01/29/25 Oops! We were wrong!!

By Bruce Snavely | January 29, 2025

As we begin 2025, we have been reflecting on 2024 and what God has done through the nationals trained by Global Baptist Training Foundation. What an amazing year we have just completed. But, we made an error last year in reporting results from our church plants!

We only got reports from the churches (150) who received monthly support from our partner, Advance. Advance supports church planters who have completed or nearly have completed all GBTF training for $ 50 a month for one year. This has been invaluable to many of our church planters who have little to no resources to get a church started in an area where no gospel witness exists.

We do, however, have many (over 300) church planters who get churches started with no outside funding. This is the ultimate goal – self-supporting nationals who train other nationals and plant new churches!

The total number of churches planted in 2024 was 455. We reported just over 18,000 people saved in the first three quarters last year. Again, we now know that those results were only from the supported churches. We have now gathered information from most of the church plants for the 4th quarter of 2024, and the results are far beyond anything we could imagined!

For the 4th quarter, the 435 churches have reported 12,805 people coming to Christ!! That’s just from October through December. If we are able to get data for the rest of 2024, we will let you know. We are estimating that about 50,000 people came to know Christ as Savior through churches planted by GBTF-trained pastors last year!

Part of GBTF training is theological. Part is practical. This includes training in church planting, evangelism, and discipleship. It is a joy to see that over 5,000 of those saved in the 4th quarter have already been baptized and are being discipled through the churches. In pools, rivers, oceans, and even a mud hole, these new believers followed the Biblical pattern of baptism to give public testimony of their faith in Christ. Many others are in baptism preparation. Every church has a different pattern they follow! That is the intent of GBTF. The churches started through GBTF-trained pastors are autonomous. They have no headquarters dictating to them. If we build a building for these church plants (see some updates on this in our next update email), that building is owned by that local church!!! This is the Biblical pattern!

Be part of this amazing multiplication of training nationals to train nationals. Go to www.globaltrain.org for more information and to donate!

Bruce & Grace Snavely

GlobalBaptist Training Foundation