Ceylon Every Home Crusade: Monthly Christian Publication (Direction)

Friday, July 24, 2009

Monthly Christian Publication (Direction)

Informative, inspirational and instructive, sent to Prayer Partners for systematic daily prayer on behalf of those who are engaged in outreach around the world.

Editor:- Sam Thevabalasingham
Associate Editor:- Christopher Arulanandam
Photography / Blogger:- Yohan Krishnakumar
Advertising Manageress:- Rita Faber
Subscription Manageress:- Ranjini Udawatte

Overview

Our goal is to reach the whole Sri Lanka. The strategy is simple. We think and work continent by continent, province by province, city by city, village by village, home by home, and person by person, giving everyone the opportunity to encounter the truth of Christ’s love.

This is the pattern of Ceylon Every Home Crusade. We train indigenous workers to share the Gospel. Nationals do this ministry day in and day out in their own countries. We systematically send them to share the Gospel through printed messages home by home. We follow up every response with a four-part Bible correspondence course. We are dedicated to working with the local church, and where none exists, to the formation of Christ Groups more than 20 since we began.

We are Ceylon Every Home Crusade. We believe the completion of the Great Commission is well within reach. It’s the fundamental, foundational, primary assignment that Jesus gave His disciples to take the Good News of His salvation to every person on earth—and He meant that we take it literally.

Our History

A Spirit Inspired Vision:
In 1946, a young Canadian pastor by the name of Jack McAlister encouraged his radio audience to help provide gospel literature to missionaries through the Tract Club of the Air. By 1952, to further coordinate the placement of millions of tracts in bulk in countries around the globe, he founded the World Literature Crusade—known today as Every Home for Christ. Yet no real systematic distribution strategy began until 1953, when he went to Japan with a fellow visionary. One day, they went to a Tokyo train station. For every person they reached out to with a printed gospel message, ten slipped by them. That night they prayed desperately over maps of Tokyo and all of Japan asking, “How can we reach everybody and have a measureable sense of what has been accomplished?” The vision was given to them: take the Gospel to every home. Take a map and divide the city of Tokyo in a strategic way. Find people willing to go into every prefecture, to every home.

God planted a similar vision in the heart of Dick Eastman in 1966 following a five-week home-to-home outreach in Central America—a decade before he join Every Home for Christ and twenty years before being appointed its International President. “Someone should do this all over the world; mapping out every nation, taking the Gospel to every home, and implementing a mechanism to follow-up each person.” His ministry since has reinforced this vision with the added conviction that prayer is key to removing every obstacle to the completion of the Great Commission.

Since 1953, home by home, Every Home for Christ staff and volunteers have systematically and strategically taken over 2 billion, 600 million gospel messages to over 1 billion, 200 million homes worldwide. Taking the Great Commission literally, we partner with passionate believers around the globe to share their faith right where they live.

The fruit has been extraordinary. Every Home initiatives have now been conducted in 199 nations around the world. Over 69 million decisions and responses for Christ have reached EHC offices and more than 75 million discipleship courses have been sent out. Whenever possible, new believers attend established local churches. Where none exist, new Christ Groups are formed — over 120,000 groups in the course of EHC’s history.

Ministry Highlights

Following are ministry highlights since 1946:

Every Home evangelism campaigns have now been conducted in 198 nations.

First Every Home Campaign (systematic, home-to-home campaign using literature) launched in Japan in 1953.

EHC gospel booklets and Bible correspondence courses are printed in languages spoken by 96 percent of the earth's population.

Total home-to-home coverage has been completed at least once in 101 nations, including India, with 600,000 villages. An average of 50,000 new homes with at least 250,000 inhabitants are reached with the Gospel every day through EHC outreaches.

Over 2.6 billion gospel messages with response cards have been distributed.

More than 61.5 million decision/response cards have been received — an average of almost 2,000 a day.

Each response card is followed-up with a four-part Bible correspondence course.

Over 90 offices are currently maintained worldwide, and special plans are underway to launch EHC initiatives among the world's more than 15,000 least-evangelized people groups.

To view videos from past Every Home Campaigns around the world please visit our video page and click on the historical video link

Our Mission & Vision

Vision:-
Serving the Church to reach every home on earth with the Gospel.

Mission:-
Ceylon Every Home Crusade exists to serve the Body of Christ in equipping and mobilizing believers everywhere to actively participate in taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every home in Sri Lanka, adding new believers as reproducing members of the Church to see the literal fulfillment of the Great Commission.

We do this by:
Mobilizing believers Islandwide to pray and give strategically toward this end. Matthew 9:37-38

Evangelizing by systematically going home to home in the nation on earth. Acts 5:42

Utilizing the printed page or other repeatable means of communicating the Gospel (i.e. cassettes for the illiterate) to leave an ongoing witness in every home. Acts 20:20

Planting reproducing New Testament fellowships of believers called Christ Groups to establish new converts and continue the work of evangelizing others, systematically. Matthew 16:18

Forming strategic alliances with those committed to completing the Great Commission. Ephesians 4:16
Developing qualified national leadership in the nation for carrying out the mandate of completing the Great Commission. 2 Timothy 2:2

Researching what is necessary to exegete and strategize for the evangelization of every region of the nation. Numbers 13:17-20

Auditing the work regularly to ensure it is being accomplished with integrity and that we are communicating properly with all participants in the vision. Acts 14:22

Healing the nations by encouraging humanitarian activities in conjunction with CEHC's home-to-home evangelism. Isaiah 58:10-12

Our Convictions

Three Unalterable Convictions
We at Ceylon Every Home Crudase operate under three unalterable convictions. They are:

1. The Great Commission must be taken literally, and at present systematic literature distribution, house to house, village to village (with recorded messages for those who are illiterate), is still the best means to insure the task is completed. (Read Matthew 28:19 & Mark 16:15.)

2. Without unity the task is impossible. Thus, the cooperation of all evangelical groups is essential to fulfilling our objective. Already more than 500 evangelical missions groups and denominations have participated in the Ceylon Every Home Crusade outreach. Without these groups our goals would be unattainable. (Read John 17.)

3. Prayer alone, will remove all obstacles that stand in the way. Therefore, prayer is the most important element in the entire campaign. The degree to which prayer is mobilized will be the degree to which the world is evangelized. (Read Acts 4: 31-33.)

Our President

Dr. Dick Eastman is the international president of Every Home for Christ, a 60 plus year old ministry that has planted over 2.6 billion gospel messages home to home in 198 nations resulting in over 61.5 million followed-up decision cards and responses.

In his role with Every Home for Christ, Dick has traveled around the world more than 40 times to every continent. He also serves as president of America's National Prayer Committee, a diverse group of evangelical leaders instrumental in planning America's annual National Day of Prayer scheduled by Congressional decree for the first Thursday of May each year. As president of the National Prayer Committee, Dick has been invited to the White House several times in recent years as the guest of former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and more recently George W. Bush.

Dick is also the originator of the Change the World School of Prayer, a multi-hour seminar that has trained more than 2,000,000 Christians in 120 nations on the power and intimacy of prayer, and is also the author of numerous best-selling books on prayer and evangelism, including Dick Eastman on Prayer and The Jericho Hour, that have sold more than 2 million copies.

Dick Eastman and his wife, Dee, make their home in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and have two grown daughters and five grandchildren.

Statement of Faith

Doctrinal Statement of Faith
Our theology and doctrine are reflected in the following statement of faith:

1. WE BELIEVE the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

2. WE BELIEVE that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

3. WE BELIEVE in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

4. WE BELIEVE that for the salvation of lost and sinful man regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

5. WE BELIEVE in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

6. WE BELIEVE in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost: they who are saved unto the resurrection of life and they who are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

7. WE BELIEVE in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

—EHC International President, Dick Eastman