• The New Wave is flowing! This time it reached a high water mark as many of you were praying for the recent Global Proclamation Congress for Pastoral Trainers in Bangkok, Thailand, June 15-22. We felt those prayers in powerful ways as 2,573 delegates gathered onsite representing 101 of the 112 registered nations. 872 more wanted to attend but in some cases were denied visas after multiple attempts. But many of these and others will be part of the GProCongress community going forward as the Congress was simply the launch of a larger initiative to connect, unite and strengthen the 2.2+ million pastors serving Christ’s Church around the world. Lausanne, the WEA, CRU and several other groups were global advocates and collaborators for this historic gathering. Prayer became the priority for the Congress as our first evening plenary session focused solely on praise and prayer. Daniel Pandji, who helped lead the World Prayer Assembly in Indonesia, was asked to facilitate this special evening. He asked me to join him as an East West expression of the global prayer movement. Dr. Leslie Keegel from Sri Lanka also led in prayer as well as Pastor Kosum who chairs Thailand National Prayer Network. The night felt like a reboot of the World Prayer Assembly as about 200 Indonesian leaders and many others from around the world participated. 

• Of the many global mission and prayer gatherings I’ve attended, there has never been the levels of Kingdom connections that took place in Bangkok. Delegate after delegate commented on how God had connected them in amazing ways with new friends and ministry colleagues for the advance of His Kingdom. Because the delegates represented pastoral trainers at both the formal (think seminary and Bible colleges) as well as the informal (think church planting networks in places like China), the potential to impact the health of the global Church was significant. I’m convinced your prayers and those of the delegates and their Personal Intercessory Teams, including our amazing on-site prayer team, caused this incredible outpouring of God’s Spirit, His favor and His grace on the Congress. We also watched as prayer leaders and networks came together, including a key statewide prayer leaders from Bangalore, India, who shared with Daniel how they are implementing the “My Home” concept across their state.

• Our convener, Dr. Ramesh Richard, likes to says, “Healthy pastors produce healthy churches and healthy churches produce healthy communities.” But we know that, “Praying pastors are healthy pastors.” This was the specific focus you helped bring to the Congress as our GProCongress Prayer Working Group was tasked with helping to create a “culture of praise and prayer” in both the personal and corporate lives of the pastoral trainers and the tens of thousands of pastors they will mentor. Several of you are part of this Prayer Working Group. It is our hope that many more will join us as we work to identify the best prayer catalysts, tactics, practices and resources to help the global pastoral community embrace prayer as the first priority in their personal and corporate ministry lives. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for your prayers for the Congress. Thank you for all you are doing to advance a culture of prayer around the world. Let’s continue to pray that God would pour our His grace and favor upon pastoral trainers and pastors - so that His global Church would be known as a house of prayer for all nations. Here’s a few pictures and one small link for you to view the Congress activity.

https://vimeo.com/171802425/62d52e2190