AGWM News

Senders

A few Sundays ago our pastor, Ted Cederblom, preached from Acts 13:1-5. He mentioned how the church in Antioch was a sending church. This congregation, after prayer and fasting, laid their hands on Barnabas and Saul (later called Paul) and sent them out as missionaries.

The value of a church is not always the size of the congregation, but also includes the number of members it sends into the ministry.

As someone said, “The true greatness of any church is not how many it seats but how many it sends.”

SENDER CHURCHES

There are a number of churches around our nation, both large and small, that are notable because of the high percentage of young people raised in the church who are now serving as missionaries, pastors and in other areas of ministry.

These are sender churches. Their vision is not only centered around meeting the needs of their congregation or even their local community, but on fulfilling the Great Commission of sending the gospel to the whole world.

SENDER FAMILIES

Some families are senders. Our pastor, raised on the mission field himself, encouraged parents to support their children’s dreams if they are considering missions or any area of ministry. He challenged young people to be open to God’s call.

David Livingstone, the famous 19^th century Scottish missionary and explorer to Africa, commented: “May I venture to invite young men of education, when laying down the plan of their lives, to take a glance at that of missionary. For my own part, I never cease to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office.”

At his death, as David Livingston’s casket was being carried through the streets of London, one of the many viewers along the route, an elderly man, wept. He said: “I knew him as a boy. I ridiculed his decision to go to Africa. I was ambitious. I cared for my own special interests. Now, with a misspent life behind me, I acknowledge that Livingstone made a wise choice when he answered and obeyed God’s call. I put emphasis on the wrong world.”

As that old poem goes: “Only one life, will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Click here to read the story of a modern-day missionary and his call to Africa.

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Let’s Pray

On March 19 of this year I got a chilling phone call from my wife, Bev. She said our 5-year-old grandson, Judah, was being flown by helicopter to Riley’s Hospital for Children in Indianapolis with a life-threatening condition.

I immediately began contacting family and friends asking them to pray and drove to Indianapolis to be with my grandson and family.

In the next few days, while tests were taking place and during Judah’s more than eight-hour brain surgery, our family and close friends through Facebook, email, texting and phone calls, passed along Judah’s medical updates and kept asking people to pray.

People responded by the hundreds saying they were praying for little Judah.

His surgery took place on Monday, March 26. He went home that Saturday. Today, thanks to a skilled, caring medical staff, and the prayers of many people (see 2 Corinthians 1:10-11), Judah is back in school, playing like any 5-year-old and doing well.

Through this ordeal two truths were reinforced in my mind:

First, our prayers are powerful and effective. See James 5:16-17.

Second, when we are asked to pray for someone, let’s do it. Earnestly.

We hear prayer requests at church. People we know pass along their prayer needs. Almost daily we hear from those who want us to pray for them or their loved ones. Our AGWM staff once a week posts needs from missionaries on http://www.facebook.com/AGWorldMissions/ and on http://worldmissions.ag.org/intercessor/.

I have always made a point of praying for the needs of others. But, after going through this traumatic family situation, I was forcefully reminded again of how important our prayers are, and how people so depend on us to pray during their times of crises.

Let’s pray as if those in need were our loved ones, because they are loved ones to people who are desperate for a miracle from God.

The photo is Judah after his surgery with my wife and me, modeling his new bike-riding equipment.

Click here to read a story my mother, Ruby Wilkie, wrote concerning prayer when she was on the mission field.

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Missionary Kids Grow Up

I was born into a missionary family, growing up in Latin America. I have wonderful memories of my childhood and teen years as a missionary’s kid.

I recall the visits of AG World Missions leaders who came to our country, often staying at our home. I remember the evangelists and others who came our way to visit us, hold meetings or minister in various ways. I have fond memories of the missionaries we lived with on the mission field. They were like family.

In the States during itineration we held meetings in hundreds of churches where I met pastors and their families and laypeople.

During those years many great (and ordinary) men and women of God passed in and out of my life.

Then I grew up.

Now, as an adult, I realize that these Christian leaders and laypeople I met in my childhood and youth, and churches I attended and visited during my formative years, helped shape my worldview of Christianity and missions and the church in general.

Next to the godly and loving upbringing of my missionary parents, I believe one of the reasons I remained true to the Lord, kept attending church, stayed in the Assemblies of God and went into the ministry is because of the positive influence I received from these adults who were a huge part of my life while I was growing up.

My point?

As missionaries come to your church or you meet them in various other settings, their children often tag along as part of the package. Don’t forget these MKs! They may stay in the background. But they watch, listen and learn. And remember.

Please, don’t overlook them. Include them in your conversations. Learn their names. Get to know them. Your input into these young, pliable lives will make a bigger impression on them than you may realize.

One day soon they too will grow up and become adults. You may even meet them again or minister with them on the adult level.

Remember that song? “Precious memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul.”

May your conversations and conduct with the MKs you meet become a precious memory and a building block in their future that will help shape them into become what God wants them to be.

Photo: Earl and Ruby Wilkie with sons John, Owen, Bill, Dan, in Uruguay, South America, 1962

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Occupy Our Street

I certainly don’t agree with the tactics  of the “Occupy Wall Street” mobs we hear so much about these days. I doubt if they are asking themselves the question made famous several years ago, “What Would Jesus Do?”

However, let’s note, that instead of simply sitting on the sidelines complaining about our nation’s woes, at least they are actively doing something, even if it’s not the way it should be done.

In Luke 19:11-27 Jesus tells the parable of the king who gave his workers various amounts of money to invest. He told them, “Occupy till I come” (Luke 19:13, KJV).

The NIV reads, “Put this money to work,” he said, “until I come back.”

Are we occupying the post God has given us in His kingdom on earth? What are we doing to meet the needs of people down our street, in our city, in our nation, around the world? Who needs food, water, clothing, a word of encouragement, someone to tell them Jesus is the answer?

How are we responding to the Great Commission Jesus gave us in Mark 16:15 to go into all the world and preach the good news?

Some people don’t get involved for various reasons: they don’t understand the scope of the needs, they think they don’t have the right abilities or enough resources, the problems seem so overwhelming they don’t know where to start, they don’t care, or for a host of other reasons.

But in this parable Jesus reminds us we all have abilities and resources. God expects us all to use them. Each of us has a unique place in God’s kingdom that only we can occupy — on our street and around the world — until He comes or until He calls us home.

Click here to read a missionary story of someone who occupied the position God had given her. Today, decades later, her work continues to have an impact on a life she touched.

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My New Year’s Resolution

How are you doing with your New Year’s resolutions? Doing okay? Broken any yet? Or, didn’t you make any?

I’ve only made one so far and we’ll see how I do as the year goes on.

My resolution is to be more compassionate: not only to witness to people about salvation and spiritual growth, but also to work harder at helping those in need, as we are so often commanded to do in Scripture. Both go hand in hand.

Showing compassion can take many forms. It can include helping our neighbor across the street, a person in our church, and being a hand extended toward the needy around the world by supporting one or more compassion ministries.

I’m glad AG World Missions puts an emphasis on compassion. Their four-point missions strategy includes evangelizing, planting indigenous churches and training believers. The last one states: “The showing of compassion for suffering people in a manner representing the love of Jesus Christ.”

Missionaries have discovered that meeting people’s physical needs often opens doors for the preaching of the gospel.

AG World Missions is involved in several compassion ministries, including orphanages, schools, feeding programs, medical and dental ministries, well-digging programs and many more.

Isaiah 58:10 assures us: “If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

Read the whole chapter to get a better idea of God’s heart toward the needy, how He wants us to respond — and the blessings we will receive when we do.

Click here to read an article we recently posted on this AGWM website that illustrates a need and how people are responding with godly compassion.

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A Fragrant Offering

One of the promises in the Bible we like to recite and claim for our own is the one found in Philippians 4:19 which reads: “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

But did you ever look at the context of that promise?

Begin reading in verse 10 where Paul, the great missionary and church planter, rejoices that the Philippian church has shown concern for his needs.

In verses 15-17 Paul tells them they were the only church that shared with him financially “again and again” during a certain point in his ministry.

In verse 18 he informs the church he received the gifts they recently sent him.

He tells them their gifts “are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God” (verse 18).

Then, he adds this assurance in the next verse to this missions-minded congregation: “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

How are we doing in our support of ministers like Paul who are going around the world preaching the gospel and planting churches?

Does our giving stand the test of being a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God?

There are many promises in the Bible Christians can claim. However, I believe Paul intended this promise to be reserved for those who from their heart give in a sacrificial way to missions and ministers and ministries.

Click here to read an article we recently posted on the AG World Missions website about a missions-minded church.

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Cool, Clear Water

When I came to work this morning I went to my office and turned on my computer. Next, I took my coffee cup into the break room. Then, in what would be an amazing and miraculous — yet impossible — task for millions of people in many parts of the world, with a simple flick of my wrist I filled up the coffee pot with cold, clear, clean, drinkable water.

According to the United Nations, 894 million people — more than one in six people worldwide — don’t have access to their daily needs for freshwater.

The report goes on to declare that today, 2.5 billion people, including almost one billion children, live without basic sanitation. Every 20 seconds, a child dies as a result of poor sanitation.

Another report claims that the water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.

Assemblies of God World Missions is addressing these needs in several different ways. During Thanksgiving weekend I talked with a missionary who is part of a group planning to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise funds for the AG churches in that country to dig more wells.

Africa Oasis Project, Convoy of Hope and other ministries are helping provide freshwater through setting up water filters and digging wells.

What can we do?

First, each time we turn on a water faucet to get a drink of water or take a shower or flush a toilet, let’s be thankful for freshwater, and not take this blessing for granted.

Second, let’s ask God how He wants us to reach out with our compassionate touch to those with spiritual and physical hunger and thirst around the world.

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Passing Down our Passion

The other day my wife and I went to Grandparents’ Day at our grandchildren’s Christian school. We enjoyed visiting their classrooms, meeting their teachers and observing their work.

During the service honoring grandparents the speaker, a Baptist pastor, emphasized how grandparents have the awesome responsibility and privilege of passing down their values to their grandchildren, both by what they say and what they do.

I ticked off in my mind the various areas in which I was trying to pass along my values to my grandchildren. Among other topics I thought about missions.

First, do I really share God’s passion for reaching the lost? There are billions in China and India and Latin America and Africa and other lands who still don’t know Jesus loves them. There are people in draught-prone areas starving to death and without water to drink. Millions of Christians daily face persecution. Around the world desperate people are dying, without hope, without Jesus. Today. Tomorrow. Every day. How much do I care?

Second, how much of God’s passion am I really passing on to my children and grandchildren?

Around the dinner table when we are together do I discuss missions or missionaries or the need for taking the gospel around the world? Do I make a point of getting to know the missionaries from my area? Do I make an effort to introduce my grandchildren to these missionaries, or at least take them to missionary meetings where they can listen to their stories and get to know their hearts? Do they know I support missionaries on a regular basis and give to missionaries when they come to my church? Do they hear me pray for our missionaries? Do they hear me honor them as heroes?

The Great Commission of going into all the world to preach the gospel is so important to God that, among other biblical passages, He inserted this command in all four Gospels and the Book of Acts. (See Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:48, John 20:21, Acts 1:8.)

Let’s make sure we personally share God’s passion for the lost. Then, let’s pass along that passion to our children, grandchildren, relatives, friends and others within our circle of influence.

Let’s get started today, even before the sun sets.

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Opening the Door

A few days ago I came to work early when all the doors were still locked. As I approached the door nearest my office I reached for my key fob and couldn’t find it. I checked my pockets, my bag. I went back to my car and looked. Not there.

I couldn’t get in. I was locked out in the cold and rain.

After standing around a few minutes wondering what to do, a coworker approached. With his key fob he opened the door and ushered me into the warmth, security and comfort of the building.

This week, 25 missionary candidates and 17 missionary associates are training for overseas missionary service here at the Assemblies of God national office in Springfield, Missouri.

God has called them to preach the gospel in several different countries around the world. After they get to the mission field they will be opening the Door (KJV) or Gate (NIV), which is what Jesus calls himself, to people so they may enter into the presence of God and be saved and have a full life during their sojourn on earth and for all eternity (See John 10:7-10).

Let’s be in prayer for these new missionaries during their training. As they return to their districts I encourage you to welcome them into your churches. Partner with them as they open the Door or Gate of hope, peace, joy and eternal life to lost people around the world.

Click here to read a story recently posted on the AG World Missions website about a missionary who opened the Door to a little boy in Africa.

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Persecution

The attention of the Christian world is currently focused on a pastor imprisoned in Iran who has been sentenced to death for his faith. We pray the authorities in that country will free him and return him to his family and his church.

But this pastor’s plight is not an isolated incident. According to Christians in Crisis International, 200 million Christians daily face persecution. Every day, on average, more than 300 people are killed for their faith in Jesus Christ.

At the same time, God is growing His church today in miraculous ways around the world.

For example, in the early 20^th century only 50,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean were born again. Today, more than 100 million people across that region are part of an evangelical fellowship. Among these, nearly 30 million worship in 211,087 Assemblies of God churches and preaching points. There are similar statistics for other parts of the world.

The worldwide church is growing, yet increasingly facing persecution — sometimes in the same places.

As we pray for our missionaries and for growth in our churches around the world, let’s also pray for the millions of Christians today facing persecution.

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