Partners and Friends,

I hope this letter finds you well as we enter another winter season. God is good! Jesus is on the throne, and He has a purpose for you, working through you to reach others. We are all on a mission together, carrying out the Great Commission across the world.

Thank you so much for your prayers, your generosity, your volunteer work, and everything else that helps us spread the gospel to the nations. I want to share with you the focus of our ministry, what we are striving to accomplish, and where we are headed as a team.

Years ago, I attempted to set up an evangelism and discipleship outreach center on an island in the Pacific. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out—our funds were stolen, and the pastor didn’t follow through on his commitments (though he did later apologize). As a result, the ministry lost a substantial amount of money. However, I did learn an important lesson: in order to succeed on the mission field, especially when coming and going, you need to have accountability in place.

In our next effort to establish an evangelism and discipleship program in another country, we chose to work through an existing organization. This organization has Superintendents overseeing districts (or states), Presbyters overseeing areas (or counties), and local pastors leading their churches.

As a side note, I am happy to work with anyone who preaches the Cross—the message of salvation. Our primary focus is seeing souls saved, helping Christian churches grow (no matter the denomination), and averting hell in the lives of many people. We have collaborated with numerous denominations, but our organization primarily operates through the structure of the Assemblies of God. In 2005, I traveled to a particular closed country to our south, where I met with their Superintendents to devise a plan. Together, we decided to train those called to evangelism and raise support to send them into the field. We did exactly that, and in 2006, we saw over 20,000 people make decisions for Christ.

That initiative went well for about five years, and then a Superintendent approached us for help with discipleship—the process of following up with newly saved individuals. They explained that pastors were overwhelmed and could not keep up with the number of new believers.

So, we met with most of the Assemblies’ leadership in the Central District of the country, and I proposed that if they wanted the outreach to be as effective as possible, they should require each church to choose at least one leader (or more) to be trained in discipleship for the new converts. They agreed, and a system was put in place where every church now has at least one leader dedicated to conducting discipleship, relieving pastors of this responsibility. Since then, we have expanded to three additional districts, and we are currently working with their leadership to help these districts develop their evangelism and discipleship programs.

The leaders in each presbytery (or county) are required to submit monthly reports from each church to our team, as well as to the Assemblies District Offices. Together, we are working to improve the effectiveness of not only winning souls but also conducting organized and meaningful discipleship follow-up.

Once again, under our team, we have seen Baptists, Nazarenes, Methodists, Independents, and Assemblies of God people working together. For us, preaching the Cross is what matters. However, as mentioned earlier, we chose to work with an organization structured with built-in accountability to ensure that even after I leave the country, there will be continued oversight.

In the past three months, we’ve made two trips to this country, working alongside our leadership team and Assemblies of God leaders in these districts. Typically, we travel in a team of five. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to making this project a reality. We couldn’t do it without you.

To God’s glory, we’ve seen over 4,000 people make decisions for Christ each month for many months in a row. Again, thank you to all who make this possible. Blessings in every way! Remember, we are a team made up of many parts, working together and using our gifts and talents to spread the gospel. Thank you for choosing to work as part of the body.

Finally, if anyone would like to go to Cambodia in March to help build churches, please let us know.

Blessings,

Will and Cristen Bridges