tuminetwork

I wrote my dissertation on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, the great preacher-orator-civil rights leader who changed the face of America's social landscape through his victorious civil rights movement aimed to foster freedom and equality in our society.  As a young seminarian, recently married and about to take over his father's congregation in Atlanta, Dr. King was recruited to lead a movement of poor people in Montgomery, Alabama who sought redress against discrimination in that city's public transportation system.  Spawned through the courage of Rosa Parks who one day decided that she was too tired to move to the back of the bus, a spontaneous movement of Montgomery citizens determined to oppose that city's unjust and unconstitutional segregation of Blacks to the back of…

TUMI’s stated purpose is to equip leaders for the urban church, especially among the poor, to advance the Kingdom of God. As the adage goes, “That’s easier said than done.” With dozens of satellites and thousands of students, exactly how do we do it? After all, we don’t have “boots-on-the-ground” staff presence in our 212 sites in 15 countries, including 63 prisons and jails (as of August 2015), nor do we have any plans to do so. We will not deploy TUMI staff throughout our ever-growing network to do hands-on, face-to-face mentoring on the field.

How then do we facilitate the training of urban leaders, both domestically and abroad? The answer is simple: we do it by collaborating with partners in mission. The partnerships that we establish and maintain with like-minded churches, denominations, and other ministries make…

Al Ewert and Michael Bankston visited Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. They met with pastors and leaders in Uganda, attending and spoke at a TUMI Graduation in Kenya, and visited a TUMI Site and spoke with leaders there in Tanzania.

"In Uganda we went to a two-day conference with hundreds of pastors. Jeff Anderson, president of International Bible Conferences, taught through Ephesians in expository fashion. His goal was to help the pastors get vision for teaching verse by verse over a book of the Bible. Many were from rural communities where churches are being rapidly planted. Most have no training materials. In fact there were pastors who had no Bible, other than on their phone. When they found out we had a few Bibles a number asked if there was one for them.

"I presented Fight the Good Fight at the conference. I gave vision for how this book could be used in their churches along with the Ephesians study that Jeff was giving a model for. We had…

“I am a pastor with leaders who need training. Can you help us?”

This was the question we heard over and over again. We were in Bangkok, Thailand for The Global Proclamation Congress this past June. More than 400 denominations, organizations, and missions groups were present, and we at World Impact sent a six-member delegation to explore ways we could provide resources helpful for indigenous churches to make their contribution to the Great Commission. We did not foresee, however, that God would so dramatically open doors that this event would become one of the most fruitful events in our history.

Over the time we met with more than 600 laborers from nations across the globe. They humbled us by their gospel outreach in the face of decades of persecution and hardship—in villages, cities and prisons. Their commitment to…