Soloman Islanders Cut Down Trees By Yelling at Them! A missionary "conduct" moment!

In the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific some villagers practice a unique form of logging, If a tree is too large to be felled with an axe, the natives cut it down by yelling at it. (Can’t lay my hands on the article, but I swear I read it.) Woodsmen with special powers creep up on a tree just at dawn and suddenly scream at it at the top of their lungs. They continue this for thirty days. The free dies and falls over. The theory is that the hollering kills the spirit of the tree. According to the villagers, it always works.

Ah, those poor naive innocents. Such quaintly charming habits of the jungle. Screaming at trees, indeed. How primitive. Too bad they don’t have the advantage of modem technology and scientific mind.

Me? I yell at my wife. And yell at the telephone and the lawn mower. And yell at the TV and the newspaper and my children. I’ve even been known to shake my fist and yell at the sky at times.

Man next door yells at his car a lot. And this summer I heard him yelling at a stepladder for most of an afternoon. We modem, urban, educated folks yell at traffic and umpires and bills and banks and machines - especially machines. Machines and relatives get most of the yelling.

Don’t know what good it does. Machines and things just sit there. Even kicking doesn’t always help. As for people, well, the Solomon Islanders may have a point. Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts....”

(Robert Fulghum - “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten” sorry I don't have the page number and the book is.....?)

How to Handle Attention From Locals on the Mission Field

This was an interesting insight about how we should handle all that uncomfortable attention we receive at arrival in a mission town or new village. How should we respond?

"Rather than despise the attention brought to us by our nationality, we should embrace it. God is positioning us where we can have the most impact....

1. Learn why the culture views you as superior. This will allow you to neutralize misconceptions that might cause divisions in your relationships. For example, if you are revered for your American education, those you reach out to might feel inferior because they are unable to read and write.

2. Aim for strategic humility. If you are honored, receive it warmly. Then look for opportunities to exercise radical humility that will challenge worldly views of status. If you are considered wealthy and often invited to dine with social elites, eat your lunches on the street corner with orphans, or commit to menial tasks.

3. I you are given a platform, point to Jesus. If for whatever reason your voice is valued above others, steer conversations toward the one who is truly worthy of attention. Make the most of every relationship. Seize divine opportunities to offer the testimony of Christ’s life, death and resurrection."

("Revered for All the Wrong Reasons." Tyler Emler. EMQ January 2008 Vol 44, No. p11)

Specific Geographic Calling & General Calling - Is there a difference?

This is an interesting observation.

"...people who have a specific geographic call to, say, China, the Syempire people of Mali or the l’unisian Arabs of North Africa also have interests that lead them to do evangelism and church planting. People who do not have a specific geographic call have interests that lead them to discipleship, teaching and leadership training. Although I have not done a scientific study, as a World-Venture mobilizer and as WorldVenture Africa director, I have talked with thousands of young adults. Except for two, everyone who had a call to a specific geographic area was interested in evangelism and those without the specific geographic interest were
more interested in training....

Because this pattern is so consistent, I use it as a diagnostic tool. Someone whose call seems to be geographic specific will also be interested in church planting. The person without a geographic specific call at the stage when he or she is talking to mission mobilizers will invariably be on the training, teaching and mentoring side of ministry...

The prospective missionary knows so many other prospective missionaries with geographic calls that he or she tends to question the genuineness of his or her call. When I explain that about half of the people I listen to do not have a geographic specific call and that in inevitably those are the people gifted/interested in training, I always see relief spread over their faces. For them, then, the lack of a geographic specific call is no longer a deficit in thinking and call but rather it becomes a confirmation of God’s guidance and their interests and gifting.

(EMQ Janaury 2008 Vol 44, No1, pg5 Glenn Kendall, Africa Director, WordVenture. Letters to the Editor)

This just about says it all!

"It is God himself, in his mercy, who has given us this wonderful work of telling his Good News to others, and so we never give up. We do not try to trick people into believing—we are not interested in fooling anyone. We never try to get anyone to believe that the Bible teaches what it doesn’t. All such shameful methods we forego.... We don’t go around preaching about ourselves, but about Christ Jesus as Lord. All we say of ourselves is that we are your slaves because of what Jesus has done for us.

2 Corinthians 4:1-2,5 (LB)

Western Ideas Taken into Pioneer Missions!

"In some aspects, westernized Christianity has captivated the gospel in Western culture for centuries. Examples of this include:

1. A church needing full-time clergy who have graduated from a Bible college or seminary.

2. A church meeting once a week on Sunday morning around 10 or 11 a. m.

3. A church needing a building.

4. A church needing a three-point sermon.

5.Church planting needing lots of funding.

(A Critical Evaluation of the Westernization of the Gospel, By Daniel Kim. Lausanne world pulse, March 2008)

Mission as Works of Love?

"The truly effective and productive missionary is the one whose precious and godly work of love survives into eternity"

These observations, along with several others, have led me to question the way we often do missionary work today. We have blended modern management theory with the urgency of the Great Commission to create an addictive and compulsive “productivity treadmill” that is emotionally, mentally, and spiritually exhausting. The presence of spiritual qualities such as love, joy, and peace has been replaced by Excel spreadsheets and the need for an increased number of indicated decisions for Christ per donor dollar. As a direct consequence the Church is being deprived of deeply spiritual missions exemplars that can inspire future generations.

(The Productivity Myth, By John Edmiston Lausanne world pulse, March 2008. John Edmiston is chairman and CEO of the Asian Internet Bible Institute)

2 New Denominations Per Day

Fragmentation. The Church is more diverse today and more fragmented then it has ever been in its history. As of January 2008, there are over thirty-nine thousand denominations in the world.² Moreover, the number of denominations is growing at the rate of two new ones per day, while the number of believers and their respective contexts continues to increase in both number and complexity.

("Doing Strategy as the Whole Church", By Sandra S. K. Lee. Lausanne World Pulse, March 2008) Lee sites her information as 2 Barrett, David B., Todd M. Johnson, and Peter F. Crossing, 2008.“Missiometrics 2008 Reality Checks for Christian World Communions,”International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 32(1): 28-30.

Charismatic Appeal in Africa!

The Uniqueness of the Charismatic Movement
The Charismatic renewal experienced across Africa should be celebrated and theologically guided. There may be questions about the Pentecostal resurgence regarding practice and doctrine, but it should never be discarded. I recall an African proverb which states that “a mother does not throw away the dirty water and the baby inside after the bath.” Reflecting along this thought line, Rev. Nalwamba added,

I think we need to consider trends in the Renewal/Charismatic movement and its relationship to the African traditional worldview/religion. One reason why the Charismatic movement has had such a growing appeal is that it takes seriously the spiritual world and spiritual phenomenon which mainstream Christianity tends to sideline. A theologically sound and balanced approach to these phenomenon would contribute to the deepening of faith and mission on the continent.

Lausanne World Pulse - LAUSANNE REPORTS - Theological Trends in Africa: Implications for Missions and Evangelism. By Gideon Para-Mallam, March 2008 Gideon Para-Mallam is associate regional secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) in West Africa.He is also Lausanne international deputy director for Anglophone Africa.)

African Mission Challanages - Nigerian Examples!

"One in every four Africans is Nigerian. One in every five black people in the world is Nigerian. With a population of nearly 150 million, there is no doubt the Nigerian Church and nation are bound to have a significant impact on the African continent. The general perception of Nigeria is its failure to set a good example for the rest of Africa. Recently, I read a screaming headline in one of the Nigerian daily newspapers: “Nigeria Still Sinful Despite Many Churches.” This calls for sober reflection, genuine repentance, and a reorientation on the part of the Church. Here are several issues the Nigerian Church isfacing:

• The creation of megastars. The “Man of God” syndrome is aptly described in the book Preachers of a Different Gospel, by Rev. Femi Adeleye. “Men of God” have become “stars and celebrities.” Preaching has become a skilful marketing art. Jesus is
  relegated to the background. Where is the humility of John the Baptist, who declared, “He must increase but I must decrease” (John 3:34)?
  
  
• The existence of doctrinal distortions, pulpit abuse, falsehood, and the commercialization of the gospel. “Cash for Christ” is sometimes found in churches—the more cash you pay,the greater your chances of seeing a bigger miracle take place.
  
  
• The commonness of the prosperity gospel. Nigerian churches have exported this to the rest of Africa. Today, this gospel of greed is a disturbing trend with appealing momentum.Capitalist desperados are masquerading as church planters. In his book Foxes in the Vineyard, Insights into the Nigerian Pentecostal Revival, Sean Akinrele quotes Bishop Mike Okonkwo, former president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN):

This has degenerated to the extent that people now come to church primarily to get rich outside the richness in their souls. Pastors, too, have cashed in on the gullibility of unsuspecting members as symbolism in oil, mantle, honey, palm-leaves, sprinkling of blood, andother mediums are now evolved to build the faith of the people unto materialism.

The PFN leadership has discovered that money has sadly become the yardstick for success in the Church,especially the Pentecostals…. Prosperity messages have therefore taken centre stage of most preaching at the expense of full gospel messages.

• The prominence of bossy leadership. In Christ, we learn a new and liberating model of leadership: servant leadership. The African continent, caught in the throes of conflict arising from tussles for power and resources, are desperate for this biblical leadership model. The current posture of spiritual grand-standing depreciates the gains of the Charismatic renewal movement across Africa and makes the tasks of evangelization less convincing in its genuine appeal.
  
  
• The lack of making the cross central. Where is the cross in the way we live as Christ’s followers? Today,popular theology inspired by the prosperity gospel exponents, “He go butter my bread and sugar my tea. Me, I no go suffer.” This needs to be reviewed if we are to be faithful to the teaching of the one who hung
  on the cross for the redemption of humankind. In The Chosen One—a Ghanaian home movie—a prostitute made an observation that resonates with the African Church: “Nowadays, pastors want to be like Jesus, but they are not ready to suffer like Jesus.”

Lausanne World Pulse - LAUSANNE REPORTS - Theological Trends in Africa:Implications for Missions and Evangelism. By Gideon Para-Mallam, March 2008(Gideon Para-Mallam is associate regional secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) in West Africa. He is also Lausanne international deputy director for Anglophone Africa.)

Lack of Intergrity in Much African Leadership!

The Rev. Billy Graham once observed, “If you lose your health you have lost something, but you have not lost everything. If you lose your wealth you have lost nothing. If you lose your character you have lost everything.” The Church in Africa will do well to heed this word of wisdom. The absence of Christian integrity is a key trend that marks church growth and activity on the continent....

Since 1988, there has been a growth of mass conversions and a resurgence of church planting in my native country of Nigeria. Because of this, I began asking myself questions concerning the character of the emerging Nigerian Church (which includes churches with strong neo-Pentecostal roots). Some of these Charismatic churches boast having some of the largest church attendances in Africa; one congregation in Lagos records a weekly attendance of fifty thousand people. Prayer meetings attract up to two million attendees.

Yet the impact of the gospel on society is diminished by the disjuncture of belief and practice. During the Langham Nigeria Preaching Seminar ’08, Rt. Rev. Dr. Cyril Okorocha, Anglican Bishop of Owerri Diocese, observed that Nigerians are tired of hearing ministers preach about Jesus. They want to see Jesus lived out by preachers through lives of personal integrity.

One major result of the disjuncture between belief and practice is the lack of depth found in many Christians. Religiosity is widespread; however, godliness is scarce. People from all walks of life profess faith in God; however, this is not displayed in everyday life practices. Is it any wonder that Christians going into government are unprepared to withstand temptations of the office? They fail to be true ambassadors of Christ in government. Many have instead brought shame to Christ’s name.

Lausanne World Pulse - LAUSANNE REPORTS - Theological Trends in Africa: Implications for Missions and Evangelism. By Gideon Para-Mallam, March 2008(Gideon Para-Mallam is associate regional secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) in West Africa. He is also Lausanne international deputy director for Anglophone Africa.)

Challenge in Mission to Buddhists

"This chapter has sought to engage in an honest dialogue with Buddhists concerning the nature of ultimate reality and how it compares or contrasts with the Christian understanding of the Triune God of Scripture. The dialogue began with an honest admission that many observers have noted that the Christian God and the Buddhas seem to “function in their own separate universes.” This testimony is not far off the mark, for although Buddhism may be functionally theistic, even at times functionally monotheistic, at its deepest level it is clearly nontheistic. Popular Buddhist worship and experience may give the appearance of some continuity with Christianity, but the actual gap between emptiness or mind and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is indeed great. Only the naive join in the common refrain that declares all religions are basically the same. In fact, while Buddhism and Christianity both claim the ardent allegiance of millions around the world, we must candidly admit that these two religions are fundamentally different. To use religious language to mask this difference is to be unfaithful to both the history of Buddhist thought and the integrity of Christian revelation."

(Timothy C. Tennent, Christianity at the Religious Roundtable: Evangelicalism in Conversation with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. (GrandRapids:Backer Academic, 2002), p.113)

Difficulty of Dialogue Between Buddhists & Christains

“Engaging in genuine dialogue with Buddhists concerning the nature
of God or ultimate reality is not an easy task. Roger Corless has correctly observed
that “the Buddhas and the Christain God function in their own universes and it
is not clear weather these universes relate to each other at all, if they do,
in what way or ways.” Debate concerning the nature of ultimate reality is
central to the entire history of Buddhist thought, and that discussion has influenced
every strand of Buddhism in one way or another. Despite the obstacles, we do
not have the luxury of avoiding this central question when Christians and
Buddhists sit down at the table of dialogue.”

(Timothy C. Tennent, Christianity at the Religious Roundtable:Evangelicalism in Conversation with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. (GrandRapids:Backer Academic, 2002), p.89)

Bridges of Understanding with Islam?

"Even a cursory reading of Islam reveals that there are vast areas of agreement between the Islamic view of Allah and the Christian view of God. Both Islam and Christianity affirm the absolute reality of God as the center of everything that is. Islam does not debate the existence of God; it is taken for granted as an undeniable reality. Allah is the creator, the Lord of history and the one to whom everyone must give an account on judgment day. Both Islam and Christianity affirm that God sends prophets, that he calls us to worship him, and that he is the central reality of our existence."

— Timothy C. Tennent,Christianity at the Religious Roundtable:Evangelicalism in Conversation With Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2002), p. 152

Can We answer why Jesus?

"Arguably, the Church's greatest challenge in the next century will be the problem of the scandal of particularity. More than ever before, Christians will need to explain why they follow Jesus and not the Buddha or Confucius or Krishna or Muhammad. But if, while relating their faith to the faiths, Christians treat non-Christian religions as netherworlds of unmixed darkness, the Church's message will be a scandal not of particularity but of arrogant obscurantism."

Gerald R. McDermott, Can Evangelicals Learn From World Religions? Jesus, Revelation, and Religious Traditions(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000), p. 10

Salvation among the Nations-God's Great grace!

"A fundamental point in this theology of religions is the conviction that God's redemptive work in Jesus Christ was intended to benefit the whole world. ...The dimensions are deep and wide. God's grace is not niggardly or partial. ...For according to the Gospel of Christ, the outcome of salvation will be large and generous."

Clark Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy:The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1992), p. 17
(Pinnock is arguing that there is evidence of many being saved not 'Few" as many fundamentalists argue)

The Challenge facing us Through Postmodernism (& Pluralism)

This sentiment is very relevant to us today. Half of the people sitting in our pews really believe this deep down inside. How do we respond, and keep missions passion?

"How can you tell but that the Turks had as good Scriptures to prove their Mahomet the Saviour, as we have to prove our Jesus is; and could I think that so many ten thousands in so many Countries and Kingdoms, should be without the knowledge of the right way to Heaven... and that we only, who live but in a corner of the Earth, should alone be blessed therewith? Everyone doth think his own Religion rightest, both Jews, and Moors, and Pagans; and how if all our Faith, and Christ, and Scriptures, should be but a thinks-so too?"

(John Bunyan,Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,ed. Robert Sharrock(New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 31)

A further Examples of pluralism's emerging.

"The needed Copernican revolution in theology involves an equally radical
transformation in our conception of the universe of faiths and the place of our
own religion within it. It involves a shift from the dogma that Christianity is
at the center to the realization that it is God who is at the center, and that
all the religions of mankind, including our own, serve and revolve around
him."

(John Hick,The Second Christianity,3rd enl. ed. of Christianity at the Centre(London: SCM Press, 1983), p. 82)

"Christians, in their approach to persons of other faiths, need not insist that Jesus brings God's definitive, normative revelation. A confessional approach is a possible and preferred alternative. In encountering other religions, Christians can confess and witness to what they have experienced and come to know in Christ, and how they believe this truth can make a difference in the lives of all peoples, without making any judgments whether this revelation surpasses or fulfills other religions. In other words, the question concerning Jesus' finality or normativity can remain an open question."

(Paul F. Knitter,No Other Name?A Critical Survey of Christian AttitudesToward the World Religions(Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1985), p. 205)

"A theology of world religions that wants to be true to the empirical situation
in the way the religious traditions confront each other must not evade or play
down the conflict of truth claims. If we look to the history of religions in the
past, there was always competition and struggle for superiority on the basis of
different truth claims."

(Wolfhart Pannenberg,"Religious Pluralism and Conflicting Truth Claims,"in Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered,ed. by Gavin D'Costa(Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1990), p. 103

New dynamics - We Rub Shoulders With People of Many Religions!

"Other faiths used to belong to other lands. At home,rival religious claims could safely be ignored. Or, if not ignored, patronized. The superiority of one's own faith was so evident that the alternatives could somehow be brought within its purview without posing any real theological or social threat. Today things are different. Different faiths are practiced cheek by jowl in most parts of the world."

(John Habgood, Archbishop of York,Preface to Many Mansions:Interfaith and Religious Tolerance,ed. Dan Cohn-Sherbok(London: Bellew Publishing, 1992), p. vii)

Real Dialogue With Other Religions Requires People Who really Believe their Religion. - Pluralisms Problem

Just Say No to Pluralism
"First, we must not succumb to the forces of religious pluralism that seek to bring to the table of dialogue a version of Christianity that has been robbed of its distinctiveness.’ For too long interreligious dialogue has been advanced and identified with a pluralist agenda that open seeks to accommodate other world religions by discarding distinctive Christian doctrines such as the incarnation and the resurrection of Christ. The result, as Mister McGrath observes, is that “it is not Christianity that is being related to other world faiths; it is little more than a parody and caricature of this living faith, grounded in the presuppositions and agenda of western liberalism rather than in the self revelation of God.’ Pluralism seeks to censure all truth claims as imperialistic, dogmatic, and divisive. Our desire to avoid such nasty labels has caused us all too often to avoid the table of dialogue and by our silence to acquiesce to the idea that all religions are fundamentally the same.
True interreligious dialogue acknowledges that all religions in one way or another seek to defend certain truth claims. It is not fair to any religion to allow it to be ensnared in the swamp of religious pluralism, which concludes that we are all saying the same thing…….

As I stated in chapter 1, a Muslim who earnestly desires the entire world to acknowledge that “there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet” does not of fend me, Indeed, I fully expect it and do not believe he would be a trustworthy representative of Islam if he said that such a confession did not really matter or that Christians and Muslims were really no different from each other,
This is why it is so important that the table of dialogue brings together actual adherents of the various faiths and not just those who are masking their postmodern notions of truth behind religious language."

(Timothy C. Tennent, Christianity at the Religious Round Table: Evangelicalism in Conversation with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, 2002. p. 239,240.)

Indian Legend says there are 330 million gods in Hinduism?

“Indian lore contains a well-known tale about a Hindu man who spent his entire life as a kind of theistic census taker. He went from village to village, house to house, occupation to occupation, caste to caste, inquiring at every location about which deities were worshipped at that place by those people. After traveling throughout India and recording the names of all the deities who were worshipped, tradition states that he chronicled the list in a great book. The number is traditionally held to have been 330 million. When the weary traveler finally returned to his home village, exhausted and in his ninety-third year, he was asked to count how many gods were in his book, He spent seven years counting the gods, and at the end of the book he wrote the grand total—one. He declared in his dying breath that there is “one God worshipped in India.”

The author goes on to make this Missiological claim.

"This story symbolizes the classic problem concerning Hindu theism, and it is the reason why the Western assumption that Hindus are polytheistic is not as simple as the observations of a casual visitor to India might indicate. On the one hand, popular Hinduism seems to have no end to gods and goddesses who are worshipped and adored. On the other hand, India is known throughout the world for its intricate and sublime philosophy that teaches there is only one ultimate reality."

(Timothy C. Tennent, Christianity at the Religious Round Table: Evangelicalism in Conversation with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, 2002. p. 38.)

Inter-religious Dialogue, Pluralisms & their affect on Missions!

I Have been Studying the Theology of Religious Pluralism. I assure you this quote is a real issue.

"I confess that although I have read dozens of books on interreligious dialogue, I have enjoyed precious few of them. Yet I am now in the curious position of writing such a book. Upon reflection, the basic reason for my dissatisfaction is that the average Christian would hardly recognize the Christianity that is often presented in such works. Certainly, the apostles— the eye- and ear-witnesses of Christ’s life and the first to testify about him— would go away scratching their heads in bewilderment. The Christian gospel is often presented as one among many different paths to God. Christianity is ranked side by side with religions such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism in much the same way as films are displayed at a multiplex cinema. The Islamic Qur’an or the Hindu Upanishads are as likely to yield spiritual light as the Sermon on the Mount.

I do not believe that the authors of such books distort the gospel message intentionally or maliciously. Rather, most of them simply do not affirm the historic Christian confessions; yet curiously they continue to identify them selves as Christians. Even scholars among the non-Christian religions have begun to recognize this phenomenon. For example, Grace Burford, a practicing Buddhist scholar, comments on this in a recent Buddhist-Christian dialogue titled Buddhists Talk about Jesus—Christians Talk about the Buddha. Her chapter is insightfully titled, `If the Buddha Is So Great, Why Are These People Christians?’ She bluntly asks about these scholars, If they were so taken by Buddhism, why did they hang on to Christianity… Why would people be prepared to surrender every central claim of historic Christianity and yet be so doggedly determined to remain spokespersons for Christianity?”

(Timothy C. Tennent, Christianity at the Religious Round Table: Evangelicalism in Conversation with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, 2002. p. 9,10.)

New Dynamics

There needs to be a better way to approach people of other "faiths" than "Us" and "Them" attitudes. More and more our attitude and openness to dialogue, and genuineness in building real relationships, will be needed to witness for Christ. We can not approach people in integrity with the attitude that my soul purpose with you is to "Tell you what is right"? We might tell them, but they will not be listening. It is it possible to be real friends, have real exchange, and real love for people and their families, real people of other world religions. We will be little light among people of "world religions", until a shift in attitude among the average Christian occurs. What joy it is to see the shift in some as they become sincere loving evangelists where needed most. (Andy Rayner)

"Other faiths used to belong to other lands. At home, rival religious claims could safely be ignored. Or, if not ignored, patronized. The superiority of one's own faith was so evident that the alternatives could somehow be brought within its purview without posing any real theological or social threat. Today things are different. Different faiths are practiced cheek by jowl in most parts of the world."

(John Habgood, Archbishop of York, Preface to Many Mansions: Interfaith and Religious Tolerance, ed. Dan Cohn-Sherbok (London: Bellew Publishing, 1992), p. vii)

Not Feeling At Home? ---------This Blaufway, Tu-ba-boo will Be "At Home" some day!

In West Africa the Agni Kids would chant "Blauf-way" the Jula "Tu-Ba-Boo" as we entered a village or courtyard. This practice is ancient I was told. For generations the kids were taught to shout this as a warning during the slave trade, "There's white people here!".

However, now it's more of a curious interest as they shout this with a huge smile because, frankly they do not see many white people in some of these rural forest villages. Kids, even the odd older woman, will come up and rub your arm to feel your skin, especially the blond red hair on my arm. However, "blaufway!" is still chanted every time in every village.

The Agni often tell their small kids; "If you're not good, the white man will come and take you away." So many infants have a horrible fear of us when we first begin working in a village. Mothers coming by with wide eyed babies to see their first white person. Often the baby's begin to ball hysterically clawing and clutching to their mother.

There was a time when for six months I had not seen a single western person or spoken English to anyone other than my wife and kids. One day I passed another white guy on the highway in the car and I wanted to turn and chase him down just to talk. Not because he was white, rather because chances where much greater that we shared a similar cultural background and language, therefore making it easy to just chat with full understanding. Cross-cultural communication is not easy because it involves more than just words of a language, but culture and world-view exchange. Anyway, for the first time in my life I think I kind of understood just a little bit what it might feel like to be black in an all white place, even though I was white. Though here I am given a more prominent status by default. Regardless, this experience did help me understand better the desire to belong. To feel at home. To feel welcome. To belong. I'm glad to say that over time in Africa I eventually did come to "belong" and be accepted too. What a precious gift they gave me.

However, now having lived it, there are some things that always weigh a bit heavy on my heart. I'm generally a happy person, but now there are things I can't put out of my mind very long that many of my western friends and neighbors can. Makes me feel "foreign" at times even though I am suppose to be "Home". In Africa I'm a "Blaufway", at home, well I am just not "at home" anymore. People don't "get" me. I know why this is in my head. I have become what they call a Bi-cultural person and the feeling of being at home never really comes anywhere anymore.

Don't feel sorry for me, this does not mean I am sad. No it's deeper, a sense of not being "at home" in either place now. I was told by an older wiser bi-cultural person that this "at home" feeling will now only be satisfied in the place made for us. Near the throne of heaven where every tribe, language, people, and nation will stand with us around the throne. Sigh! Home!

Submitted by Andy Rayner

Weight Watchers, South Beach & Atkins Diet - Meet World Misisons!

How hard have we tried to save others? The nearly two billion dollars American evangelicals give per year to mission agencies is one fourth of what they spend on weight-loss programs. A person must overeat by at least two dollars worth of food per month to maintain one excess pound of flesh. Yet two dollars per month is more than what 90% of all Christians in America give to missions. If the average mission supporter is only five pounds overweight, it means he spends (to his own hurt) at least five times as much as he gives for missions. If he were to choose simple food (as well as not overeat) he could give ten times as much as he does to mission and not modify his standard of living in any other way!

(“Reconsecration to a Wartime, Not a Peacetime, Lifestyle.” Ralph D. Winter. Perspectives On the World Christian Movement, William Carey Library, 1999, pg706)

Poor In India Sacrifice A Greater Percentage of Income for Missions?

Consider the fact that the U.S. evangelical slogan “Pray, give or go”allows people merely to pray, if that is their choice! By contrast the Friends Missionary Prayer Band of South India numbers 8,000 people in their prayer bands and supports 80 full-time missionaries in North India. If my denomination (with its unbelievably greater wealth per person) were to do that well, we would not be sending 500 missionaries, but 26,000. In spite of their true poverty, those poor people in South India are sending 50 times as many cross-cultural missionaries as we are! This fact reminds me of the title of a book, The Poor Pay More. They may very well pay more for the things they buy, but they are apparently willing to pay more for the things they believe. No wonder the lukewarm non-sacrificing believer is a stench in the nostrils of God.

(“Reconsecration to a Wartime, Not a Peacetime, Lifestyle.” Ralph D. Winter. Perspectives On the World Christian Movement, William Carey Library, 1999, pg706)

What are we up Against?

“We seem to assume that the world is simply the absence of good rather than the presence of both good and dynamic, intelligent evil.” Ralph D Winter

(“When Business can be Missions: Where Both Business and Mission Fall Short”, By Ralph D Winter. Mission Frontiers , Nov-Dec 2007, Pg 13)

People just don't "Happen" to be Poor - They are often Oppressed!

“…..When the Allied forces were poised to invade the continent on D-Day, they were, of course, seeking to liberate the French (Belgians, Dutch, etc.) from the oppression of Nazi occupation. But that could not be their only purpose. To do that they first had to track down and defeat Hitler and destroy his evil empire. In fact, defeating an evil empire was no doubt more prominent in their minds than liberating Paris.

Today in business or missions, then, we cannot simply go out to do good to people in need. People don’t just happen to be poor. They are oppressed. Yes, by humans, but also by intelligent, evil powers behind both social and biological evils. Human societies are riddled with graft and corruption and greed and unscrupulous operators of all kinds, for whom human life is meaningless.”

(“When Business can be Missions: Where Both Business and Mission Fall Short”, By Ralph D Winter. Mission Frontiers , Nov-Dec 2007, Pg 12)

Peace Corps Told--- "Have Nothing to Do with Missionaries!"

“The Peace Corps man, who lived in a village near where I worked, always avoided me. But once I found myself going up a steep narrow street and saw him coming down. I instantly knew that we would at least have to exchange a greeting. I had heard that his two-year term was soon to end and wondered what he had understood of what I was doing. When he approached I stuttered out a hello and asked him how the chicken farm was going. “Lousy,” he complained. “I don’t think it will continue when I leave.” I knew he had put his heart into it, so I asked him what was the problem. He snarled, “You can’t trust these Guatemalans. When I leave each month to go to the capital for our Peace Corps briefing, the egg production drops on exactly those two days. No, you can’t trust these Guatemalans.”

By this time I had been in Guatemala for almost ten years, so I took some offense. I found myself replying, “Look, you want to find an honest Guatemalan? That’s the business I’m in. I can find you an honest man in any village of Guatemala.” By then every village in Guatemala had at least one Evangelical congregation of humble people whose lives had been renewed because of a heavenly hope and a new earthly Master for whom deceit and dishonesty were detestable.

I could tell he didn’t believe me. Maybe I exaggerated a little. Nevertheless, mission work still has an inherent advantage. The diversity, mutual antagonism, and lack of coordination of the earnest efforts of the agencies I have listed above is a real burden and hindrance to development and hope. This burden and barrier is really only nearly erased when you get into the world of the religious agencies, particularly the standard missions. By “standard missions” I don’t mean the specialized religious relief and development agencies. They also cannot be effective in most cases unless the religious agencies get there first and generate honest people. All agencies need enough renewed people to create the minimal integrity required to manage the essential developing infrastructure of a country.

("When Business can be Missions: Where Both Business and Mission Fall Short", By Ralph D Winter. Mission Frontiers , Nov-Dec 2007, Pg 11)

Business as Missions - Some Issues Discussed - Worth Scanning!

"Business is basically the activity of providing goods and services to others on the condition of repayment to cover the cost of those goods and services. …… businesses that use profits in ways that add nothing to the business itself would seem to be very rare. Businesses, in fact, that try to put any considerable profit some where else would, it seems, inevitably run into conflict….....

The biggest problem I see with Christian college courses on business-as-mission is very simply that the average student taking that course may be enamored of this new approach but not be wealthy enough to swing it, even in his own country, let alone accomplish that amidst all the increased hazards and bureaucracy of foreign lands.........

I mentioned earlier a hardware chain founded by Swiss missionaries. It astonished people by the fact that if a customer bought something that had the wrong specifications or that did not work he could exchange it or get his money back—something unheard of in many countries. Thus, for a business to be effective mission, it needs to be perceived by onlookers as a service, not just a way for businesses to make money for the owners, although, frankly, most onlookers may still suspect the latter.

Here in America, of course, all businesses loudly pro claim their desire to serve the customer. We get used to that. We don’t really believe it. Businesses in many overseas situations don’t even claim to be working fox the customer. Neither the customer nor the business owner views the money received as simply a means of continuing the service rendered, but as a contest to see who gets the best end of the deal.

It is also true that no matter how altruistic an owner is, what pulls down many a business or ministry is the very different attitudes of the employees. The owner may have high purposes. The employees may not.

Furthermore, once a business starts overly siphoning off “profits” (whether to increase the owner’s wealth or to help fund some Christian work), the business may be unable to withstand competitors who plow almost all profits back into what they do, either to refine it or to lower their prices below what the Christian-owned business—with its extra drain on profits—can afford to offer……

We also read that “micro-enterprises” have their problems. If one woman in a village gets a micro-loan enabling her to utilize a sewing machine, she may produce more for less and be better off. At the same time she may simply put a number of other women out of work in that same village, which is no the most desirable witness."

(When Business can be Missions: Where Both Business and Mission Fall Short By Ralph D Winter. Mission Frontiers , Nov-Dec 2007, Pg 7-8)

Examples of Business as MIssions

“…….. in missions, I have for over 50 years never been paid by the people whom I directly served—a distinctly different dynamic.

Nevertheless, as a missionary in Guatemala I initiated 17 small business endeavors that others ran. I enabled seminary students to earn their way while in school. More importantly, that experience then gave them a portable trade after graduation, allowing them to serve beyond the confines of their own acreage. Most earlier pastors were tied down to the soil, so these 17 “businesses” were all portable (as with the Apostle Paul). ‘These businesses were also the first ever in which mountain Indians became the registered owners."

(When Business can be Missions: Where Both Business and Mission Fall Short By Ralph D Winter. Mission Frontiers , Nov-Dec 2007, Pg 6)

Self Supporting Missions? Business as Mission!

The missionary nurse fairly exploded in my face: “You can’t mix business and mission.”

She was referring to a worker she had trained who was now going out on his own across the mountains and giving people shots and other medicines as he used to do in her clinic. What was he doing wrong? He was self-supporting! She said, “He not only charges for the injections he gives but for his burro and his tip across the mountain”

I got into this tense conversation by suggesting that if her clinic could only become self-supporting it could be replicated. I figured the clinic was meeting only one percent of the need of a vast mountainous area where we both worked. If she could develop a self-supporting de sign it could be expanded to reach 100% of the need.

But, you say, poor mountain people can’t afford doctors! Not so! My thought was that her trained nationals could carry two-way radios. Most illnesses were simple enough to treat and did not need a doctor, but whenever something unrecognizable came up these agents of mercy could report key symptoms by radio to a doctor down in the city. People can’t pay a doctor for every problem, or even for a half hour consultation. They need to know when it is essential to make the arduous trip to the city. In most cases they can pay for two minutes of a doctor’s time—to find out if that trip is necessary. …….It is “a business” when the people being served can pay its costs. It is also “mission” if it is a God-glorifying blessing as well.

In my situation the medical committee of the mission would not hear of it.

(Editorial Comment by Ralph D Winter Mission Frontiers , Nov-Dec 2007, Pg 4)

Proximity to Muslims is First step - The Power of Holy Living!

"I should also note here an interesting occurrence: an article was released in the October 2007 issue of Christianity Today in which Dudley Woodbury and others shared a recent study of 750 Muslims who have followed Christ. The study reported that “respondents ranked the lifestyle of Christians as the most important influence in their decision to follow Christ.” At the same time, in an October 2007 article in EMQ, Todd Johnson and Charles Tieszen noted that more than eighty-six percent of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists do not know a Christian. No matter what our view is of how to best share with them, we first must engage with them as we live out our faith."

(Letting the Gospel Thrive on the Inside: A Note on Insider Movements,By Greg H. Parsons. Lausanne World Pules Dec 2007 issue)

Worship Where It Will Bother Darkness!

Not sure how we would apply it to some areas needing serious sensitivity. However these comments on worship were interesting.

Worshipping to Be Light in the Darkness
"The Lord says we are to be as light in the darkness, illuminating a fallen world and directing it to the reality of the kingdom. We often ask God, “How, Lord, would you have us light this scene? From the top left? From the bottom right? Do you want a spotlight or diffused back lighting?” And we never get around to shining! A light does not shine as an action—it shines as a way of being. It shines because it is a light. We cannot shine at will—we must live believing we are light, and therefore shine because this is creation at its best and original intention!

---

To worship in the midst of darkness: that is evangelization.

---

In other words, we must worship as a way of life. If all of our time is taken in strategy and statistic flowcharts, when do we go out and shine in the darkness? How many of us have the courage to be light where it is needed? To worship in the midst of darkness: that is evangelization."

(Worship in a Place Where It Will Bother The Darkness, by Marcell Steuernagel, Lausanne World Pulse, Dec 2007 ISSUE)

Missions is at it's very heart Proclamation - Do So Often!

“Tell them about the Lamb of God till you can tell them no more.”

Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
1700-1760

Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf became the father of the eighteenth century Moravian missionary movement. When he permitted a group of refugees to settle on his estate in Saxony in 1722, he had no idea that from this group the gospel would spread to Greenland, the West Indies, North America, Central America and Africa.

Zinzendorf became a visionary, practical helper, traveling missionary and second bishop of the Moravian church. He maintained an intense personal piety and enthusiasm that grew out of his childhood faith. He was determined to cling to the doctrine of redemption by the blood of Christ and to lay the atonement as the foundation of all other faiths.
(Source lausanneworldpulse.com December 2007 Issue)

This Blaufway, Tu-ba-boo Will Be Home Some day!

In West Africa the Agni Kids would chant "Blauf-way" the Jula "Tu-Ba-Boo" as we entered a village or courtyard. This practice is ancient. For generations the kids were taught to shout this as a warning during the slave trade. There's "white people" here!

Now it's more of a curious interest as they shout this with a huge smile because, frankly they do not see many white people in these rural forest villages. Kids, even and odd woman, will often come up and rub and touch your arm to feel your skin, especially the blond red hair on my arm.

However, this chant happens every time in every village. The Agni often tell their small kids; "If you're not good, the white man will come and take you away." So many infants have a horrible fear of us when we first begin working in a village. Mothers coming by with wide eyed babies to see their first white person. Often the baby's begin to ball hysterically clawing and clutching to their mother.

Anyway, there was a time when for 6 months I had not seen a white person. One day I passed another white guy on the highway in the car and I wanted to turn and chase him down just to talk. Not because he was white, rather because chances where much greater that we shared a similar cultural background, therefore making it easy to just chat with full understanding. Cross-cultural communication is not easy because it more than just language, but culture, world-view exchange. Anyway, I think for the first time in my life I think I kind of understood just a little bit what it might feel like to be black, even though I was white.
I understand better the desire to belong. I'm glad to say that over time in Africa I eventually did come to "belong" and be accepted too. What a gift they gave me.

You know something, there are just some things that always weigh heavy on my heart. I'm a happy person, but, there are things I can't put out of my mind that many of my friends and neighbors can. Makes be feel foreign at times. So now in Africa I'm a "Blaufway", and at home, well I am just not at home. I know why this is in my head. I have become what they call a Bi-cultural person (Read the right side bar near the bottom) and the feeling of being at home never comes. Don't feel sorry as this does not mean I am sad. No it's deeper, a sense of not being home. I was told by another old wise bi-cultural person that it will not be filled until we are in the place made for us near the throne of heaven where every tribe, language, people, and nation will be with us around the throne. Sigh!

Rededication - to the Mission Call! Remember WHY Brothers & Sisters!

We all need a reminder of why we serve in mission. It's all about passion for the worship of Jesus among the nations. I pray this stirs your heart as it did mine. Onward to the task brothers & sisters. You are doing what matters most- spreading worship!



Link

Africa Can Do ! Africa Can’t do! – What is Our Point Of View?

Glen Schwartz says he meets two kinds of people in Africa.

“In Nairobi I spoke with a driver at the guesthouse where I was staying. As we chatted, I learned that in addition to working as a driver, he is a church planter. (He was actually working as a driver on two twelve hour shifts back to back at the time we met.) His business card indicated that his title is “bishop”. He said he had twenty-three pastors in his care with churches throughout the Nairobi area. His business card also had something on it about a “rehabilitation center.” When I asked about that, he said that their churches minister to needy people in the poorer areas of Nairobi. He said, “You know, street children.”

I asked where the support comes from for the pastors, the congregations and the rehabilitation center. “It comes from local resources,” he said. When I asked how much help comes from overseas, he dismissed the idea of getting assistance from outside Africa.

I went from Nairobi to Lusaka, Zambia and was met at the airport by a well-dressed businessman in a suit and tie. As we chatted on the way into town he told me about a congregation he and his wife started in their home several years ago. They outgrew the living room, then the garage, and now they are meeting in a tent beside the house. The walls of a permanent building are being built around the tent. (The tent will be removed eventually which I found to be creative.) The congregation now has 200 people in attendance, and they have hired their own full-time pastor and pay him completely from local resources. When I asked how much comes from overseas he also scoffed and said, “None, of course.”

I mentioned that there are two kinds of people in Africa. Back at the guesthouse in Nairobi I spoke with several North Americans who were in East Africa on short-term missions. Several said they brought along resources for the projects on which they were working. One woman said she had several suitcases of used clothing to give away in a poor part of the city. Ironically, it was the same community where the bishop’s rehabilitation center is located. She also said she brought along some money “just to give away” (her words). I wish I could have introduced her to the Kenyan bishop and the Zambian businessman mentioned above. ……….Think about it. Some people believe Africa can do it with local resources and others do not. Both may be looking at or working in the same communities. What strikes me is that it is most often local people who believe that Africa can manage without outside assistance.

(“I meet Two Kinds of People In Africa”, Glen Schwartz. “Mission Frontiers”, September –October 2007, 29:5, Page 25)

Blood of Tribalism Runs Thicker than The Waters of Baptism? Does Gospel Alone Really Transform Society?

“Some of the states in northeast India, such as Nagaland, are held up as outstanding examples of the success of late- nineteenth- and early twentieth-century evangelism. Whole tribes were converted. The state is recorded to be around 90 percent Christian. Yet it has now become one of the most corrupt states in the Indian Union and is riddled with problems of gambling and drugs among the younger generation. Naga students at the Union Biblical Seminary, where I taught in the 198Os, would tell me this as proof of the fact that merely successful evangelism does not always result in lasting social transformation. Others will point with desperate and baffled sadness at the tragic irony of Rwanda—one of the most Christianized nations on earth and birthplace of the East African Revival….. The blood of tribalism, it was said, was thicker than the water of baptism.”

(“The Mission of God”, Christopher J,H. Wright. “Mission Frontiers”, September –October 2007, 29:5, Page 21)

A Warrior Kills Steve's Dad, Becomes Beleiver Trained by Steve!

"After Mincaye pulled the hurting woman’s abscessed tooth, he gently held her head in his hands and prayed that God would heal her heart. I had been holding the woman’s jaw in hopes that my added support would help Mincaye keep from breaking her jaw. When Mincaye held her face to pray, his hands were covering my own.

I looked at those gentle hands and realized that those were the same hands that once drove spears into my precious Dad’s body. I love those hands transformed, like my own, by the touch of the Master Surgeon’s hands." (Mincaye, a Waodani Warrior - killed Steve’s Dad. He became a Christian and was taught by Steve to do dental missions)A Warrior Kills Steve's Dad, Becomes Beleiver Trained by Steve!

(“Social Action & Evangelism Don’t Compete, They Complement”, Steve Saint “Mission Frontiers”, September –October 2007, 29:5, Page 18)

28 Million Modern Slaves- Some in our own Backyard - How do Missionaries Respond?

Twenty-seven million slaves exist in our world today.’ Girls and boys, women and men of all ages are forced to toil in the rug loom sheds of Nepal, sell their bodies in the brothels of Rome, break rocks in the quarries of Pakistan, and fight wars in the jungles of Africa.

Go behind the facade in any major town or city in the world today and you are likely to find a thriving commerce in human beings. You may even find slavery in your own backyard.

For several years, my wife and I dined regularly at an Indian Restaurant near our home in the San Francisco Bay Area. Unbeknownst to us, the staff at Pasand Madras Indian Cuisine who cooked our curries, delivered them to our table, and washed our dishes were slaves. It took a tragic accident to expose the slave trafficking ring.

(“Finding Slavery in My Own Backyard”, By David Batstone. “Missions Frontiers”, September-October 2007 29:5, pg 12)

Modern Slavery & Missions

"The most upsetting feature of all of this, brilliantly displayed in one book I would recommend, entitled “Not for Sale”…, simply points out that there are more slaves in the world today than were bartered and bought during a 400 year period of North Atlantic slavery in the past. That is very hard to believe, but the statistics really back that up. The often quoted nearly 30 million slaves in the world today are a very unavoidable reality …The reason I bring this up here, however, is that this is not simply a world problem to be prayed about. It’s something that Evangelicals have got to do something about and in fact are doing something about, but perhaps not as prominently as they could he or should be”

(Editorial Comment, Ralph D. Winter. "Mission Frontiers" , September-October 2007 29:5 pg 4)

Should Danger & Suffering Stop Missionaries?

“Even after the Basel Mission had lost eight of its first ten missionaries in nine years, the heroic Andreas Riis wrote back from the Gold Coast in Africa, “Let us press on. All Africa must be won for Christ. Though a thousand missionaries die, send more.”

("The Bridges of God”, Donald A. McGavran. “Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 328)

Missions is Not Sacrifice- so says David Livingston?

"When David Livingstone visited Cambridge University on December 4, 1857, he made an earnest appeal for that continent (Africa), which was then almost wholly an unoccupied field. His words, which were in a sense his last will and testament for college men, as regards Africa, may well close this book:

"For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, arid cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink, but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice."

("The Glory of the Impossible”, Samuel Zwemer. “Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 315)

Adventurous Young Men & Women -Test Your Salt in Pioneer Missions!

“An adventure of some proportions is not uncommonly all that a young man needs to determine and fix his manhood’s powers.” Is there a more heroic test for the powers of manhood than pioneer work in the mission field? Here is opportunity for those who at home may never find elbow-room for their latent capacities, who may never find adequate scope elsewhere for all the powers of their minds and their souls........Bishop Phillips Brooks once threw down the challenge of a big task in these words: “Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle.”"

("The Glory of the Impossible”, Samuel Zwemer. “Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 315)

In Missions - The Prospects are as Bright as the Promises!

"But the pioneer husbandman must have long patience. When Judson was lying loaded with chains in a Burmese dungeon, a fellow prisoner asked with a sneer about the prospect for the conversion of the heathen. Judson calmly answered, “The prospects are as bright as are the promises of God.”

("The Glory of the Impossible”, Samuel Zwemer. “Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 314)

Some Good Old Faithful Tenacity Needed In Missions!

“The challenge of the unoccupied fields of the world is one to great faith and, the to great sacrifice. Our willingness to sacrifice for an enterprise is always in proportion to our faith in that enterprise. Faith has the genius of transforming the barely possible into actuality. Once men are dominated by the conviction that a thing must be done, they will stop at nothing until it is accomplished…. Opposition is a stimulus to greater activity….Does it really matter how many the or how much money we spend in opening closed doors, and in occupying the different fields, if we really believe that missions are warfare and that the King’s glory is at stake? ….The unoccupied fields of the world must have their Calvary before they can have their Pentecost. …. The unoccupied fields of the world await those who are willing to be lonely for the sake of Christ.”

("The Glory of the Impossible”, Samuel Zwemer. “Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 311-312)

How Much Do We Really Need To Go?------ A Wiser Miser?

"I learned, however, that the Congregational minister of my native town possessed a copy of Medhurst’s China, and I called upon him to ask a loan of the book. This he kindly granted, asking me why I wished to read it. I told him that God had called me to spend my life in missionary service in that land. “And how do you propose to go there?” he inquired. I answered that I did not at all know; that it seemed to me probable that I should need to do as the Twelve and the Seventy had done in Judea—go without purse or scrip, relying on Him who had called me to supply all my need. Kindly placing his hand upon my shoulder, the minister replied, “Ah, my boy, as you grow older you will get wiser than that. Such an idea would do very well in the days when Christ Himself was on earth, but not now.”

I have grown older since then, but not wiser. I am more than ever convinced that if we were to take the direction of our Master and the assurances He gave to His first disciples more fully as our guide, we should find them to be just as suited to our times as to those in which they were originally given."

("The Call to Service”, J. Hudson Taylor. “Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 301)

A 16 Year Old Teens Desire to Serve! - Hudson Taylor!

“Not many months after my conversion, having a leisure afternoon, I retired to my own chamber to spend it largely in communion with God. Well do I remember that occasion. How in the gladness of my heart I poured out my soul before God; and again and again confessing my grateful love to Him who had done everything for me—who had saved me when I had given up all hope and even desire for salvation—I besought Him to give me some work to do for Him, as an outlet for love and gratitude; some self-denying service, no matter what it might be, however trying or however trivial; something with which He would be pleased, and that I might do for Him who had done so much for me." (He was 16 years Old at the time)

("The Call to Service”, J. Hudson Taylor. “Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 300)

A Prayer meeting in A Haystrack Answered - Send Missionsries!

The Haystack Prayer Meeting

In 1806, Mills enrolled in Williams College, Massachusetts. This school had been profoundly affected by the religious awakening of those years, and devout students on campus had a deep concern for the spiritual welfare of their fellow students. Mills joined with them in their desire to help others.It was Mills’ custom to spend Wednesday and Saturday afternoons in prayer with other students on the banks of the Hoosack River or in a valley near the college. In August, 1806, Mills and four others were caught in a thunderstorm while returning from their usual meeting. Seeking refuge under a haystack, they waited out the storm and gave them selves to prayer. Their special focus of prayer that day was for the awakening of foreign missionary interest among students. Mills directed their discussion and prayer to their own missionary obligation. He exhorted his companions with the words that later became a watch word for them, “We can do this if we will.”

("Student Power In World Missions”, David M. Howard" Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 280)

Is Prosperous Society Producing “Softer” Men and Women?”

“The words of a verse from a hymn written by one of the first Greenland missionaries expresses something of the fibre of their attitude

‘to through ice and snow, one poor lost soul for Christ to gain; Glad, we bear want and distress to set forth the Lamb once slain.”

The Moravians resolutely tackled new languages without many of the modem aids, and numbers of them went on to become outstandingly fluent and proficient in them. This was the stuff, then, of which these men were made. We may face a different pattern of demands today, but the need for a like measure of God-given courage remains the same. Is our easy-going, prosperous society producing “softer” men and women?”

("Europe’s Moravians: A pioneer Missionary Church. Colin A. Grant. "Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 276)

Missionaries - Be an example of Hard Work, even dirty sweaty work!

(This principle is very important in places like Africa where "Pastor" is often seen as power and a refusal to get hands dirty anymore with manual work.)

“…..missionary named Monate helped to build a corn mill in the early days of his work in the Eastern Province of South Africa, cutting the two heavy sandstones himself. In so doing, he not only amazed the Kaffirs among whom he was working, but was enabled to “chat” the gospel to them as he worked!

("Europe’s Moravians: A pioneer Missionary Church", Colin A. Grant. "Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 275)