Danny and Martin are both former “lifers” who took TUMI classes together in prison. They served the Lord faithfully inside and led the church, named Pillar of Fire, in their prison yard. They prayed for the Lord to one day allow them both to be released so they could serve Him together on the outside.
The Lord answered their prayers. Danny was released first about four years ago, and immediately continued his TUMI studies in San Diego. He is now married, employed, and a TUMI graduate. Upon graduation, he began mentoring the TUMI class he once attended. God also blessed Martin and allowed him to be released to San Diego about 6 months ago. Upon release, he too, immediately continued his TUMI studies and is scheduled to graduate in a few months.
Both these men love Jesus and His church, and the Lord has led them to start a church plant. The Pillar of Fire team, which includes Martin, Danny and his wife, Pamela, attended the Evangel School of Urban Church Planting in San Diego recently. World Impact and partnering churches host Evangel Schools across the country to empower urban leaders to plant churches in the city.
The Pillar of Fire team went through twenty-three hours of training over the weekend, which included worship, prayer, devotions, seminars, and team exercises to equip them to plant a healthy church. It was a grueling weekend but necessary to help equip the teams to plant healthy reproducing churches. Danny testified that in prison they didn’t write down goals and plans much, but after going through Evangel, sees the wisdom in it.
The Evangel coaches and mentors are focused on helping Pillar of Fire, along with 3 other teams, listen to the Lord and then obey His leading. They were encouraged to act in freedom to help establish outposts of praise and worship in their church plant target areas. We are asking the Lord to use Evangel schools to equip thousands of teams to ignite church planting movements in cities around the world.
