Impact of the First World Missions Summit

The World Missions Summit is coming up at the end of this year, and so I asked E. Scott Martin (czar of the summit) what the long-term fruit of the first summit has been. His answer floored me and I share it with his permission.

He uses a lot of acronyms (he was writing an email to me off the top of his head, not expecting me to post it for the world to see), so let me give you a glossary:

• AGUSM/USM — Assemblies of God United States Missions
• AGWM/WM — Assemblies of God World Missions
• CMA — Campus Missionary Associate (people serving in Chi Alpha as associate staff, usually on a short-term basis [a few years])
• MA — Missionary Associate (people serving one to two years)
• MAPS — Missionary Abroad Placement Service (people serving 1–11 months, often in construction projects)
• MENA — Middle East/North Africa
• TWMS — The World Missions Summit
• XA — Chi Alpha Campus Ministries

You’ll probably need to refer back to that list several times as you read his email unless you’re very familiar with Assemblies of God in-house lingo.

…here are the hard stats. 661 students filled out commitment cards at TWMS. Neither AGWM, USM, or XA were really prepared to track those who came from TWMS and joined them in mission through MAPS, MA, or fully appointed missionaries. I inquired this past summer with Family Life and Personnel in AGWM about the number of students who had already gone to fulfill their commitment. To the best of their ability they sent me a spread sheet of 78 people who they related to TWMS due to the fact that their applications had the TWMS logo on them. However, of my 13 MAs and MAPpers serving with us in Kyrgyzstan at that time, only 2 of them were on that list and all of them made commitments at the Missions Summit.

I sent this observation back to AGWM and that is when they informed me they only went by the logo. I then began to correlate their list with those Crystal and I personally knew had gone AGWM from TWMS (We had 22 MAs and MAPers in our AGWM Area MENA and Central Eurasia with only 3 of them on the AGWM list being from TWMS) and we came up with 221 students who had gone so far since TWMS. This was the summer of 2007. And believe me, this is not comprehensive. There are more we don’t know about and I know of 3 who followed up their commitments with other agencies and actually informed AGWM of that so that AGWM knew they did not renege on their commitment to go. USM has absolutely no idea what so ever on who has connected in their various ministries after TWMS. We know of 2 who have contacted us who went USM outside of XA.

Here is the other big news. The number of CMAs in XA accelerated dramatically after TWMS. I will ask Bob what the number was prior to TWMS but today we have 168 MAs in the field which is far beyond what we have ever had. Bob and NLT suggest it is the direct result of TWMS, but that judgment is based only on the fact that the numbers leapt following TWMS and on conversations with campus pastors and those MAs.

At this past AGWM Missionary Interview and orientation 10 days ago which is only fully appointed and MAs, not MAPS (which most Chi Alphans go as now) there were 14 who had signed commitments at TWMS. 4 of those were fully appointed AGWM missionary candidates. Every PFO and interview there are more and more from TWMS. They asked who “signed cards” and not “who was at TWMS” so again I don’t think it is an accurate representation but close. Some have gone who made decisions at TWMS but didn’t sign the card. So, we could add these 14 to the 221 in AGWM. And I don’t have the list from October either which would add even more.

Based on this information I can safely and accurately say that at least half of those who signed the card at TWMS have fulfilled their commitments and we still have many in the pipeline right now from the first TWMS.

Wow. Two stats stand out to me.

1) Roughly 15% (661 out of around 4,000) of those at The World Missions Summit committed to give a year and pray about a lifetime of missionary service. That’s impressive but not unprecedented. Lots of people get caught up in emotional moments at conferences and say things that they later reconsider.
2) Over half of those people have already delivered and more are on the way (presumably finishing college first). That’s amazing. I hardly know what to do with a number like that except praise God. For comparison purposes, I would guess that at a youth camp or something the equivalent fulfillment rate is closer to 10%.

Bottom line — the first World Missions Summit rocked. God really used it to advance His plan on earth. I expect great things from the second one as well. Register now

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