On October 6, during the Sunday service at the River of Life Christian Church (生命河灵粮堂, ROLCC), Pastor Tong Liu shared the church's latest missions map, emphasizing their extensive outreach in global missions and calling on believers to continue to engage and support this important commission.
In his sermon, Pastor Liu introduced the newly updated River of Life missions map in detail. The map features a colorful design showcasing the missionary achievements of ROCC, with a full add-on page of stickers for believers to use. The map is divided into two sides, each presenting a different message:
Colorized Front:
- Numbers lower than 100 represent ROLCC’s branch churches and their locations (e.g. “5” stands for ROLCC Brazil). Currently they have churches in 33 countries globally.
- Numbers higher than 100 represent the 19 mission organizations supported by ROLCC (e.g. “116” stands for Faith Ministries for India).
Back:
- Shows all of ROLCC's branch churches in North America, including Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
Pastor Liu encourages believers to use the stickers provided and place them on the countries or mission organizations that they have a burden to support, and to go home and pray daily for the work of the gospel in those areas. The Children's and Youth Ministries will also be participating in this program, calling the whole family to pray together for the missions.
Pastor Liu reviewed the progress that ROLCC has made in missions since its founding. He mentioned that many years ago, a missionary came to ROLCC to share a message and asked the congregation if they had ever prayed for a specific country. The missionary was deeply surprised when many members of the congregation raised their hands and said they had prayed for Western Sahara and Burkina Faso. Pastor Liu explained that the church prays for a country each week in worship and that each country has been prayed for several times over the years. This prayer habit reflects the church's emphasis on global missions.
According to the official website, ROLCC holds an annual mission conference every October, emphasizing that mission is not the business of a few, but a mission given to every believer by the Lord Jesus. Since its founding, ROLCC has been fully encouraging believers to participate in missions, and has been promoting missions in the following ways:
- Expanding Mission through Prayer: ROLCC prays every Sunday for different countries, cities, and ethnic groups, and regularly sends prayer teams to the mission field.
- Expanding Mission through Education: ROLCC educates believers on the importance of missions through Sunday messages, Sunday school, and cross-cultural community action in the field.
- Expanding Mission through Short-Term Mission Trips: ROLCC actively encourages believers to participate in short-term missions so that they can experience the mission of the gospel firsthand.
- Expanding Mission through Financial Donations: ROLCC’s annual mission conference is held in October each year, and pledges are made to support the global missionary ministry.
According to Pastor Liu’s sharing, the River of Life Christian Church has currently planted 365 churches in 33 countries around the world and supports 19 mission organizations and missionaries. The church's missionary work spans six continents and covers many countries and regions.