Collaborative Sessions Provide Encouragement, Provoke Ideas
AMSTERDAM, June 23, 2023 – As Amsterdam2023 EveryONE conference participants hear from speakers and attend workshops this week, one of the key benefits will be their take-aways from collaborative, language- and region-based round table discussions regarding new ideas and strategies for reaching people in their areas who have not yet heard the gospel message. Thursday’s theme “New Strategies” provoked creativity in this area, with many of the speakers and workshop presenters addressing how new technologies and digital media make previously unreached people groups now more accessible than ever.
Morning session presenter Dr. Ed Stetzer, referencing his tenure as longtime director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, in acknowledgement of Mr. Graham’s historic role in leading global evangelism strategy meetings in 1983, 1986 and 2000, said “I can’t imagine the joy Billy Graham would have had to see us here today.”
Dr. Stetzer shared a presentation on four strategies for revitalizing evangelism in the midst of cultural convulsions, with a focus on the digital frontier. He led a panel of experts in this arena, highlighting the need to see digital ministry as integral rather than peripheral, to help the community of Christians be more deeply and relationally connected, to view evangelism as not just a point, but a point and a process, and to shift mindset from an organization-led mission to inspire, mobilize, and equip every single believer to see the digital space as an opportunity for them to reach the world.
Some of the highlights from the daily round table collaboration sessions include a focus on that very theme – collaborating in the task of evangelism; not just cooperation, but inter-church, inter-generational, mission-oriented collaboration with diverse strategies and cultural adaptability. “We are seeing come out of these discussions a new desire for and commitment to unity in mission,” said small group facilitator Max Barroso, Executive Strategist for Ministry and Leadership Initiatives at Oral Roberts University. “We’ve agreed that we need to move from unity for unity’s sake to unity for the mission’s sake.”
Evening speakers continued to expound upon the topics from the afternoon workshop sessions related to developing new strategies for varied spheres of influence and mission focus. Alpha pioneer Nicky Gumbel spoke about the need for resilience in order to fulfill the Great Commission. He said four things are required to sustain this resilience: vision, love, relationships and empowerment. “If everyone is involved, every church and every nation, with vision, with the love of Jesus in our hearts, our relationships and the power of God, there’s no reason we shouldn’t see this whole world reached by 2033,” he said.
Paul Adefarasin, Senior Pastor of the House of the Rock Church in Lagos, Nigeria, addressed the many walls that prevent the spread of the gospel. “We build walls between races, nations, classes and denominations. But Jesus came to tear the walls down. The walls in your life, every wall that the enemy has built, are going to come tumbling down,” he exclaimed.
Dr. Samuel Rodriguez, President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, addressed the idea of God doing a new thing in peoples’ lives. “We worship the God who not only restores but gives us what we never had before, He is Lord of the new thing,” he said. “As we make room for an unprecedented harvest we must embrace something new. Some of us are focused on attempting to get back to what we lost when we should be asking for what we never had in the first place. I’m not interested in renovating our past but in replacing it with something new!”
Empowered21 has also taken the opportunity this week to recognize the contributions of two key leaders in the spirit-empowered movement. On Wednesday evening, Dr. Dick Eastman was presented with the Lifetime Global Impact Award for his decades of dedication to prayer and evangelism. He is a prolific author and speaker on the topic and serves as the chief prayer officer of Every Home for Christ, a ministry that has planted over 4.7 billion gospel messages to homes worldwide since 1946, resulting in over 243 million responses. He also serves as president of America’s National Prayer Committee, a diverse group of evangelical leaders instrumental in planning America’s annual National Day of Prayer.
Thursday evening’s honoree was Dr. E.A. Adeboye, who also received a Lifetime Global Impact Award for his service to the Kingdom. He serves as General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God based in Lagos, Nigeria, with thousands of RCCG churches worldwide. He is known as “Daddy G.O.” to millions of spiritual children throughout the continent of Africa. He was launched into international prominence in December, 1998, when he hosted an open air meeting with an attendance of over 7 million people as reported by CNN and the BBC, which grew to 12 million the following year. In recognition of his contribution as a global icon and preacher of God’s Word, he was selected in 2008 as one of the world’s 50 most influential people by Newsweek magazine, USA.
Amsterdam2023 continues with another round of plenary sessions, workshops and collaborative small groups on Friday, concluding on Saturday with a morning of local outreach throughout the city before the concluding worship time at Olympic Stadium. Conference attendees will be sharing 30,000 invitations with individuals throughout Amsterdam during the course of the next two days, inviting them out to a “Celebration of Hope” at the stadium on Saturday evening. Previous sessions are available online for review and online registration is still available at www.amsterdam2023.com.
About Empowered21
Empowered 21 (E21) is the world’s largest Spirit-empowered relational network. E21 is comprised of a global council, international and regional leadership teams, and various work groups. E21 organizes regional and global events to inspire the Spirit-empowered community. E21 mobilizes efforts to recognize and implement effective models to answer the cry for spiritual fathers and mothers, connecting generations for intergenerational blessing and impartation and focusing on crucial issues facing the movement. For more information about Empowered 21 and Amsterdam 2023, visit https://empowered21.com and https://amsterdam2023.com.
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