Missionary Question #2

Benjamin Disraeli:      “The secret of success is constancy to purpose.” 

How Will I Know I am successful?

This is not an easy question to answer.  There are many who feel they know just what the answer should be.  They are the ones who make up the questionnaires that have such quantitative answers.  They ask everything from questions about your devotional life to the number of tracts you passed out last month.

The hard part is that there is nothing quantitative that will tell that you have been a successful missionary.  The only thing that answering those questions will do is make you feel that you have failed.  We never spend enough time in devotions.  We never pass out enough tracts.  We never preach enough sermons.  We never talk to enough people about Jesus.  The only answer we can give to every question demanding that kind of an answer is; “I have not done enough.”  It doesn’t matter how much you have done. 

Does this mean that people should not expect an accounting of what the missionary has done?  Of course it doesn’t mean that.  It is the missionary’s responsibility to keep the supporters informed as to what is being done.  It is the supporter’s responsibility to support missionaries who engender confidence that no one needs to ask them what they are doing.  They know that the missionary is accountable to God and the supporters should be sure that they support those missionaries who take that accountability seriously.

The question being asked is: “How will I know I am successful?” 

The answer starts with a call.  The missionary must know that he/she is answering the call of God when going to the mission field.  No one finishes right who does not either start here or at some point become convinced that the work being done is the work God has called him/her to do at this time.

It is important to understand that it is worthwhile to become the very best missionary you can be.  This means that you will give all you have to learning the language well, understanding the people to the very best of your ability, and being committed to loving the culture in which you live and never putting down those with whom you are living.

It looks like being successful depends on how you begin.  It certainly is important.  It is also important to finish well. Too many have started their course with commitment, confidence, and purpose only to end in failure and sorrow.  There is always the danger that the successful worker will start to ride along on the success and forget what it is that made for it.

I have had dear friends who had the greatest potentials, but a woman or man, a position or power, or some money diverted him or her from that successful conclusion of the course.  It is a reminder that it is a day by day fight we are in.  Yesterday’s victories can provide for today’s defeat. 

If that is where you are today, I have good news for you.  God is the God of the second chance.  There is no such thing as permanent defeat until the course is done.  Think of where David would have been if he had died in Bathsheba’s arms.  What would have happened to Moses if he had collapsed and died while striking the rock?

There needs to be that assurance that we are where God wants us today.  We knew it at the beginning, but today we must do what He wants us to do. The same thing is true for tomorrow–and the next day–etc. 

The Responsibility a Missionary Has!

 

 

 

  Flag and/or Bible

 

 

 

 

 

Going as an American

We have some problems that are built in to our being in a foreign country as an American.  It is interesting that in most countries the people would love to come and live in America, but it is also true that in a great many of them Americans are not well liked.  It is hard to separate the two when you are an American living in a country where many of the people do not like Americans.

One day in our church in South Africa, one of my friends said to me that the American companies who had participated in the sanctions against South Africa during the Apartheid period should just forget about doing business with South Africa at that time.  He said that the German car companies and others had not forsaken them during that period so they would rather buy Volkswagen and Mercedes than Fords and Cadillacs.  I don’t think he hated Americans, but I do think he had some feelings about the people who would enact and enforce sanctions against the businesses in his country.  He probably would have a hard time sorting out his feelings.

There are other countries where the missionaries had come in and accepted property from the government in order to build a compound in which to live.  During the years that the people were mistreated by the government, many of these missionaries sat silently by as the misuse continued.  When freedom came to the people of those countries, it was hard for the missionaries now to disengage the perception that they were part of the problem that had existed for so long.

It is not unusual for some missionaries to go around and expect special favors from the businesses because the missionaries are sacrificing to be there and should receive these benefits.  It has always seemed to me that it is wrong to go around expecting special treatment because we serve God in any capacity.  Many years ago I arranged for a shipment of a generator to the Philippines.  The country had supplied it at half price.  When the machine did not work right, the company said that it could not afford to stand behind it when they had given such a special price.  We had not asked for a special price.  They had offered it.  I told their representative that we would have been better off to receive a normal price with the backing of the company than a special price with no backing.  What do you do with a brand new generator that has been built with a mismatched unit and motor.  Fortunately  the motor company said that they would fix it with the appropriate motor, but we had to pay shipping back to the States and then find a place to use it because the Philippine missionaries did not want the same unit back.  The unit wound up in Brazil and had a long and useful life there.  We should be fare with vendors and they should be fair with us.

There is an appropriate Christian way to act in relation to service people.  That should be true in the home, in the marketplace, and in any other public contacts.  We need to be careful that we do right because doing wrong negates our testimony and our message.  There is no way that we can afford to be the “ugly American” home or abroad.

There is no excuse for doing business in an unchristian manner just because that is the way it is done in our country of choice.  It is possible that we may have to pay money we don’t want to pay because it is demanded, but that is extortion.  It is wrong to offer money to any person or company that is illegal because that is a bribe.  Our testimony is at stake in the customs’ houses, the market place, and in the home.  There is a right way to treat people and it may be that it will cost us more money than we think necessary, but maintaining our testimony is worth it.

We can lose our testimony by our attitude as well.  We can be haughty, arrogant, and plain not nice when we are dealing with people.  There is no excuse for this.  We cannot say that this just the way we are.  We must understand that rather than being the way we are, we need to be the way that God makes us when He is in control.  We should pay our bills on time.  We should pay the appropriate amount.  We should not question the integrity of those with whom we have to do business.

We need to be careful that we do not put down the people with whom we are in contact.  When we do that we are not only offending that person, but we are building an impression for that person to pass along.  From that time on, the offended person will describe all  Americans as being that way.  You are not just losing your testimony, but you are building a reputation for your country as well as for all believers.

You may feel  being condemned in this way is not fair.  That may be true, but that is the way it is.  We should not risk losing the reputation of a people because we don’t think it is fair.  The only thing we cn do is to be fair and kind.

It is a complex thing to live in another culture.  We must be careful not to oversimplify the way a people respond to us, and, at the same time be careful to do our very best to bear a great testimony in every contact we have with the people God has sent us to reach for Him. We can not leave our Bible at home, but we can try to leave our flag there and become as much a part of the adopted country as is possible. Wjerever we go, we should be proud Americans, but we have not gone to make the people Americans or the churches American.  An indigenous work means that it will demonstrate that it is grown in the country, and, when we leave, the only evidence that we were there should be that people know and serve the Lord.

Love Never Fails

A number of years ago, a very lovely couple came into my office to talk about coming to school.  The wife was already dying of cancer, but she did not know it yet. I asked them about how they had come to know Christ and what was happening in their lives.  They told me that they had both been saved in a very shallow ministry and had just sort of drifted along in their Christian lives.  Then one day they met a missionary couple who were in there are studying the language.  This American couple was having a hard time with the language and was discouraged because they knew they would never have much of a ministry if they did not learn the language.

This lovely young wife said that they offered to share their home with the couple. This wife said that she told the missionaries that if they moved into her home they could not speak any more English.  If they wanted to eat they would use the local language.  If they had any questions they would use the local language.  The missionaries moved in and became immersed in the language.  It was not long until they started to learn the language well and eventually became very successful missionaries in several different locations.  They are now retired.

The interesting part of this story is not what happened to the missionaries, but what happened to the host couple.  They told me that what they discovered was that this couple really loved them.  They said that it was the first missionaries that they had met that they felt really loved them.  They were not a statistic for the work.  They were no notch in their Bible indicating accomplishment.  They just loved them for who they were.

It made me wonder how many times we have missed the importance of that real love that says to people.  I love you.  Can they really ever understand that we are telling them that God loves them if we don’t really love them?  I must admit that this couple was both easy to love, and when that wife died I hurt.  If we are going to be God’s emissaries in a different culture, we must learn to love across cultural lines.  In fact there cannot be any lines there.  We are one in Christ.

The World or People

Some people say, “I love the world, but I can’t stand people. “

It is interesting when we go out to seek the lost and bring them to Christ that we often find that we come up against people that we don’t like. When we arrived in South Africa, the missionary pastor who was heading home for six months said some thing to me. He told me that he didn’t want us to marry, bury, or take in church members. In particular, he told me that there was one family that he didn’t want me to take in. It was evident that he did not like that family and felt that because he did not like them, they would be trouble for the church.

When we returned to South Africa the second time, we found that this family was a part of the church fellowship. Without going into any details, we also found that they were a wonderful part of the fellowship and God was using them in many ways. Now, some five years later, they continue to be used and form a very important part of the local assembly there.

God has not called us to be judges of whether people are good or bad, but He has called us to reach people for Christ and to do everything we can to see that they are used in the work of the kingdom. It is good for us to discover that we can be very wrong about people. We can trust God to use their abilities and correct their faults. We must not think that God has given us that job.

We found out that there were people in the church who needed help and when we gave that help, there were people who told us that we were wrong in helping the person because she was not reliable. God does not call us to help people because they are reliable, but to help them because they need help.

God brings change in the lives of people. He makes a sinner holy. When He does that, He makes an unreliable person reliable. He can change a person we don’t like into a person we do like. In the process He probably is making some changes in us. That is one of the glorious things about missions. We get to learn what a wonderful God we serve. We find out that He is a people changing God. If we don’t see that, maybe we need some changes made.

The Gospel by Radio

 

We live in a wonderful day when there are so many great tools to use in declaring the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Since 1991 I have been doing radio broadcasts on station HRGS on the island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras. The sandy beach above is right in front of the radio station. The satellite dish is found at the side entrance to the station.

There are about 30,000 people on the island and although that may not be the largest listening potentials in the world, I have never met a person on the island who did not listen to the station. In fact we did a little survey on the mainland going south from LaCeiba and every person we talked to in that area had listened to the station. Now Bible Basics International is opening a new radio station on the mainland.

Radio is not a new tool, but it continues to be an effective tools in getting to talk to people in the privacy of their own home or auto. The normal barriers in communication are removed and it is possible to have a straightforward conversation.

I remember going down the island one day and coming to the home of a listener who had called into the station and we stopped to visit her. Her husband was sitting on the porch of their rather shabby little home and he was listening to the radio. She told us that he listened from morning until night. What impressed me about this man who was listening was that he was blind. What a wonderful thing it was to think that we were ministering to this blind man all day long.

Bible Basics International has broadcasts in other languages than the English and Spanish ones on Roatan. We are able to speak to blind people and all others as well in the various languages of the world.

What does it take?

It was through mountains like those in the picture that many people traveled to get to the Alaskan gold fields where they thought they would make their fortunes. Many of them laid down their lives on the way because they were not prepared for the rigors of the climb and the intensity of the weather.

I wonder what we would say if God told us he wanted us to follow the route to tell someone about the love of God in Christ Jesus. There are those who would go and there are those who would say, “No.”

It is a delight to serve in the ministry to which God calls you. It may not have the rigors of the above mountains, and it may not have the hardships that early missionaries had to face, but we must be willing to step out and do what God asks us to do. It may be that you will have to face big city traffic where there is danger on every corner. You may have to face isolation where there is continual loneliness. It may be that the food and the culture are so different that it is continually on your mind.

Whatever the case, God calls on you to rejoice always. Delivering God’s message of love, joy, peace, and hope is worth it all. If you don’t know what that message is read some of the posts on www.scriptureteach.blogspot.com. It is there just for you.

Paul and People

When Paul looked at the world, he saw people.

In Romans 11 he saw his Jewish brothers and said,

13. I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry 14 in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.

He had already said in chapter 10,

1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.

He had told the Romans in chapter one,

14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.

He told King Agrippa in Acts 26 that God had called him to rescue the people of the world,

17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

He saw the people of the world as being lost and needing to establish a relationship with God through Christ. He was what you might call a “people rescuer” and a “people builder.” He said in ICorinthians 3,

5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe– as the Lord has assigned to each his task.

We must never forget that God calls each believer to go out to reach people and build people who will become His church and grow in the local assembly that comes into being.