July 17 1995

ARTICLE TOOLS

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About 4,000 evangelism leaders gathered in South Korea in May to re-energize their outreach efforts, hoping to establish "a church for every people and the gospel for every person by the year 2000."

AD 2000 and Beyond Movement chairperson Thomas Wang sees the advent of a new millennium as a distinct and historic opportunity to rally Christians for evangelism. Since 1987 he has been using the milestone year of 2000 as a means to motivate mission-minded Christians to accomplish the Great Commission from Jesus Christ to preach the gospel to all people.

"This time-target can stimulate the churches of the world to devote their efforts in evangelism, church planting, and overseas missions," Wang says.

The movement marked a milestone of its own by convening a Global Consultation on World Evangelism (GCOWE '95)-a nine-day event in May that attracted nearly 4,000 delegates from 185 countries to Seoul.

"This consultation is the most strategic mission conference in history," said Kim Joon Gon, chairperson of the Korean preparation committee. "The 4,000 delegates who are here now can become like the 120 disciples in the Upper Room at Pentecost."

Fueled by high-octane worship led by Graham Kendrick and others, the mood was decisively upbeat, including a ceremony in Olympic Stadium where 70,000 Korean young people dedicated themselves to Christian service.

MANAGEMENT MISSIONS: But GCOWE '95 was primarily a working and strategy conference. Participating groups had long been busy breaking the Great Commission task down to its component parts and looking for ways of efficiently dividing the remaining responsibilities. "The track and network concepts are helping us to organize our evangelism efforts," said Dia Diafwila, director of Every Home for ...