You may have heard the phrase “There’s no free lunch…” but at Take the Challenge, there is a free dinner!
Here is a 30-second video invitation from Scott Roberts to our annual missions banquet.
For more information and to reserve your spot, please CLICK HERE
or scan the QR code for the event page:
Greetings Prayer Partners,
We are now halfway through the year, and God is doing such amazing things that we can hardly contain ourselves. We at Take The Challenge are excited to introduce you to a new voice.
As we mentioned last month, Mark Phillips was quitting his day job on June 30 to join TTC as a staff missionary, and now I, Mark Phillips, am the one writing to you! Our family could not be more excited to share with you what God has been doing with us through our work with TTC these past few months (even before coming on staff).
First, I want to share a picture of a group of Filipino pastors that we’ve had the privilege of leading this past month. Each week my wife and I meet with them and help them experience the disciple-making process for themselves, so that in the months to come they can launch their own DM groups in their churches and communities. This is just one of 45 disciple-makers (DM) groups currently meeting in the Philippines. God is transforming the nation!
Next, I want to show you a special photo that brings great joy to my heart. In this picture you will see me, my disciple, his disciple, and his disciple’s disciple. This has been five years in the making, and as a result, each one of these disciples is now leading his own DM group and helping his disciples raise up their own disciples.
This is happening right here in the USA, in Anderson, Missouri, a small town of about 2,000. God is using everyday people who are willing to invest themselves in others to fulfill his Matthew 28:19 commission. Do you hear the call? If you’d like to learn how to disciple others, contact us. We have online groups available that you can join today.
Finally, Scott and I are wrapping up preparations for our mission trip to Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. We are actively working with our national leaders in Kenya to finalize the details; this trip is now less than two weeks away!!!!
Praise Reports:
Prayer Requests:
Following Jesus as his apprentice,
Mark and the TTC team
Our new mobile app is a gift from our TTCI partners, provided to you for free, to help us keep you updated and engaged with our missionary teams.
Now, it is easier than ever to experience the delight of serving God by reaching others around the world with His Love and good news. In just a few short minutes and a couple of clicks on your phone or computer, you can easily participate in modern-day missionary journeys! Be a part, or be more than that!
Did you realize that just five minutes and a few simple steps to join the Take the Challenge International missions family—whether by downloading the app and praying over updates, sending any amount of financial support once or monthly, or volunteering your gifts and talents—can significantly increase your own (or your family’s) sense of fulfillment? By actively encouraging the TTCI team in any way as we raise disciple-makers, train leaders, and provide resources, you will discover a more profound sense of purpose and fulfillment.
With the new app and website updates, you can receive real-time prayer updates as the missionary teams travel, take a peek inside the challenging yet often humorous life on the mission field, and rejoice in the lives that are changed. Additionally, you can read impact reports from our latest mission trips and discover the various ways you can get involved.
Our new mobile app (designed for the “Disciple-Makers Movement” or DMM for short) provides a seamless platform for engaging with our missionaries and receiving real-time updates and impact reports. The DMM app also helps connect our TTCI partners! We prayed for God’s guidance in creating this tool to make it a valuable daily resource for you, our friends, family, and ministry partners. With this app, you can access resources to support your personal spiritual journey while also witnessing the impact of your support.
From audio lessons to recorded empowerment sessions from our various online groups worldwide, this app serves as the connection point for all disciples of the DMM (Disciple-Makers Movement). The app helps us equip each nation’s DMM leaders to effectively reach and establish new groups, providing powerful education, communication tools, and needed information to help them grow and prosper.
You can download the APP from the Apple APP Store, the Amazon App Store, or the Google Play Store for free (thanks to the generous gifts of our TTC financial partners). The new app enables you to stay informed, pray, and participate in our global outreach efforts with ease. (So, why not click the image below to download it right now?)
New! Now, you can get SMS notifications for events, prayer updates, and mission reports. Short and sweet, SMS alerts are limited to 160 characters. We only send them between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m.
with our community, the TTCI missionaries, and Disciple-maker Groups through interactive features like an online Bible, group and team messaging, and a Prayer Request link to e connection, prayer support, and .
Follow along with our teams as they spread the Good News across the globe, with detailed mission updates, prayer requests, periodic Impact Reports, our annual Missions Banquet, as well as blog articles and updates on the website throughout the year.
Strengthen your faith by exploring a wealth of free resources designed to support your discipleship journey and bring life to your relationships.
(This growing resource library is provided at no cost to you by the generosity of our faithful ministry partners.)
Choose to receive notifications via SMS, email, or both, with simple opt-in and opt-out options. (You can reply with STOP to any SMS to unsubscribe from SMS Text Notifications. Reply with Unsubscribe to be removed from email communications. Transaction receipts will still be sent to the registered email address.)
Navigate our app with ease, thanks to its intuitive design and user-friendly interface. This app was designed with our partners and disciple-makers groups in mind. Our heart is to provide a simple effective resource hub (the app) that will be a blessing in your every day walk with God and in your growth as disciple-makers!
We value your connection with us, so our updates are Good News about who we are, what we do, where we go, and what's new. Oh yes, and how you can get involved as the Lord leads you! Depending on your preference, newsletter notifications are sent via email and/or SMS text messaging, along with a "read more" link. Submitting either of these forms confirms your wish to receive occasional email and/or text notifications from Take the Challenge International and its outreaches or events.
You may easily unsubscribe from either at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the correspondence received or by replying STOP to an SMS text in order to opt out of future SMS texts. (Transactional emails or texts will still be sent for purchase or donation receipts.)
“The app has transformed how we stay connected with the mission trips. The real-time updates keep us engaged and prayerful for the team’s success.”
“Receiving SMS notifications has been so helpful! I feel more involved and informed about the exciting work being done across the globe by Take the Challenge International.”
“The updates are timely and inspiring. It’s amazing to see the impact of our prayers and support in real-time.”
What started as three DM groups in May 2024 has been transformed into a forest of thirty five groups in just twelve months’ time. This has happened only through the sacrificial giving of numerous leaders like Pastor Wilson, who, with his wife Angelica, travel for thirteen hours every Thursday to train two groups of leaders in a neighboring province.
The Kenya disciple-maker movement (KDMM) has now established DM Outposts in Tanzania and Uganda. Between these two outposts, thirteen DM groups are now discipling more than seventy pastors and leaders. All thirteen of the groups are led by Tanzanian or Ugandan leaders who were discipled by our Kenyan missionaries.
One example is missionary Michael, who for 10 months spent two days each week traveling ten hours one-way to lead groups in Tanzania. I was privileged to make that same journey with him last fall to minister to some of the pastors who now are leading their own groups.
Psalm 1 gives us a picture of a true disciple of Jesus – “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” In November 2024, Pastor Mohan identified and recruited a number of young ministers to join the disciple-making process, so they could be trained to disciple other Nepali pastors the Lord brought to us for disciple-making. Five of these young ministers sent down roots as they gave themselves to the disciplines of a disciple. Following my visit to Nepal in March 2025, the Lord rewarded them with disciple-making groups of their own. Now, over thirty pastors and leaders in nine weekly DM groups are being trained to become “trees of righteousness.” From these small saplings, we see a mighty forest being raised to reach this once-Hindu nation for Jesus!
In 2022, under the leadership of Pastor Gil (“Hill”), the Pastoral Growth division of the Philippines Council of Evangelical Churches[1] (PCEC), launched a “Decade of Discipleship.” After hearing about the disciple-making ministry of TTC in the Philippines, Pastor Gil offered to partner with TTC to raise disciple-making outposts in ten major population centers across the Philippines. We are currently in the planning stage of this endeavor which will be launched in October 2025 with two pastoral couples from each of the ten population centers. Praise God for these divine connections!
Thank you for your prayers and gifts that enable our team around the world to equip national pastors and leaders to raise disciple-makers across their own nations and into neighboring lands. We are truly grateful.
[1] The PCEC includes 91 denominations and 2.4 million members across the Philippines.
Greetings Praying Partners,
Summer has begun and the fields are already white to harvest! We here at Take The Challenge are working hard to position laborers to ensure that all our opportunities will be realized and disciples will be made among the nations.
To this end, we have an exciting announcement –
The Mark Phillips family will join TTC as missionaries on July 1, 2025!
In order to do this, Mark has quit his job as the COO of a major manufacturing company, and they are currently in the process of raising support. Visit the link in our “June Praise Reports” section below if you would like to join their support team.
Mark and Whitney Phillips, Liam and Korbin
Here’s an introduction in their own words.
“Greetings from Mark, Whitney, Liam, and Korbin Phillips. We are excited to partner with TTC as staff missionaries to help see the disciple-making movement grow and expand into new areas all throughout the world. We have a keen heart for discipling others, and this has been from the beginning for us both. As Whitney put it just a few months ago, ‘If we are not discipling others, then what are we really doing?’ The harvest is ripe, and the laborers are few. Our response to the Lord is simple, ‘Here we are, send us!’”
DM Group Leaders (“Coaches”) in the Philippines
In other news, the disciple-makers movement is truly flourishing around the world, especially in the Philippines. From its humble beginnings of three disciple-makers (DM) groups in May 2024, the Philippines DM Movement (PDMM) has grown to over 35 DM groups in just the past twelve months. We are currently in the midst of a campaign to establish a PDMM Command Center to manage and extend the movement across the Philippines and into neighboring nations. Watch this announcement for more information about how you can get involved in this momentous project.
Kenya Command Center Also on the Horizon
Finally, and Mark will leave for Africa in six weeks to encourage the disciple-makers and establish a Command Center in Kenya. In the last 15 months, the number of disciple-makers in Kenya has multiplied greatly. Currently, more than 35 of the 65 weekly DM groups there are led by disciples of the disciples of Scott’s original three disciples. That means Scott is a great-grandfather many times over in Kenya!
June Praise Reports:
1. For the incredible growth of the disciple-makers movement around the world (from 50 groups training 325 pastors weekly to 120 groups training 750 pastors weekly in the last 18 months).
2. For raising up the Phillips family to be laborers in the global disciple- makers movement. Contact us or visit our eGive portal to join their support team.
3. For the great number of volunteers (in the U.S. and around the world) who are giving their time, talent, and treasure to help us reach nations for disciple-making.
June Prayer Requests:
1. God to bring in all the necessary funds to establish the PDMM Command Center in the Philippines by July 1, 2025. (So far we have raised $8.5K of the $25K needed.)
2. Wisdom in restructuring our Kenya national leadership to allow us to establish the KDMM as a self-sustaining, missionary-sending organization that will reach East Africa and beyond!
3. Grace for Scott to manage all the growing pains associated with the exponential growth of disciple-makers. = )
Thank you so much!
With your help we are…
Raising Disciple-Makers,
Scott and the TTC team