Anyone experienced in ministry knows well that apart from God’s working, nothing worthwhile can be done. As Solomon asserts in Psalm 127, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.” After all our efforts, in the end, we are only planters or those who water, workers in God’s great, harvest field. “So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building” (1 Cor. 3.7-9).
Beyond question, God has done much through TUMI this year – things which have helped us fulfill our World Impact focus areas and initiatives. For instance, under the umbrella of planting healthy churches, we sponsored our first Evangel Dean School of Urban Church Planting, equipping nearly 24 church plant deans to sponsor their own church planting schools around the country in 2016. We wrote a church plant school manual for teams, Ripe For Harvest, and authored a guidebook for those who will sponsor church plant schools in the coming year. Additionally, we wrote a two volume anthology set entitled Planting Churches Among the City’s Poor, more than 1,200 pages of missional resources for urban church planters. Altogether, we’ve written nine books this year, including our Fight the Good Fight discipleship guidebook. We hope to translate these books into 20 languages over the next years, equipping 100,000 disciples of Christ to live as ambassadors for him where they live and work.
To resource urban leaders, we hosted our 2015 The Power of Team TUMI Summit with more than 300 attendees, sponsored a discipleship conference with an urban church (Making Disciples in Broken Places). Additionally, we prepared and presented a full set of materials for our Men’s Conferences, in both English and Spanish, entitled Unshakeable Kingdom, Unwavering Warrior. We created a daily devotional guide called Ambassadors in Chains, based on the 2016 Church Year C readings, with a complimentary yearly calendar entitled The Majestic Splendor of God. We produced quality worship resources, completing five music projects, including our first Spanish CD project, Born Again to Praise.
To support our missional partners, we hired a Translation Manager, Harold Roesler, to help us construct a translation “factory” which will enable us to translate our Capstone curriculum into 10 languages and Fight the Good Fight guide into 20 languages by 2021. We have not been bashful in sharing this vision with others, producing a video on our vision to labor with others to fulfill the Great Commission, making 217 invitations to partner, visiting 9 prisons, and entered into 3 Capstone translation agreements (Arabic, Hindi, and Telegu). Through God’s blessing we have added new TUMI satellites for a total of 218, awarded certificates to 159 graduates, and even launched three new TUMI sites in Cuba, two of which are in partnership with Manantial de Amor, a large Spanish-speaking church in Los Angeles. We added two accredited partners (Fuller Theological Seminary and City Vision University), received approval for TUMI program in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and began a partnership with the Free Methodist denomination to use Capstone to aid in the credentialing of Spanish-speaking pastors.
This list, as amazing as it is, only represents a portion of the wonderful things God has done through TUMI this year to advance his Kingdom around the world. When all is said and done, though, we can take no credit for any of it. It was by the Lord’s hand, done in his name, and carried out for his glory. May it ever be so!