The How of the Great Commission

Perhaps you are thinking, “I'm convinced that men are lost without Christ and that multitudes are ready to receive Him. I want to obey our Lord Jesus Christ by helping to fulfill the Great Commission, but what does God want me to do? How do I begin?”

This great task can be accomplished only as millions of Christians work together, pooling their resources to complete the task. Also, millions of Christians need to develop a personal strategy that ties in directly to the global strategy of our Lord.

Campus Crusade as a Model

The Campus Crusade for Christ overall strategy for helping to fulfill the Great Commission is called New Life 2000. The plan calls for mobilizing millions of Christians in thousands of churches of all denominations and hundreds of various missionary organizations to help saturate the world of six billion people with the gospel by the year 2000.

This plan, which is supported by thousands of Christian leaders on every continent, has divided the world into population areas of one million people. Presently, we are in the process of establishing five thousand New Life Training Centers. These centers are being staffed with trained leaders dedicated to training spiritual multipliers and ten thousand “JESUS” film teams utilizing the film and other tools of evangelism to help saturate each of the one million population areas with the gospel. In cooperation with thousands of Christians of all denominations, it is our prayer target and goal to:

1. Present the gospel to more than six billion people by the year 2000.
2. Introduce one billion of them to Christ.
3. Start at least five million New Life home follow – up groups which will minister to and help to disciple more than two hundred million new Christians.
4. Establish ministries on eight thousand college and university campuses in strategic metropolitan areas worldwide to reach students and professors for Christ.
5. Plant one million churches throughout the world among every people group on earth.

By 1990 the “JESUS” film was translated into more than 164 languages and viewed by more than 425,000,000 people. Tens of millions have already received Christ. It is our goal by 1995 to translate the “JESUS” film into three hundred major languages and one thousand dialects.

Through New Life Thailand, the gospel has been proclaimed to more than six million people in Northeast Thailand through six New Life Training Centers. More than two million people have registered salvation decisions; more than twenty thousand New Life follow-up nurture groups have been started in homes, and more than three thousand new churches have been planted. We pray that similar models will be duplicated in the five thousand “million population centers” throughout the world.

Through a multiplication strategy of winning people to Christ, building them in the faith, and sending them to the world with the good news of God's love and forgiveness, tens of millions of people have been introduced to our Lord Jesus Christ through the various ministries of Campus Crusade for Christ since 1951.

Every conceivable method of winning people to Christ is used – personal evangelism, large evangelistic meetings, evangelistic home Bible studies, small groups, telephone surveys, films, cassettes, radio, television, direct mail, evangelistic coffees, teas, breakfasts, luncheons and banquets for both men and women, the “JESUS” film, and wide-scale literature distribution.

Defining Success

Building people in the Christian faith includes getting them involved in the fellowship and instruction offered through the local church, home Bible studies and small groups. Christians are taught how to study God's holy, inspired Word, how to pray, and how to walk in the love of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. They learn about God's unconditional love and His total forgiveness and acceptance made possible for us in Christ because of His death on the cross for our sin. They also learn about His resurrection power available to us, enabling us to live a joyful, victorious, fruitful life. Christian growth is accelerated rapidly as individuals are taught how to share Christ with others and are encouraged to share their faith in Him regularly as a way of life.

Sending people to the world is the inevitable result of a proper emphasis on winning and building. The individual who rightly understands the love and forgiveness of God and who has been properly taught how to communicate his faith in Christ will not be satisfied to be merely a worldly (carnal), spiritually impotent, fruitless, mediocre Christian. Like the disciples whose nets were miraculously filled with fish, such an individual will “forsake all and follow Christ.”

Any successful strategy to help evangelize the world must make prayer a high priority. To this end, millions of faithful prayer disciples are urgently needed for daily prayer. We are asking God to raise up millions of Christians to become a part of the Great Commission Prayer Crusade, prayer soldiers who will faithfully intercede daily for a mighty spiritual awakening throughout the entire world.

Adapted from the Transferable Concept: How You Can Help Fulfill The Great Commission, by Dr. Bill Bright, co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. © Cru. All rights reserved.