One of our favorite organizations is International Cooperating Ministries, a:
non-profit, trans-denominational Christian organization that works toward the mission of nurturing believers and assisting church growth worldwide. With our partners, we leverage simple church growth principles to see our vision of growth in the faith of individual believers, the number of people within each church, and the number of churches within a nation-truly actualizing Christ’s commission to “make disciples of all nations!”
They primarily build churches (roughly $7,000 each) and church/orphanages (roughly $25,000). The church/orphanages are exciting projects because they not only help the local church and the orphans, but the widows who take care of the orphans as well.
They use a “web” approach, so that each church that receives a building needs to help 5 other churches start in their vicinity.
They offer a “mini-Bible college” to help the churches have sound doctrine.
One of the things I like about them is that their administrative costs are paid for by a foundation, so 100% of what you give goes straight to the projects.
They build churches around the world, including many countries where persecution is rampant.
Check out their web site and see what you think. You might want to donate or get a group to raise funds for a church. Perhaps you’ve been seriously blessed and could pay for a whole church yourself! Think about that for a while. It is a great way to encourage other believers, help widows and orphans, and spread the Gospel! Who knows, you might get to go visit them someday in this life, but if you are a believer you can be sure you’ll catch up with them in Heaven someday.
As Jesus said, where your treasure is there your heart will be also. When you donate to projects around the world your heart will go there as well.
Here is an example of a group in need, Project # 09IN12788TAM — This congregation lives in Uttar Pradesh, one of the most unreached and militant states of India with 20% Muslim and nearly 80% Hindu. Evangelism is much more dangerous here and Christians often suffer religious persecution. From the pastor, Ram Prakash:
I had a vision to spread the Word of God. The Lord helped me hold meetings in my house with five people in 2000. The gatherings increased to forty or more; we rented a house, and more came. In 2001 – 2003, there were many kinds of difficulties. In some areas, police took up against ministries. In the midst of this, many people came forward and were baptized, and God allowed us to spread to adjoining districts.
In the last eight years, God has been so faithful. Now we have more than 100 people and more than that have been baptized. Due to the lack of facilities, many cannot come every week. I pray God will allow us to build a church soon.
Filed under: Evangelism, Giving | Tagged: Evangelism, God, Gospel, icm, international cooperating ministries, Jesus, orphanage, persecution, religion
Neil,
I want to thank you and your beautiful family for your love and support of ICM and our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.
Thank you for blogging about ICM. I just returned from our home office and I learned of so many more people coming to Christ. As we continue to build churches (3,400 with 20,000 daughter planted congregations in 52 countries) The needs for bible study materials to help nurture them and get them rooted in their faith as well as a place to worship are critical. Thank you again for helping to bring this to light.
In Him,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Thanks! It is our pleasure. ICM is such an effective ministry. I pray that others will partner with us to spread the Gospel and solid Bible teaching while helping those in poor and/or persecuted countries, and especially widows and orphans (James 1:27).
I think we have a duty as Christians to be wise and intentional about where we give money. I love ICM’s simple model and how all the $ go straight to the projects.