Stories

‘Advance has had a great impact on the way we move forward in the ministry I work for. My Advance Group is made up of people who serve in this ministry, and every time we come together, we are encouraged and equipped, and we see how this is shaping the way that we think about our work and how we share the gospel.’ – Kilian, Advance Ambassador in Germany

We were recently sharing about Advance in Cornwall and a 12-year-old boy asked if he could lead a group with his friends as they wanted to be better at reaching their mates who didn’t know Jesus yet. It’s amazing to see young people get excited about sharing Jesus with those around them!

Want to start your own Advance Group? Find out more at advancegroups.org/start-a-group

On the back of an Advance Conference in Portugal, we saw 30 teenagers accept Jesus into their lives and 27 people agree to starting Advance groups! Do be praying for the young people and new groups as they learn more about Jesus and evangelism in coming weeks.

Aaron heads up our Advance Youth programme in the UK and he recently shared about one teenager who has been fired up to share the gospel.
‘Advance Youth is all about equipping young people to share their faith wherever they find themselves. One young person coming along is Claire and recently, as she was walking her dog, she saw a woman who looked a bit sad, and thought, ‘here is an opportunity to talk about Jesus’ (we have a saying at Advance Youth, evangelists are good opportunists).

Claire began a conversation, and the woman started to share with Claire about the difficult things that were happening in her life.
As Claire listened, she was able to tell the woman about her relationship with God and about what Jesus had done for her. The woman then asked if Claire could pray for her, which she did!

Claire shared with me later about how Advance Youth has taught her to keep her eyes open, to make herself available to God to speak through. It could have been just another dog walk, but God had other plans.’

One evening, Wesley, an Ambassador in Brazil, was sharing about Advance to a local ministry that he is involved with. After he’d finished talking, a teenager came up and said how excited he was about Advance and asking if he could share what Advance is with his pastor. A few days later Wesley spoke with the pastor, and they decided to launch groups across the whole church.

Unsure what to do or to say when his friend shared about difficult things going on in his life, Lucas responded with the only thing he felt he could – to share his own story of how he had found Jesus in his own difficult seasons of life. When his friend saw the love Lucas has for God and how Lucas had valued him by just showing up and spending time with him, he asked to hear more about Jesus and then accepted God into his life!

Read the full story here

When some of our Advance Team were in Brazil, they preached at a church in Rio de Janeiro and after the service, one lady had an amazing encounter with the Holy Spirit. Later that day she went home and explained what had happened to her brother and has since joined the church!

‘Whilst I was in a café recently, I got chatting with three young men who’d just arrived to the UK from Afghanistan.
They shared that they were Muslims and I said that I was a Christian. which opened up a great conversation where I was able to give the reason for my faith in Jesus.
After the conversation ended, I was praying for the lads and less than half an hour later the same three guys came up to me whilst I was shopping and asked if they could have my number so that we could talk more about faith!
It’s been amazing to chat to them more and share about the love Jesus has for them..’ – Bill*, Advance Group Leader in UK
*Name Changed

Last month, Chaffra, our Ambassador for Cote D’Ivoire, was in N’Djamena, Chad. During the five days he was there, he gatheredchurch leaders from across the region and used the Advance Group Mentoring Guide to encourage and sharpen them in their evangelism.
‘One of the key themes from our time together was the importance of unity, and that as a church, if we’re to see the gospel spread across Chad, we need to be united in both word and action. It was a powerful time together and on the back of our training we saw 20 people give their lives to Jesus!’ – Chaffra, Advance Ambassador in Cote D’Ivoire

As Advance Groups Coordinator, Luiz was sharing the love of Jesus at an Advance conference. One lady Ana came to the front of the room to respond to what Luiz was saying and as she did so, severe problems in her in spine were totally healed!

‘One member of my Advance Group has felt really challenged to pray for those people in his life who he normally wouldn’t think about much. This week he intentionally went out and prayed for his neighbour!’ – Advance member in Germany

As an Advance Team we were praying to find someone to be our ambassador in Angola.
Whilst thinking about who we could contact, Albert, our Ambassador for the Portuguese Speaking World, met Victor, a pastor in Luanda, Angola. Albert reached out to him and they arranged a video call, and halfway through the call whilst Albert was sharing about Advance, Victor started to laugh and praise God.
He explained that he’d just had a prophetic word about starting a new ministry that week and how it would all happen over a phone call – exactly as it had happened!
It’s amazing how Jesus chooses to work through these situations. and through Victor we’re seeing multiple groups start in Luanda!

Dani one of our Advance Group leaders in Manchester, UK, who works for a charity, shared her testimony with us of how, after being convicted of the power and significance of prayer in our evangelism, she witnessed the healing of one lady who sent in a donation.
‘I work in the support and administration team at a charity. I was processing some of our donations one week and on one giving form, a lady wrote ‘please pray for me’. In my Advance Group we’d been discussing the power of prayer in our evangelism, so I decided to write back to the donor telling her I was praying for her.

She got back in touch with me a few days later and said that she had been having liver troubles, however the pain had gone, and she was awaiting results from her doctor! I replied saying how I’d really felt prompted to pray for her and shared a Bible verse with her reassuring her that God truly loved her. She got back in touch and said not only had the medical results confirmed that her liver was healed, but that her own daughter’s faith had been strengthened as well. God is amazing!’

‘Through Advance I heard stories of how the gospel has been shared in different contexts, which is a great testimony of how God is working around the world today. I really enjoyed how the materials led us to reflect not only on the ways we share the gospel, but also on the quality of our message and most importantly, on how we live out our lives as evangelists.’ – Alex, Advance Group leader from Hong Kong

One Advance Group leader shared about an experience she had in a hospital in Zambia. ‘When visiting and praying for patients in a local hospital here in Zambia, I met a 12-year-old girl with her 14-year-old sister. Their mum was away in another town trying to make her way over to be with them

The 12-year-old was due to have an operation on her neck and I could see she was scared, so I shared about Jesus and his hope and peace, and as we chatted their faces began to light up. We ended up sitting and chatting for a while, going through the Bible and praying together’.

Isaac, one of the Advance Ambassadors for Uganda, recently shared about the impact he saw when giving out Advance Mentoring Guides.
‘I took lots of guides with me on a recent trip to Uganda and I ended up sharing about Advance with a group of Christians, giving each of them a guide in Lugandan, their native language. It was powerful to see so many touched by this gift, saying they’d never had anything like this before and how excited they were to start using it to encourage and equip the church in evangelism!’

Check out our Mentoring Guides at advancegroups.org/resources

My own Advance group has been a massive support in encouraging me and in reminding me to share my faith day-to-day, not only in my paid ministry time. I will never forget what happened one Friday, after I had just finished an assignment. I went for a walk to clear my head and to listen to some new music. I had only just gone around the corner when I felt strangely compelled to talk to a woman in the street, as she was shouting and complaining about something. We ended up having a long conversation about life and death and the hope, strength, and purpose I find in Jesus.  Looking back, Advance has sharpened me to look out for opportunities like that, where God just wants to meet people through me. – Killian, Advance Ambassador in Germany.  

‘Recently, I was out walking and got chatting to a lady who told me she was Hindu. I grabbed the opportunity to chat about Jesus to her and she was interested and asked questions. Even though she wasn’t ready to give her life to Jesus right there and then, it was amazing to be even a small part in her journey and to share about Jesus’ love for her.’ – Advance Group Leader in Manchester, UK 

‘The longer I’ve walked with God, the more I discover that living purposefully brings true joy and fulfilment in life. As we share the gospel and see people accept Jesus into their own lives, we’re seeing God’s kingdom come on earth. Just the other day I got to share Jesus with a guy in hospital who was suffering from tuberculosis, and he was so moved by the love and hope of Jesus that he accepted him into his life! – Advance Group Member in Zambia.

‘Advance has managed to equip evangelists in Cuba to proclaim the good news and welcome people into the church who’d normally not consider coming along. It’s not been easy to unite so many people with such diversity of thought, culture, and beliefs, but through Advance we’ve seen the beautiful unity that only comes from the Holy Spirit.’ – Indira, Advance Group Leader in Cuba.