Vision 120: Seeking, Believing and Taking Action Together

By Larry Walkemeyer

Have you ever received a text that seemed to have been sent directly from heaven? My phone recently pinged with one of those.

Bishop Kaye Kolde sent a powerful text to a few leaders:

“I’ve been praying about this time of prayer and fasting coming up in September for the FMC and how it leads into Vision 120. ‘While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off’ (Acts 13:2–3). The Spirit has brought me back here to Acts 13:2 and praying that local churches will be moved by God as they fast and pray to send out!”

Extraordinary prayer gave birth to supernatural impact. Prayer and fasting often led to sacrificial “sending.” The first church movement started in an upper room as 120 devoted disciples were “seeking together.” One hundred and twenty disciples praying together privately in the early morning became 3,000 converts professing faith publicly by the end of the day.

Over 100 of those 120 are unnamed in Scripture — ordinary Jesus followers who became empowered messengers of the gospel. While it is not stated, there is a possibility that many of these 120 became leaders of the new churches in homes mentioned in Acts 2:42, 46.

Can it happen again? Can this month’s Seeking Together have that kind of impact in 2026?

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 “The first church movement started in an upper room as 120 devoted disciples were ‘seeking together.’ One hundred and twenty disciples praying together privately in the early morning became 3,000 converts professing faith publicly by the end of the day.”

Birthing a New Movement

In January, a group of Free Methodist superintendents and multiplication leaders were praying together in the upper room of Zoom. We were asking God to birth a new movement of Free Methodist churches. During that meeting, the Holy Spirit seemed to ask, “Can you believe ‘upper room’ prayer could give birth to 120 new churches?”

Eight weeks later, 320 of us — Free Methodist leaders — surprisingly found ourselves gathered in an “upper room” when our FMX Summit meeting space was relocated at the last minute. Our bishops and others led us in powerful prayers toward multiplication.

Through other “upper room” prayer meetings and discussions with leaders, it was confirmed that the Spirit was asking us to believe and take action to see 120 new Free Methodist churches started.

Our bishops had already been sensing an urge to call the church to the “upper room” — to a consecrated season of prayer. They announced Seeking Together, with a focus on Ephesians 3:14–21, and also wanted to use it to pray earnestly for Vision 120.

In Ephesians 3:14–21, Paul is intensely praying for the church to be filled with the Spirit so that the love and power of God might overflow from them. The result will be God doing “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” through His “power that is at work within us” — the church.

Paul’s prayer was answered. Ephesus went on to equip and send so many missionaries that “all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord” (Acts 19:10). Just as in Acts 2 in Jerusalem and Acts 13 in Antioch, wholehearted praying led to empowered disciples who expanded the church, bringing glory to Jesus.

If you know the history of Free Methodism, this sounds much like the Pentecost Bands — ordinary disciples ablaze with God’s love and power who were sent to start new churches. The “unimaginable” results were that our FM movement grew by over 50% in eight years, from 1886–1894.

Movements begin in the upper room but then move to the streets. In our own story at Light & Life, Long Beach, 40 days of fasting and prayer launched the “River Church,” which has now sent out dozens of church planters.

What Is Vision 120?

We are believing, praying, and working to see 120 new Free Methodist churches started in the USA by General Conference 2029.

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 “Movements begin in the upper room but then move to the streets.”

That means 120 from January 2026 to August 1, 2029. These are churches of all sizes, shapes, and spaces that meet the essential ecclesiological traits in our Book of Discipline. We are believing for more new churches like The Fold, meeting in a laundromat in Oregon; City Free, doing “porch church” in Jackson, Michigan; and Centerpoint Menifee, launching with 300+ folks at its soft-launch service in California.

Sociological research has shown that if you want to start a new trend in an organization, you need approximately 16% of the stakeholders to start participating. One hundred and twenty is not only the “upper room” number the Lord gave us in prayer, but it is also nearly 16% of the number of FM churches in the USA today.

Imagine starting a new FM culture of “earnest prayer birthing sacrificial sending” as 120 FM churches plant a church between now and GC 2029. Imagine if the 120 new churches planted began with the vision to plant a new church themselves within their first three years. A movement would be birthed!

Vision 120 is not a new program or a denominational mandate. It is an invitation from the Spirit to the collective FMCUSA church to be involved in seeing the fruit of 120 new churches.

Vision 120 is a mission all Free Methodist churches, of any size, can participate in at some level — praying, promoting, providing finances, sending short-term workers, identifying potential church-planting pastors or team members, sending an entire group from your church out to plant, or providing a residency. There are myriad ways to engage in the vision.

Let’s be Seeking Together in September for more of the Spirit’s love and power (Ephesians 3:14–21) while focusing our prayers toward seeing 120 new Free Methodist churches started. Such actions may very well birth the movement we desperately need.

If it worked in Jerusalem, Ephesus and Antioch, then it can work in America today!

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 “If it worked in Jerusalem, Ephesus and Antioch, then it can work in America today!”

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