A focus on the community has helped the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Samoa record the highest growth in the Trans Pacific Union Mission.
Every second month, the church designates a Sabbath for community outreach, where church members visit homes, pray for the households, and conduct family worship. If they see a need, they will return to the home during the week to help out. Street preaching is one of the other activities held on these special Sabbaths.
The community outreach is part of the church’s commitment in Samoa to the harvest model of disciple-making. Every Samoan church has been busy following this model of preparing the soil, sowing the seed, cultivating the plants, harvesting, and multiplying. And it’s having a big impact as it encourages members to move out of their churches and into the community, where disciple-making is happening.
According to the year-end report of the Trans Pacific Union Mission (TPUM), Samoa has recorded an average growth in baptisms of 7.4 percent over the past ten years, the highest of all the TPUM missions.
Pastor Maveni Kaufononga, TPUM president, said these results are a clear sign that God is blessing the work in Samoa.
“Samoa Mission’s number of baptisms was 830 for this year,” he said. “This is a fantastic result that can only happen when the Holy Spirit is upon the work.”
This article was originally published on the website of Adventist Record