|
Missions Is For Everyone Plus
Other Missions Articles!
"Missions?
Not for me." By Tammy Dunkum November 05,1999
In the Nov. 7 Adult Life & Work
Sunday School lesson, LifeWay reintroduces us to Jonah, who had the same
reaction when God called him to Nineveh.
Southern Baptists everywhere are responding
to the call to missions in many different ways. For Charles and Ann
Clark of Rising Star, Texas, for example, it wasn't a giant fish that got
their attention, it was early retirement.
The Clarks have had a good life by American
standards. They have three children and five grandchildren. The last 10
years of Charles' career was spent in the oil fields of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Though he sensed a childhood calling to missions, Charles
says that family responsibilities "seemed to be the important thing" as
he matured.
While working overseas in the oil industry,
the Clarks witnessed to their Muslim friends. Eventually they were able
to take early retirement. Just as they began to put the finishing touches
on their dream home in Texas, however, the Lord told them to go back to
the Middle East with the International Mission Board's International Service
Corps program.
Charles realized that "to fulfill God's
purpose for me is a lot more important than the things that I want. I put
it off until I was 64, and I find it very gracious for the Lord to give
me the opportunity to give Him the rest of my life."
Ann says that while the new home was
nice, it had little value to them. Those things were easy to give up, compared
to putting the call to missions higher than their children.
"It's not an easy process because you
are involving other people's lives and the children are having to deal
with this and we've been away for about 10 years," Ann says. "So when they
think we're coming home to stay, we're really leaving to relocate, and
that's hard."
Leaving for the mission field was hard
in other ways.
The Clarks arrived on the field at the
end of June. Two weeks before they expected to leave, they still had not
sold their home. They couldn't even get the insurance they needed in case
something happened to it while they are gone. They also experienced a lot
of raw emotion in leaving their children again after just coming back home.
But they are at peace with the decision,
knowing that all their concerns are in God's hands.
Baptists
record thousands of decisions in Rio outreach
By Wally Poor
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (BP) -- As the full moon rose over the rim
of Maracana Stadium, evangelist Sammy Tippit pleaded with the unsaved among
the 50,000 people assembled to accept Christ.
Many did. When Tippit led those who wished to accept Christ in a
prayer, the voices of those repeating the prayer swept the stadium, one
of the largest in the world.
The meeting in Maracana culminated a week-long simultaneous revival
effort in which 412 Baptist volunteers from the United States and 150 from
other Latin American countries joined 76,000 Brazilian Baptists for a great
harvest of souls.
About half the 50,000 people in the stadium stood to register a decision
for salvation or rededication, Tippit said. The number of those accepting
Christ was unclear.
At least 5,000 other decisions were reported by churches with which
337 Tennessee volunteers worked, according to Terry Sharp, coordinator
of volunteers with the Tennessee Baptist Convention.
Another 5,350 decisions were registered
by Tippit's "God's Love in Action" group, which fielded 75 volunteers from
various U.S. states. International Crusades mustered 150 Latin Americans
from Mexico, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, as well as Brazilian
volunteers from outside Rio.
The massive campaign covered a territory
100 miles long. The crusade is the most recent example of the International
Mission Board's commitment to proclaim the gospel in partnership and cooperation
with national Baptists and other Great Commission Christians.
Testimonies from some volunteers
affirmed that God was at work in Brazilian hearts during the crusade.
A man converted during street preaching
had been on his way to kill four people and then himself, said Larry Gilmore,
president of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Six people, including an 80-year-old grandmother and her 15-year-old granddaughter, accepted Christ,
said Gilmore, who is pastor of the College Heights Baptist Church in Gallatin,
Tenn.
"I felt like Peter arriving to preach
at the house of Cornelius," said one volunteer, who explained that many
people, knowing the Christians would be visiting, invited others also to
be present.
Six people were saved in another
home visit, said Truman Herring, pastor of Boca Glades Baptist Church in
Boca Raton, Fla. "The person I was concentrating on was the mother. She
had real assurance. She thanked me and said she knew Jesus had come
to live in her heart."
IMB missionary Sharon Fairchild
coordinated the recruitment and training of 650 translators for the simultaneous
crusade, which involved 250 churches in the Carioca Baptist Convention.
Fairchild continued to work despite the fact that her son, David, was undergoing
surgery in the United States. Her husband, Ray, was with David during the
surgery and his mother flew to be with him as soon as the crusade was over.
The governor of Rio de Janeiro state,
Anthony Garotinho, granted the Baptists use of Maracana Stadium over a
soccer club that wanted to stage a game there at the same time.
Garotinho, himself a Presbyterian,
is leading a crusade of his own -- to ban the sale of firearms in Brazil.
If passed, Brazil would join Great Britain and Australia as the only countries
in the world to do so.
As part of an afternoon-long evangelistic
meeting, 2,082 rifles, pistols and even bazookas were destroyed with hammers
by the governor, other officials and Brazilian school children, who also released white doves and balloons to symbolize peace.
"Rio, the only arms you need is
prayer," one slogan said.
Missions Is For Everyone: Or Cheap Ways To Avoid The Call &
Do The Work"
By Erich Bridges
Missions isn't just for missionaries. Never has been. But more than
ever before, evangelical leaders now agree that biblical missions
involves mobilizing every Christian in every church for the unfinished
task.
Your assignment -- should you choose to accept it -- may be career
missionary, or short-termer, or volunteer. It may be as a local
"mobilizer," entrusted by God with the challenge of teaching and
training others to go.
Your job description definitely includes becoming a prayer warrior.
That means staying well informed about specific mission fields,
ministries and unreached peoples, so you can storm the gates of
gospel resistance on your knees.
Air travel, e-mail and other modern technologies make missions awareness,communication
and direct participation easier and faster than anyone dreamed possible
a generation ago.
But just because God's people are finally realizing that His world
mission is everyone's task, you don't have to get personally involved
-- or, heaven forbid, watch your children and grandchildren move
away to some foreign field! Here, passed on by Teen Mania
Ministries, is a tongue-in-cheek list of practical ways to "avoid the draft"
into the Lord's army:
-
1. Ignore Jesus' command in John 4:35 to look at the fields white
unto harvest. This could lead to genuine missionary concern.
-
2. Have a good, socially acceptable target ahead of you, such as
promotion, bigger home, better car, etc.
-
3. Note to youth: Get married as soon as possible so you can devote
your life to settling down, raising a family and saving up for old
age. That way you won't have time to give the Lord a year or two
of your life overseas as a young adult.
-
4. Stick to generalities. Never allow the stark needs of specific
mission fields to make an impact on you.
-
5. Never have personal contact with missionaries. The situations
they describe are disturbing and contrast with Western materialistic
living.
-
6. Insist that your theology rules out specific, personal direction
from God. Alternate strategy: Claim you don't have "the missionary
calling." Apply this even to local outreach or short-term volunteer
mission participation.
-
7. Stay busy! Always bow to the tyranny of the urgent and avoid the
strategic.
-
8. Rationalize. If 250,000 missionaries around the world now can't
finish the job, what difference would you make?
-
9. Develop a closed-door mentality. Remember, Albania, Pakistan,
Tibet and North Korea all deny visas from time to time.
-
10. Develop a "national church can do it" attitude. Never investigate
the tiny percentage of the population Christians in many countries
constitute, or the severe limitations of their resources.
-
11. Focus all your attention on the evils of your own society. Fair-minded
Christians will applaud your concern for the "unsaved right here
at home." Missions begins at home; make sure it ends there,
too.
-
12. Always remember your failures. Expect you will never improve.
Besides, you're not ready to go -- maybe you never will be. Ignore
the examples of Peter, Moses, etc.
-
13. Always look at mission workers as super-spiritual people, saintly
characters with extraordinary gifts. This will heighten your sense
of inadequacy and remove any guilt about failing to be like them.
-
14. Avoid all books that emphasize the ability of the Holy Spirit
to change lives and provide power for service.
-
If you're getting a little concerned about missions and God's heart
for all the world, a few more pointers:
-
15. Go overseas right away without any training at all. That way
you'll come home soon and can say you tried.
-
16. Insist you must find the mission job exactly tailored to your
qualifications (that way you'll never find an opening).
-
17. Start worrying about money and the impossibility of surviving
in a country with a 100-percent inflation rate (the Lord couldn't
possibly cope with that).
-
18. Listen to those who feel you are indispensable where you are.
-
19. Never sing "Onward Christian Soldiers."
From: IMB News Stories International Mission Board, SBC Thursday,
May 28, 1998
God
intervenes to protect missionaries during robbery
By Heidi Soderstrom
LIBREVILLE, Gabon (BP) -- A bullet
and a nightgown don't have much in common.
At least they didn't until five
armed robbers awakened International Mission Board missionaries Anne and
Steve Seaberry at their home in Libreville, Gabon, in late April.
But even while the Seaberrys watched
the robbers pack everything the couple owned -- including their wedding
rings -- into their own car, God used the two signs -- a bullet and a nightgown
-- to give them peace and hope.
Peace came when Anne realized she
was wearing a longer nightgown than usual. Bowing her head, she thanked
the Lord she was modestly attired in front of the robbers.
"God immediately said to me: 'I
have gone before you and made sure you were covered. I will protect you
and Steve,'" Anne said. "Throughout the rest of the time I'd look down
at my gown and remind God of that promise."
The clock seemed to stand still
in the hour or so it took the robbers to stow everything in the car. All
the while, the Seaberrys wondered if they'd live to see the sun rise again.
Then, as the thieves were preparing
to leave, one turned in the doorway, pointed his gun at them and cocked
it.
"Oh Jesus," Anne prayed out loud.
A bullet immediately fell to the
floor. Shocked, the man looked at his gun and realized that was his only
bullet. He left the room, presumably to get more bullets. The frightened
couple began whispering Jesus' name, over and over again, until two men
came in to tie them up. Closing the bedroom door, the men left the
house several minutes later, Anne said.
"We know that Jesus protected us.
In looking back, we believe that our calm, thus God's peace, also helped
save us," she said. "We did nothing to provoke them to harm us and probably surprised them with such calmness. God's grace is sufficient."
| 
free.