Albanian Diaspora Mission Forum 2012

Albanian Mission Network
invites you to:

Albanian Diaspora Mission Forum

3-4 August (Fri-Sat), 2012-Chicago, Illinois
Venue:

Romanian Baptist Church of Chicago

484 E. Northwest Highway (505 State Street)
Des Plaines, Illinois 60016
Aerial View
Map

Purpose:

To facilitate a mission dialogue and share strategies with a goal of evangelistic church planting among the Albanian diaspora and other people.

Participants:

A group of kingdom minded strategic leaders who are supportive of evangelistic church planting among the Albanian diaspora and other people.

Registration:

Free to all attendees. Participants are expected to pay their own cost including transportation, hotel and meals. Please send an email to Jeremy Dollar if you plan to participate.

Expected Outcomes:

1) Sharing strategies for evangelism and church planting, 2) Utilize the findings to provide for implementing a church planting strategy for Albanian diaspora and other people around the world, 3) Mobilize churches for evangelistic church planting among the Albanian diaspora in North America and around the world.

Accommodation:

Local hotel in close proximity to the venue. Check this link to book your hotel.

Date and Venue:

(Friday/Saturday) 3-4 August, 2012: Chicago, Illinois

Romanian Baptist Church of Chicago

484 E. Northwest Highway (505 State Street)
Des Plaines, Illinois 60016

Invitees:

Pastors, missionaries, mission leaders and lay people that have an interest in reaching out to the Albanian people in North America, Albania or around the world.

Each invitee is encouraged to bring at least one church leader with him.

Schedule:

Fri Aug 3

6:00pm Dinner

7:00pm Realities of Albanian Diaspora

Sat Aug 4

8:00am Best practices in reaching Albanian diaspora

9:30am National and Global Strategies

11:00am Church and missionary Mobilization

12:30pm Lunch

1:30pm Reaching the Albanian Diaspora in Greater Chicago area. Practicum

6:00pm Adjourn

(Note: Schedule subject to change under the leadership of the Holy Spirit)

For additional information contact:

Jeremy Dollar: email (702) 280-4523

or

Mark Hobafcovich: email

Albanians in the United States and Canada Census 2000

Top 25 States/Provinces with the highest number of people that reported Albanian as their Ancestry and the number of Albanian speakers. (Language spoken at home)

	State/Province	Ancestry	State/Province	Language spoken at home
1.	New York	30623	New York	26630
2.	Ontario	18760	Michigan	12915
3.	Michigan	14892	Illinois	5650
4.	Massachusetts	8745	Massachusetts	5080
5.	Connecticut	6583	Connecticut	5070
6.	New Jersey	6411	New Jersey	5040
7.	Illinois	5866	Florida	3100
8.	Florida	4273	Pennsylvania	2510
9.	Pennsylvania	3725	California	2035
10.	California	2920	Texas	1795
11.	Ohio	2378	Ohio	1420
12.	Texas	2304	Wisconsin	1370
13.	Quebec	1760	Arizona	640
14.	Wisconsin	1749	Missouri	610
15.	British Columbia	1360	Tennessee	540
16.	Alberta	1340	Virginia	475
17.	Missouri	1095	Maryland	440
18.	Arizona	884	Georgia	435
19.	New Hampshire	867	North Carolina	395
20.	Virginia	804	New Hampshire	355
21.	Tennessee	740	Oregon	320
22.	Maryland	695	Washington	270
23.	North Carolina	606	Alaska	255
24.	Maine	561	Idaho	245
25.	Manitoba	520	Minnesota	220

 Source: peoplegroups.info

2012-Compiled by Mark Hobafcovich

Planting Churches in Las Vegas

It is well known that nothing worthwhile comes easy. This is even more true when you're talking about the work of the kingdom, particularly church planting. Planting churches "is a God thing". Why? A disciple making community is established in an area or group of people that previously had no gospel witness. That's something "out of nothing". Ex Nihilo--Only God can do that! However, planting churches doesn't come easy, it demands hard work and sacrifice as experienced by church planting missionary Jeremy Dollar working to plant churches among the Eastern European groups in Las Vegas. Visiting Nevada in October I've met with a number of kingdom focused people who have a heart for God and love for these groups of people in the city. One of these groups are the Romanians among whom the gospel is preached and disciples are made thanks to the hard work of Jeremy and his missionary team and by the Grace of God. Pray for this and other groups that Jeremy's working with, such as Russians, Albanian, Polish. For encouragement contact Jeremy at email.

The Two fundamental church planting approaches…

Much has been heard about church planting in the last few years. To most established church leaders, church planting seems to be a threat for the fear of “competition”. If understood correctly it shouldn’t be so. A simple definition of church planting can be such as “a process that results in a new church being established”. It should be distinguished from church development, where a new service is created that is integrated into an established congregation. For a church to be planted it must eventually have a separate life of its own and be able to function without its parent body, even if it continues to stay in relationship denominationally or network. There a basically two ways of approaching church planting. The first and most popular is planting a church to evangelize a community or a people group. This is where most of the church planting literature is today. The other approach is evangelizing an area or a people group and as a result you plant a church. This seems to be more in line with the first century approach and if done correctly can bear much fruit with a lot less investment of resources. The first approach is depending much more on outside resources, human and financial, the second being more reliable on the willingness and sacrificial efforts of the missionary team. Both approaches can be beneficial to the kingdom of God. Employ whichever approach seems more appropriate to the mission field environment where you are for the glory of God.