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Home Missions History
There was a time when the term Home Missions was not part of the manual of the United Pentecostal Church International. The perception of missions was something done overseas. A large banner in the December 1952 issue of the Pentecostal Herald read: download this issue.

New Home Missionary Policy Adopted By

The United Pentecostal Church

A great program under the name of Home Missionary was recently adopted at the 28th Annual Conference of the United Pentecostal Church which convened in October at Little Rock, Arkansas. The missionary zeal that has for so many years affected the progressiveness of foreign Pentecostal activities will now have its effect upon the work throughout the United States and Canada.


That was the beginning, but from that start it was several more years before the leadership of the newly-founded division was on-site at World Evangelism Center.


It is interesting that in 1952, when Home Missions was put into the strategy of the United Pentecostal Church, there were 1,321 churches; in 2009, there are 4,269 churches in North America.


Home Missions works!

The North American population in 1952 was 181,981,356. In 2009, we have 388,000,000.


In 1952, the ratio was one church per 137,760 people.

In 2009, the ratio is one church per 90,888.


Home Missions works!

For the first fifteen years, Home Missions existed without any specific and consistent source of funding.


Christmas for Christ

This changed in 1967, when Christmas for Christ (CFC) was launched as a national program. The Director of the General Home Missions Division at that time was Haskell Yadon. After the launch of CFC, Bro. Yadon served as Director of the General Home Missions Division for a few months before he returned to the West Coast to pastor.


In 1968, J.T. Pugh of Port Arthur, Texas, was elected Director of the General Home Missions Division. He served for six years and in many ways laid the foundation for the current operation of both Christmas for Christ and the General Home Missions Division. Bro. Pugh focused on only a few things. His message was simple and clear:

  North America is relatively unevangelized. We need church planters. In order for there to be church planters, pastors must be intentional about being spiritual fathers and raise up sons in the gospel they release to go start churches.
 Educating the constituency regarding Christmas for Christ was an ongoing and unending effort.

It is interesting that the first offering for Christmas for Christ was actually received in Home Missionary Jack Yonts living room. It was given by his young family, who were themselves planting a church in Wisconsin. The family had gathered for a Sunday service just before Christmas. Bro. Yonts instructed his children that they were going to give their biggest Christmas gift to Jesus and then send that gift to some other Home Missionary family. This particular ideagive your biggest Christmas gift to Jesusis the founding premise of Christmas for Christ. Where you find a church that gives a meaningful CFC offering on a per-capita basis, you will usually discover the pastor leads his congregation to do exactly as Jack Yonts family did in the mid-1960sGive your biggest Christmas gift to Jesus!


From that tiny oak of possibility sprang a ministry that has seeded churches, impacting North America and the entire world. When Christmas for Christ went national in 1967, the offering was $109,113.34.


It grew! Over the next 41 years, the CFC offering has totaled $62,492,298.71. In 2006, there was a record Christmas for Christ offering of $2,869,404.21. The next major hurdle for Christmas for Christ is to surpass the 3 million dollar mark.

 


To date CFC allocations have been made to help hundreds of Church Planters to establish churches.

 

CFC funds have been invested into men like:

Wayne Huntley

David Bernard

David Elms

Lorin Bradbury

Royce Andrus

Mike Conn

Jack Cunningham

Andrew Dillon

Irvin Fields

Rick Stoops

Chester Wright

John Mean

Jack Yonts

Robin Johnston

Bill Harden

Gary Hogan

Thomas Bailey

Shane Brown

Knox Handkins

Horacio Lachica

Jathan Maricelli

R. Stacey Meeks

Stephen Williams

Stuart Young

Trent Gilliam

Peter Fraser

Rashidi Collins

Too many Home Missionaries to list in this setting have benefited from Christmas for Christ allocations. What an incredible thing has developed from the Home Missions seed planted in 1952.

 

CFCs Return on Investment
Not only has Christmas for Christ planted churches, these churches have paid a huge return on the investment. Consider just two examples:

 

  • In 1978, Wayne Huntley, Home Missionary to Raleigh, North Carolina, received a CFC allocation of $31,200.00. From 1999 to 2009, the church in Raleigh has given $303,860.25 to Christmas for Christ.

 

  • In 1993, David Bernard, Home Missionary to Austin, Texas, received a CFC allocation of $12,000.00. From 1999 to 2009, the church in Austin has given $77,800.00 to Christmas for Christ.

 

Neither example cited here begins to consider the amount of money either of these churches has given to Foreign Missions or any other ministry of the UPCI. What an incredible return on the investment.

 

CFC does not just affect elsewhere. CFC produces the majority of funds for a districts Home Missions effort. Forty percent of each districts Christmas for Christ offering remains in the district for direct use toward evangelizing that district. These funds are used exclusively for starting new churches, training Home Missionaries, promoting CFC, and underwriting the administering of the District Home Missions effort.

 

This Christmas for Christ return on investment has played out in every district in North America. Every dime into every offering received comes from a church that was once a church plant. Partners in Missions for overseas missions, Mothers Memorial, Save Our Children, Media Missions, Fathers Day offerings, Sheaves for Christ, and any other partnership in giving would fade to nothing if every church that began as a Home Missions church did not exist. I have never visited a Home Missions church that does not have at least one partnership with an overseas missionary.

 

Christmas for Christ and Home Missions pays a direct dividend. It is like a preferred stock. A preferred stockholder gets a dividend whether or not anyone else does. Christmas for Christ and Home Missions is preferred stock. It is a biased opinion subject to much debate, but is a worthy discussion: An offering to Christmas for Christ has one of the strongest returns on investment of any contribution made into the United Pentecostal Church.

 

There is the dividend of Evangelism and Discipleship

 The dividend of preachers developed and released.

 The dividend of new churches multiplying our giving to overseas missions.

 The dividend of growing a district.

 The dividend of developing leadership for a section or a district.

 The dividend of keeping a district alive with vibrant new growth.

 

Further History of GHMD

Bro. Pughs partner in the effort of making Christmas for Christ and Home Missions household words was V. Arlen Guidroz. When Bro. Pugh had completed the six years he had committed to serve, he was elected to pastor what was then a small church in Odessa, Texas. As long as he lives, Bro. Pugh remains a friend of Home Missions and Home Missionaries.

 

At Bro. Pughs transition, Bro. Guidroz was elected to serve as Director of the General Home Missions Division. Bro. Guidroz provided masterful resources in Leadership and the Development of Men. His greatest joy was being able to select high-quality ministers and their wives, train them, support their day-to-day ministry financially and spiritually, and share in their results. After two years of leading the division, Bro. Guidroz left the Home Missions Division to evangelize. Bro. and Sis. Guidroz eventually assumed the pastorate of a small church in the Dallas area. The church grew and prospered under his leadership. Bro. Guidroz is outstanding at teaching and developing preachers.

 

Jack Yonts followed Bro. Guidroz. Bro. Yonts had been involved in planting several churches across the upper Midwest. At the time of his election, Bro. Yonts was serving as District Superintendent of Wisconsin. Under Bro. Yonts leadership, there was a focus on Home Bible Study as an evangelistic tool, and resources were developed to make disciples. Things like In My Fathers House (Levels 1-3), Exploring Gods Word and other resources are still prominently used and available for purchase from HM Sales.

 

Bro.Yonts led the General Home Missions Division for 12 years. During this era the UPCI established Spanish Evangelism, the Multicultural Ministries program, Christian Prisoner Fellowship, and Metro Missions. Metro Missions focuses on metropolitan areas of more than one million in population. A metro missionary gains monthly support (just like a foreign missionarys Partners in Missions) and goes into a metropolitan environment to serve as a full-time church planter. These programs are still in effective use today.

 

After his twelve years of leadership, Bro. Yonts left the leadership of GHMD to become our first Metro Missionary. He and Sis. Yonts planted a thriving church in Chicago, Illinois. Again, the investment in Home Missions has paid huge returns in additional offerings, additional preachers developed, and daughter churches being launched.

 

During the last few months of Bro. Yonts tenure in office, Home Missionary Jack Cunningham was appointed as Secretary of HMD. On Bro. Yonts move to Chicago, Bro. Cunningham was elected to serve as Director. A word defines Bro. Cunninghams ministry and that is revival. This message of spiritual renewal was something that was heralded far and wide by Bro. Cunningham and those who served alongside him. The General Home Missions Division was involved in crusades, evangelism, and establishing daughter churches under the scope of One Grand Vision. During these years, two new districts were birthed: Newfoundland and Quebec. Church-in-a-Day (CIAD) which helps a young church build a new church building became a national program. CIAD has helped over 60 churches own their own building. In 2004, Bro. Cunningham returned to Virginia to assume a pastorate in Chesapeake, Virginia. He was also elected to serve as Virginias District Superintendent.

 

In the spring of 2004, Carlton Coon ( Springfield, Missouri) was appointed to serve as Secretary of GHMD. He was to fulfill the unexpired term of Secretary Joseph Fiorino. The General Conference of 2004 elected Bro. Coon as Director of the Division. During this time, the oft-repeated objective of the division is to make sure everything done under the umbrella of Home Missions helps the local pastor and/or evangelist to:

 

Envision

Equip

Empower

 

The current focus of the General Home Missions Division is:

 

(1) Acquainting our constituency with just how under-evangelized North America is. As of 2009, 38 countries around the world report having more churches per capita than we have in the United States and Canada.

(2) Promoting the effectiveness of new churches as an evangelistic tool. At our last research, Home Missions churches averaged 38.6 in Sunday attendance. The attendees are people who generally would not have been in church less than five years ago. Across the board, no other church growth effort is as effective as starting another church.

(3) Establishing a broader base to fund Home Missions. Friends of American Missions is a monthly partnership that funds HM Live, Impact magazine, Homemissionsdivision.com and other resources. Endowment funds have been established and donor-directed funds have been received. This is another tiny seed that will eventually be a mighty oak.

(4) Raising the profile of Home Missionariesnationally and in each district. What gets honored gets repeated. Every newly-licensed preacher in every district should be given the opportunity to consider planting a church.

 

Until Jesus comes, Home Missions needs to be in the forefront of our collective consciousness. The future is bright. More preachers than ever are expressing an interest in becoming Home Missionaries. The story of Home Missions is one of visionary success and vitality.

 

Each person on the Home Missions team is involved in something of vast dimension. An effective Home Missions effort requires that we despise not the day of small things, and see the long term impact of every church plant.

 

 

 

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