our work has used millions of dollars in over a hundred years of ministry in the spirit of Christ, but we haven’t seen a single profession of faith in the name of Christ. And in the space of a few months, you have had six professions of faith in Christ … and followed them up.”  

Christ’s loving reason and saving purpose for coming into the world are expressed continuously and creatively through this ministry, with much more planned over the next five years. As the Lord directs, provides, and establishes, we are prayerfully planning and aiming for ten-fold growth. 

If you are interested in the deep and wide media proclamation of the reason and purpose of Christmas, you may request our latest weekly report for thoughtful study and financial consideration. A third of the needed five-year funding is already pledged. Would you pray about joining the advancement of this social media campaign through year-end giving? 

Please join these crucial times of opportunity! I invite you to go together into LifeRocks 2.0, 10x by 2030. 

Because Christ came into the world, in love, love, love, I go. You go. We go through the direct proclamation of God’s Word in itinerant and media ministry. You and I, however, will one day be unable to personally and directly go. We need to prepare others to go beyond and after our lives. 

To distribute local proclamation of the Christ who came, we continue a human capital campaign for multiplied local impact worldwide that is in fast flow and gaining momentum. The Global Proclamation Commission for Trainers of Pastors, currently a satellite ministry of RREACH, multiplies the quality and quantity of trainers of pastors. It excels and extends the local proclamation of God’s Word beyond us and after me.

For example, a pilot program has just launched in Mozambique, bringing together formal, nonformal, and informal pastor-training streams into one national plan. We hope to replicate similar multifaceted local pastor trainer initiatives called MLTPLs—Multiplying Local Trainers of Pastoral Leaders—in 100 countries by 2030. (For some areas, our pre-COVID goal date may be adjusted to 2033 to accommodate the providential delay of three COVID years.) Already PreacherReach Women’s Workshops are expanding from Asia into Latin America and Africa.

Trainers of pastors serve as the human infrastructure to fulfill Christ’s purpose for coming into the world. Pastoral leaders minister on site, serve long term, are more relevant, and live less expensively while delivering spiritual health locally than other missions models. Sadly, a vast number of these local pastors (90%) are undertrained for pastoral ministry. Hence, the need for trainers of pastors.

Please prayerfully support the needed monies (half has come in—thank you!) to fulfill the Global Proclamation Commission, which partners with leading ministries. The pastor-trainer level is the first and foundational tier of a four-tier ecosystem:

• Trainers—strengthen undertrained pastors.
• Pastors—develop church leaders.
• Leaders—equip believers. 
• Believers—reach the world in their fields of influence.

RREACH has embarked on a complex and large task of reaching and raising 100,000 trainers of pastors for the training of 1 million pastoral leaders by 2030/33. This goal compels our focus and activity. We are pursuing the faster delivery of better training to more pastoral leaders at lower costs with urgency, intensity, and incredible partnerships.

So there you go. Since Christ came, I go, you go, they go, and we go, because the One who came into the world to save sinners, said “Go”—the shortest full sentence in the English language.