Greetings!
After a Sunday of praise, worship, and vision casting, 4/14 Window Summit participants got down to business for the remaining conference days to continue shaping the foundation for our collaborative ministry together over the next seven years.
 Each morning before dawn, participants joined with intercessory prayers from the Full Gospel Church / Promise Ministries International (Promise Church) for a traditional Korean prayer service, followed by a time of fellowship over breakfast. The remainder of each day consisted of general sessions to highlight the challenges, opportunities and models of ministry in reaching Prayer at Global Summitchildren; working sessions for regional caucuses to share with one another what God is already doing through their church, ministry, or collaborative partnerships on a local, national, or regional level, to discern existing opportunities and define areas of critical need; and strategy sessions to effectively find ways to resource local, national and regional efforts through 16 ministry focus tracks.
As leaders shared their successes, failures, best practices, ministry models, questions and concerns, it became clear that despite cultural, lingual, geographic or economic differences, all of those gather shared a burden for children and a passion for making disciples of them to be salt and light in the next generation.
In future newsletters you'll read more of the stories and strategies shared at the Summit; find praises and prayer requests for celebration and intercession; and hopefully gain a vision and direction for how God will use you as a part of this movement to reach children to transform the world.
Martha Anderson
Transform World newsletter editor
National Director, Centurions Program of Prison Fellowship / BreakPoint
Praying the Apostolic Prayers for the 4/14 Window
Gaining Spiritual Maturity Through the Prayers of the Apostles
As believers, our minds are being renewed to be able to understand and declare God's heart and will in the earth (Romans 12:1-2), to bring His transforming power into all situations.
Praying the prayers of the apostles renews our minds and enlivens our vision to see as God sees and think as God thinks, and to apply His transforming power into all situations! Praying these prayers is the natural way the renewed mind prays. Therefore, we are sensitized by the Spirit unto spiritual maturity in prayer.
The language of the apostolic prayers is not negative. You will find yourself practicing positive prayer. Also, we are able to experience a greater dimension of corporate unity as we are in agreement with His Word and His heart:
"And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment (that your love for those you are laboring with, and for His Church, will flourish and that you will not only love much but love well -- that your love is sincere, intelligent, and appropriately expressed for all situations),
"that you may approve the things that are excellent (that you will see the difference between right and wrong and will choose what's right; that you will not settle only for the good, but that you will press in for the best in all you do),
"that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ (that your efforts to motivate and unite the Body for His greatest impact for the 4/14 Window will be pure and impassioned, but not easily offended if things do not go as fast or as you had hoped -- faith and patience inherit the promises),
"being filled with the fruits of righteousness (bountiful in fruits of doing the right thing from the right heart motive, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, turning everyone to Him and His glory -- your only source of righteousness)..." -- Philippians 1:9-11
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Global 4/14 Tracks and Local National Initiatives: Working Together in Mission
The 4/14 Window Global Initiative is a movement that is operating on two separate axes working together toward a common goal: Global 4/14 Tracks and local, national or regional initiatives rooted in a shared mission of fulfilling the Great Commission (making disciples of all nations) by equipping children between the ages of 4 and 14.
What are the separate functions of the various tracks and local / national initiatives, and how will they work together to accomplish this mission?
The Global 4/14 Tracks are the building blocks to the 4/14 Window Global Initiative. Each of the 16 tracks focuses on a specific area of holistic child development and methods of transformation. The various tracks are organized using the following paradigm and process of transformation:
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Redeem and disciple the child as a whole person: Child Transformation
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Engage and strengthen the Institutions that nurture child transformation: Institutional Transformation
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Identify environmental/societal obstacles and explore how they can be turned into opportunities: Environmental/Societal Transformation
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Equip and empower the 4/14 generation to become agents of mission: Missional Transformation
The tracks will serve as resources to local, national and regional initiatives working at a grassroots level in order to enrich the movement, and enhance its effectiveness. Grassroots initiatives will mobilize local churches, local ministries and organizations that have the most direct impact in the lives of children in the 4/14 Window.
National initiative facilitators will serve to catalyze this mobilization process at the national and regional levels, casting the vision of raising up a new generation from the 4/14 Window to transform their nation and identifying and mobilizing pastors, ministries and other organizations who will participate in the 4/14 Window national initiatives and facilitating and engaging national 4/14 events. In addition, they will represent their nation at regional and global 4/14 events.
National initiative leaders will host summits to convene church and ministry leaders to impart the vision and need for reaching the 4/14 Window and to discuss challenges, opportunities, and existing efforts in accomplishing the mission. Once needs have been identified, tracks that can help fulfill the mission will provide support, advice, and resources, and join with key national initiative leaders through national consultations. Finally, the national initiative and track leaders will come together in global conferences to launch the mission and vision of the 4/14 Initiative to the Global body of Christ.
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The Birth of the Global 4/14 Movement
"We are being called back into union with the Father. Something is being birthed here today."
Wesley Tullis, the facilitator of the 4/14 Prayer Track, in the early morning prayer on the first morning of the Summit, September 7th
 Even before the 4/14 birthday cake arrived during one of our meals together (see photo), New York Summit participants were asking: "When and how was this vision for 4/14 Transformation birthed?" Luis Bush gave national leaders a brief history of how God planted the seed of a vision on individual hearts, nurtured it through the years, and then in His timing brought the elements together as a shared vision to birth a global 4/14 movement.
"In January 2001, following the official closure of the AD2000 Movement office, for the first time in thirty years, I had no Christian ministry responsibility. On the first day we moved into our house in Pasadena my son, Daniel, asked me to share the word of God the next morning. I waited on the Lord that first night, January 14, 2001, to see what He would have me share with my son and my wife, what He would say about Christian ministry and what He wanted me to do with the rest of my life. It was a defining moment for me.
God graciously showed me Genesis 28--the story of Jacob's ladder going to heaven. As He did with Jacob, God assured me He was with me and had a mission - a new calling for me. Like Jacob, I was seeing the angels coming down and going up that ladder. It was so real! I found myself saying along with Jacob, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."
While asleep or in that dream, I am not certain, I became aware of the manifest presence of God, and the purpose of God for my life, for the rest of my ministry. God showed me the scope of the ministry He had for me -- to "spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south." And He revealed the nature of His commission - to raise up a new generation. This was about my own family and descendants but also much, much more. It was about a missional movement that was to be focused on the next generation as instrumental to bless the nations and transform the world.
That was the defining moment. That night was the birth of the vision.
The conviction that God is on a mission of transformation at the beginning of this century had been growing in my own spirit. I had spent three years in a listening mode seeking to hear the heart of the servants of God around the world. One result of that World Inquiry and of that listening, was the first Transform World event in Indonesia 2005, and the establishment of Transform World Connections in Singapore to link with other servants of God who found themselves on God's mission of transformation.
But it was more. Mission means movement. Across the nations and across history, God's mission is always moving. For Moses it was a movement out of Egypt, through the desert, and to the Promised Land. Moses didn't quite complete that movement because God had planned that final step for the "Joshua Generation. And it is the same today. I am convinced that God is leading His Church through Jesus who is the head of the Church. This is not just a concept. It is a reality. And when God moves, I want to be moving closely in step following in the footsteps of Jesus. Today, I believe God is calling the body of Christ to put a priority on raising up a new generation from the 4/14 Window to transform the world.
As the vision took shape in my mind and heart, I thought back to what God had been saying to me for several years. The vital role of children in intercession had been a highlight at the GCOWE '95 event in Seoul, Korea two years earlier. It had become clear to me and other participants that God was using children as intercessors as fifty children participants on the children's track led us in a Concert of Prayer "children praying for the nations."
I also knew of the reality of the receptivity of the '4/14ers' - the fact that 85% of people in the US who will ever make a decision to follow Christ will do so between the years of 4 and 14. Dr. Bryant Myers had presented those data at an EFMA conference Colorado Springs in 1993.[1] In 1996, Dan Brewster, then Program Director for Compassion International, published an article called "The 4/14 Window: Child Ministries and Mission Strategy ."[2] Dan and I had met occasionally to play racquet ball and he told me we needed a track for children and youth at the Global Consultation on World Evangelization by the Year 2000 to be held in South Africa. And so it was. The resulting children's track at GCOWE '97, coordinated by Dan and Patrick McDonald of VIVA Network, affirmed again the vital role of children as God's agents of mission.
Fast forward to 2008. In December of that year I came to the Promise Church in Flushing, New York and met Pastor Nam Soo Kim. I was to minister at the church over several days, and as Pastor Kim and I met for the first time he said to me "I have been waiting for you." My wife Doris wondered, "Why is he waiting for you? Pastor Kim told me of a vision that had been gestating in him for ten years; that same vision for the world's children! His church was fulfilling this vision and mission locally, but he was still awaiting the birth of a global children's movement. Pastor Kim said, "Luis, this is my burden. Would you join me in seeing this vision fulfilled?"
What a marvelous confirmation of the work that God had already been doing in my spirit! We shook hands across the table and our mutual commitment was sealed.
We began to plan and prepare for a 4/14 Global Summit which would be hosted by Pastor Kim's Promise Ministries at his Full Gospel Church, in Flushing, New York. We agreed that God's servants, who were committed to the vision of raising up a new generation from the 4/14 Window to transform the world, would come together at the summit.
I then called Dr. Bambang Budijanto, the dynamic Vice President for Asia for Compassion International. about serving as the chairman of the 4/14 Global Summit and Initiative Steering Committee. Dr. Bambang had already articulated his burden. Under his name in every email he wrote was a commitment to raise up a new generation of "Daniels and Esthers." I observed him leading the Asian Emerging Leaders Summit, demonstrating godly ministry and capacity acquired over an extended period of time. Moreover, Bambang represented a ministry with a holistic view of raising up a new generation. His response to the invitation was to visit with Pastor Nam Soo Kim and Dr. Eun Moo Lee of Full Gospel Church / Promise Ministries International in New York City to listen to their vision and capture their passion.
A next step was to begin the research that led to the publication of a book on raising up a new generation from the 4/14 Window. And not just to reach them, but to empower and enable them to change the world. I uncovered amazing stories of how people around the world had experienced a transforming moment as they realized the need to reprioritize their missional focus on the 4/14 Window. This research, summarized in the book The 4/14 Window, itself became a transforming moment of great significance for me as well.
I had known that at one time, Europe was the center of Christianity. But in my research, I learned that in 1900, when almost 90% of all known Christ followers lived in Europe, 86% of European children attended Sunday School. But one hundred years later, in the year 2000, only 4% of European children did so. Twenty years ago, some European Christians, including Jeff Fountain, realized the spiritual hopelessness of their continent. Jeff knew that the greatest hope for Europe was and is its children. Jeff and others launched a movement called Hope for Europe, which champions that idea. The focus of Hope for Europe is children ages 4 to 14 and its goal is to have a 4/14 focus in each country of Europe. Three European countries now have a 4/14 nationwide network with others planned.
I learned too about the '4/14 Window Forums conducted by AWANA. In 2004, Jack Eggar, President of AWANA, along with George Barna, gathered leaders in Chicago from over fifty children's ministries. They focused on ways to effectively reach children between the ages of 4 and 14 (see link to article on Christianity Today). Subsequently, AWANA registered the term 4/14 Forum and has conducted these 4/14 Forums, led by Frank Carmical, in nearly 30 countries. They have partnered with a growing network of national churches and children's organizations and seen tens of thousands of children reached thus far in the Global South.
I learned about the remarkable work of by Dhan Raj Gamire, a Hindu convert who was a 'Saul' -- a tireless persecutor of the believers in Nepal. Now one of the most remarkable Christian leaders in Nepal, Dhan Raj is organizing 4/14 Window events all across that needy nation. He too realizes that the hope for the transformation of Nepal lies in reaching and empowering the next generation.
And it is not just individuals who are understanding this powerful truth. I learned about the extraordinary commitment made by the global leadership of the Church of the Nazarene.
In early July 2009 of 20,000-plus people representing more than 100 countries converged at their annual General Assembly. The Board of General Superintendents declared an emphasis of "Connecting A New Generation: A Decadal Emphasis on Children and Youth," a commitment rooted in Psalm 79:4: "We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the mighty works he has done." This Covenant, passed unanimously in the General Assembly, references the 4/14 Window and states outright, "the Church of the Nazarene acknowledges that children are important to God and a priority in His kingdom."
These are just a few of many, many instances where individuals, organizations, churches, missions and national and international ministries are understanding the profound strategic importance of children and youth in our cultures and nations. They are preparing and mobilizing for new, creative, cutting edge efforts to reach and mobilize the 4/14ers. Like Rachel of old, who was desperate to have and to hold the next generation, they are crying out to God saying, "Give me children or I'll die!" (Gen. 30:1).
Fast forward again to September 2009. The 4/14 Summit was an historic event. We expected around 100-150 people. More than 350 people from 70 countries ended up participating, 250 from outside the United States! The graciousness and servant-leadership of hundreds of members of Pastor Kim's Promise Ministries church was astounding. Seventeen strategic tracks worked to develop plans and strategies to reach and mobilize the 4/14ers. They took away visions, commitments and concrete plans to mobilize and catalyze their colleagues in their nations and regions across the world, to raise up a new generation to transform the world.
This is the brief and incomplete history then, of how God planted a seed of a vision on individual hearts, nurtured it through the years, and then in His timing brought the elements together as a shared vision to birth a global 4/14 movement.
To God be the glory.
[1]See Myers, Bryant, "State of the world's children: critical challenge to Christian mission" in International Bulletin of Missionary Research July 01, 1994.
[2] Dan Brewster, "The 4/14 Window: Child Ministries and Mission Strategy," Children in Crisis: A New Commitment, ed. Phyllis Kilbourn (Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1996).
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A Global Movement through National Initiatives:
How God is at Work Around the World
Local church pastors, Evangelical Alliance leaders, and other grassroots ministry personnel shared with one another the ways God is at work in their country to instill a vision for reaching the 4/14 Window and to begin the transformation process. Here are just a few of their stories.
Nepal: We have already started this movement in my country. The 4/14 Window conferences are already going on. God gave me this vision a couple years ago when I was studying holistic child development in Malaysia with Dan Brewster (Compassion International). I began to visit with local churches, talking with pastors, making visits to churches and after 2 years we were able to have a pastors seminar on the 4/14 Window in western Nepal, far from Kathmandu. We heard feedback from some of the more than 70 pastors gathered there. They told me they had never heard about the importance of the children. They had been ignoring them. Through this one-day seminar many pastors realized that they could reach children too. Now 35 local churches are trying to do what they can with children, for their own children. We pointed out how much they spent on resources for children in the church. Less than 0.5 of church resources are spent on children. They are not valued. So I think that's why it starts from grassroots level. Before the conference, the churches were scattered denominationally and divided. This conference brought them together. After that conference, for the first time in the history of that province, more than 25 churches gathered together and did a Christmas program for street children.
Guyana: God has been preparing Guyana for the past 2 years or so. Our country politically has been divided along racial lines and there was an issue in Parliament where they were passing a bill to make gambling legal. The church came together, and spoke to our leaders. The government did not listen and we protested against them. As a result all denominational leaders decided it was time to put away their differences and come together and unite. The foundation for future ministry is set. On 6-8 October we will be holding a prayer movement in three regions of the country. Three different ministers' fellowships have decided that they must work together. The time is now."
Argentina: Every church now has a school. My church has a school with 700 children. There are other churches with bigger schools. We understood that if we are not able to impact children we are not able to have a testimony as a nation. Forty years ago our church was the only one with a school, but now there are hundreds of schools where Christian values are taught.  The great National Leaderspercentage of those that go to Christian schools are not Christians but this is a place where we can sow the Word. So pastors realized that education was the best way to impact children's lives. In our country there are many children who live in very poor regions and are not able to get public school education. So our youth go there, teach the Word, give food to them, and teach them how to read and write. They demonstrate Christian values.
Mongolia: In 1991 there were three Christians in the entire nation. Now we have 400 churches. The church in Mongolia is young but we want to reach out to Mongolia. This is a region with younger churches that have younger church leaders who meet annually to discuss how we go about this accomplishing this vision. In 2006 we committed officially among the church leaders that goal of discipling 10 percent of all Mongolian population by 2020. So far we have 1.5 million Christians. In 2007 Compassion International helped us develop a church ministry plan based on partnership to reach this goal. One of the main emphasis' is the 4/14 Window.
European Region: God had been working in Belgium and in the early 1990s ministries and churches came together to pray together. God started leading us to want to serve together and to believe that God could have a greater impact in our country through serving together. That led us to organize conferences. The Hope 21 conference in 2002 was the first time there was a children's track and that was the time when God encouraged us together with representatives from different nations. That's when the 4/14 initiative was birthed for French-speaking Europe. We went back from that conference with leadership from our ministry and contacted different ministries and invited French-speaking European leaders, to 2 consultations and shared with them the vision for Europe. We held a French-speaking forum in 2003 meeting and began to meet every year. We have called our initiative Objective 4/14. We later discovered that 2003 while God was meeting with us he was doing same thing in the States.
Latin America Region: Three years ago we united with about 1200 churches reaching together about 7 million youth every year. Today we are working with about 15,000 churches reaching 20 million every year. If between now and 2030 we continue at this pace we will reach every child twice personally. We are learning that this is the beginning. Research and strategic partnerships are the next steps in transformation.
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The Transformative Power of Literature
By Viviana Velie
One cold morning in the month of July I visited the booth of children and youth publisher at an International Book Fair in a South American city. All of the sales people were around 20 years old, and they were constantly smiling. I started to look through the book-stuffed shelves which were organized by age levels and stopped to look at some beautiful illustrations in a book for 4-year-old children called "The Psychoanalist." I asked the sales girl, "Can a child who can't read yet understand this?"
"No, but you can explain it to them. The idea is that you tell the child that psychoanalysis is good and that possibly some day he will need it."
I closed the book and continued through all of the aisles, constanlty attended by jovial young people, until finally I asked: "Why are there so many books about death, demons, homosexuality and perversion?"
The sales person told me in his youthful slang: "It's easy, lady, the church has been left behind and doesn't do anything for us." (He didn't know that I work for a Christian publishing company).
I felt that I had been hit in the face by a boxing glove. I left the place thinking about Luke 2:52 "And Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in grace with God and men."
My heart was heavy thinking about what kind of wisdom for their future these children will be learning. What books are going to mark their lives from early childhood? This not only occurs in this city but all around the world. This generation is a target of secularism, other religions and ideologies. What am I going to do?
In the following weeks I continued to visit schools and to check out selections of literature. Each day it was the same situation, and the same questions. It was a true puzzle.
When I arrived in El Salvador to work with Teri Benner, she told me about some kind of a Window. I almost didn't pay attention, but God always puts together the puzzle, and our head office decided to send me to the 4/14 Window Global Summit.
I don't believe in casualties but in answers from God, and the biggest one has been the 4/14 Window. Each day of the Summit God has revealed his heart about this crucial stage in the life of the human being where life is marked for the future, and the role that we as the Church need to fulfill.
We can reverse this world with literary richness that God has given us. We can allow His written Word to transform our societies, and live in true freedom that only comes from the gospel. And we can never again hear from any nation the phrase "The church has been left behind and doesn't do anything for us."
The 4/14 Window will be the vehicle and impulse so that HIS KINGDOM COMES TO EACH CHILD, and therefore through them it can extend to each sphere of society.
Viviana Velie is the Director for Latin America of Editorial Jucum (YWAM Publishing)
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Praise Reports and Prayer Requests
Praise Reports:
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Praise our LORD for the success of the Transform World 4/14 Window Global Summit that took place in New York City, September 6-8 (with pre-Summit planning meetings on September 4-5)! About 350 servant leaders from 70 countries participated. The Promise Church in Flushing, New York did a wonderful job of hosting these meetings and serving all the delegates. The Host Team worked overtime to cover a myriad of logistics.
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This wonderful 4/14 Global Summit featured inspiring messages, informative reports, fresh times of prayers and worship, and gifted artistic performances -- along with tremendous opportunity for networking in this microcosm of the worldwide Body of Christ. Praise our God and thank you for your prayers! This is a testimony to the Lord moving among and through His people in unity -- all for the sake of raising up a new generation from the 4/14 Window to transform the world!
Prayer Requests:
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Ask that the Holy Spirit to fill this global 4/14 Window movement with His Presence and Power (Zech 4:6).
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Pray that the Body of Christ worldwide would make children, ages 4 to 14, a top ministry priority (Luke 18:16, Mark 9:37, Mark 10:16).
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Seek that the Global Summit servant leaders now back in their home locations or traveling would continue to have God's strategy as they plan and carry out His work (Isaiah 55:8-9).
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Continue to intercede for authentic unity and effective collaboration among 4/14 servant leaders/workers worldwide (John 17:23).
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Pray for the many Transform World 4/14 tracks, task forces, national caucuses, and other working groups to effectively and humbly carry out their activities in the weeks and months ahead -- all under the Lord's leading and with His wisdom. Ask also for successful connection between these varied 4/14 groups which operate according to specific functions and different geographical locations throughout the world. Only the Lord can orchestrate all this well.
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Ask for protection, good health, encouragement, and inspiration for each and every person (and for their loved ones) as they serve the 4/14 Window. May Jesus always be our first Love, and may the Father's love and His Spirit's Presence always be at the center!
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Ask for continued sensitivity, humility, mutual respect and honor as different (age) generations serve together for the 4/14 Window.
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Pray for the Lord's help in establishing excellent, secure, ongoing communication within and between 4/14 Window groups. Ask for wisdom in building a secure, accessible, and very useful database of knowledge to serve the needs of all the 4/14 Window groups. May this communication and this knowledge powerfully facilitate His purposes through these Transform World 4/14 groups.
Thank you for your prayers -- they are vital to the Lord's will and plans being accomplished to raise up a new generation from the 4/14 Window to transform the world!
Read the new Parents and Families Track Blog
If you are a parent, or work with other parents to equip their children ages 4/14 and want ideas for teaching, training and encouraging others in discipling children, be sure to visit the new blog from the 4/14 Initiative Parents and Families Track. Follow track facilitators John and Lisa Nagle on their spiritual journey as a family as they share their progress in nurturing the spiritual transformation of their children.
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Share Your Story
Do you have a story of transformation through your track or from within your country that would be a source of inspiration or encouragement for others working with the 4/14 generation? If so, click here to send your story for possible inclusion in a future issue of the newsletter.
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