Name: Empower Ministries International
Price range: $

Empower Ministries is operational in over 50 countries of the world. We strive to lose our identity in the global church and come alongside national church planting ministries in the spiritual hotspots by supplying them with Bibles, training, short-term financial support, and more. We believe it is our mandate to share the inspiring stories of dedicated national believers experiencing revival in order to revitalize the Church in North America.

Strategy We Employ

We provide Bibles, New Testaments, Gospels, and other portions of Scripture free of charge to national believers. It is Empower’s intention to saturate church planting ministries with ample supplies of God's Word. Empower provides millions of copies of Scripture worldwide on an annual basis.
The cry of the national church is not only for the Word of God but also for trustworthy material and teachers to disciple pastors and new believers. Therefore, Empower facilitates the training of indigenous workers by doctrinally sound and highly qualified national leaders. Biblically-based materials are provided for the students at no cost.
To launch national workers into ministry, Empower provides short-term support for a pastor's family comprised of food, housing, clothing, and some transportation money. This assistance will last between six months to two years until their local congregations are able to fully support them.
We ensure church planting workers and pastors have the desperately needed items of assistance to further their ministries. These items included bicycles, motorcycles, computers, small garden/farm implements, livestock, and other requested items.
When natural disasters or political/military uprisings strike, Empower furnishes compassionate assistance for believers and unbelievers alike with distribution occurring through the national church planting movements and local pastors. Empower is an invisible partner in these activities, which offers a unique opportunity for the local churches and pastors to share the love of Jesus by meeting physical needs. This care spurs hope for all life's challenges.
Empower prints large quantities of Bibles and New Testaments, and other teaching materials to take advantage of 'economies of scale' and distributes materials as soon as possible. Print runs range from a minimum of 25,000 to a ceiling of hundreds of thousands. Empower is constantly searching the world for the best printing opportunities at the lowest cost and highest quality.

When Empower uses the term “the national church”, we are referring to the indigenous, Bible-believing disciples of Christ who are residents in their country or region of birth and who are enthusiastically growing in Christ while purposely sharing their faith openly and assertively.

God has raised up millions of such believers over the past several decades and has knit them into networks of churches that are led by godly and Spirit-filled national leaders. These leaders’ ultimate goal is to win their countries for Christ by rapid expansion through evangelism and church planting and accompanied by strong discipleship centered upon intense study of the Word of God. These national church planting movements are primarily being established in regions of the world where the Holy Spirit is being poured out in abundance.

It is Empower’s stated purpose to search the world for such national movements that clearly display the qualities of Biblical soundness, moral and ethical purity, and financial integrity. We then come alongside these networks to support and equip them for even greater expansive ministries. It is not Empower’s goal to dominate, guide, or control them but to lose our identity as a Western mission’s organization in the local, national church that God has raised for such a time as this.

Empower’s Rationale for Supporting National Workers

Over the years, Empower has established itself as a ministry called to seek out the spiritual hotspots of the world (where there is an active, massive turning to God and deep hunger for His Word). These are the same countries, people groups, and communities where generations of foreign missionaries have sowed the seeds of the Gospel and where national church planting networks have now sprung to life because of the faithful work of these dedicated missionary pioneers.

Areas of spiritual hotspots began to flourish in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These years were symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Empire, and the massacre in Tiananmen Square, China. Somewhat unexpectedly, this period of history was a turning point for the national church planting movements of the world. It was the beginning of a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit when God revealed to millions of people that the world’s great religions (Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Communism, etc.) were spiritually bankrupt. As these traditional belief systems collapsed in people’s minds, spiritually hungry souls cried out to God for truth. National pastors and bold followers of Christ shared the Gospel with honest seekers in their quest, resulting in a huge surge in new believers and church growth.

The reason why Empower embraces this strategy and works primarily through the national churches of the world is because of the following:

They are fluent in their native language(s)
They are already a resident in their area of ministry (not requiring visas or permission to minister)
They can be provided with partial assistance for food, housing, and clothing amounting to as little as $35 to $300 per month
They are proven communicators of the Gospel whose fellow citizens see as being one of their own
Culturally attuned
Able to live and work effectively in harsh economic and hostile religious environments
They possess ‘protection and privileges of citizenship’ that foreigners do not enjoy

Characteristics of National Believers

Strong anointing of the Holy Spirit
They are sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading
They have a deep hunger for the Word of God and see it as the foundation for establishing thriving churches
They are devoted to strong prayer ministries within their congregations on an individual, family, and corporate basis
They display great trust in the plan of God for their lives and are dependent upon Him to supply all of their needs daily
They are prepared for persecution due to their faith, realizing that as they firmly proclaim the Gospel the resistance to their words and godly lifestyle will be forthcoming
They comprehend and willingly accept that as they daily take up their cross for Christ that the vast majority of Christ’s followers will be relegated to live in the margins of society
They are not readily distracted by the trappings of materialism and are dedicated to following Christ whole-heartedly
Their burden for the souls of their neighbors is a deep motivation for their relentless work ethic in building the Kingdom of God
They regard evangelism and discipleship as being inseparable, which can only be fully accomplished within a vibrant church body of fellow believers
They preach the Word of God boldly following the model of Acts 4:29 – 31
They recognize their spiritual responsibilities to their fellow citizens, realizing that their destiny under God lies within their national church planting endeavors