I’ve been writing about some of my memories of a 1974 mission trip I went on to Sonora, Mexico. The primary purpose of this trip was to dedicate a church the people of Calvary Temple paid for. It was my first trip outside the United States, and was an eye-opener.
This was a dirt-poor (literally) community in the desert of Sonora state. The people literally lived in cardboard boxes with salvaged tin roofs. They had no source of income. The only previous church in town was a Catholic Church which was no more than a broom-closet sized shack with a clay crucifix, and few small pictures of some Saints, and a bouquet or two of flowers. Not one seat and no priest. In contrast, This new adobe church sat in the middle of town, with a nice metal roof. It was about 20′ x 30′, had no doors or windows (as yet). But it stood out like a mansion compared to the Catholic Church. They decorated by streaming toilet paper from the rafters. One light bulb hung by the wire from the rafters over the pulpit.
When the meeting began, the ladies all sat on one side of the aisle, and the men on the other. There a couple of speakers set up outside to broadcast the sound in all directions. As the meeting progressed, the church was packed with people, until crowds stood outside around the building trying to get a glimpse inside the open windows. It was a great experience to see these people so excited about something new in their community.
When the last time you were excited about something new happening in town? Got any ideas about how you can help stir up some excitement?
Tags: evangelism, missions
About ten years ago we had a man by the name of George Bloom attending our church, and he loved to write poetry and prose. He gave me the following entitled ‘Do We Have it Rough’:
If the five billion people in the world were reduced down to a single town of 1,000 people, these statistics would be seen:
a) 20 of the people would be from the USA, 980 from the rest of the world.
b) The 20 Americans would receive half the income, the rest of the town would have to get by on the other half.
c) 303 of the people would be white, 697 non-whites.
d) The 20 Americans would have an average life expectancy of over 70 years, the non-Americans an average under 40 years of age.
e) The 20 Americans would consume 15% of the town’s food supply, even though they make up only 2% of the people, and the lowest income group of the Americans would be better off than the average of the remaining non-Americans.
f) The Americans would use 12 times as much electricity, 22 times as much coal, 21 times as much oil, 50 times as much steel, and 50 times as much equipment as the rest of the people in town.
Still think you’ve got it rough?
Tags: missions, statistics
Missionaries to other cultures must study the cultural background of the people to better find a way to communicate the gospel. A missionary in West Africa was trying to convey the meaning of the redeem in the Bambara language. So he asked his African assistant to express it in his native tongue. “We say,” the assistant replied, “that God took our heads out.” “But how does that explain redemption?” the missionary asked.
The man told him that many years ago some of his ancestors had been captured by slave-traders, chained together, and driven to the seacoast. Each of the prisoners had a heavy iron collar around his neck. As the slaves passed through a village, a chief might notice a friend of his among the captives and offer to pay the salve-traders in gold, ivory, silver, or brass. The prisoner would be redeemed by the payment. His head then would be taken out of his iron collar. That’s what these Africans understood by the phrase, “God took our heads out.”
Look for a way to describe redemption to your co-workers.
Tags: missions, redemption, rescue
There are two kinds of people when it comes to missions – those who need to share Christ and those who need to hear about Him.
The famous Brethren preacher H. A. Ironside used to tell the story about a meeting in which a missionary offering was taken. When the collection plate was handed to a wealthy man, he brushed it aside and said, “I do not believe in missions.”
“Then take something out,” said the usher, “This is for the heathen.”
If you can’t be a giver, you must be a taker…there are only two kinds.
Tags: giver, missions, offering
A young man was accepted for the African mission field and reported at New York for passage on a ship. On further examination he learned that his wife could not stand the climate. Heartbroken, he prayerfully returned to his home and determined to make all the money he could to be used in spreading the Kingdom of God over the world.
His father, a dentist, had started experimenting, on the side, with an unfermented wine for the communion service in his church. The young man took the business venture over and developed it until it assumed vast proportions – his name was Welch.
Today, the Welch family still manufactures the famous ‘Welch’s Grapejuice’. He has literally given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the work of missions.
Sometimes it is trouble and disappointment that leads us down the path God has chosen for us.
Tags: communion, missions, trouble
It may just be the greatest botched opportunity in all church history. In the 1260s, the Polos, an Italian merchant family, journeyed to China and were well received at the court of the great Kublai Khan. Before they returned to Italy in 1269, Kublai Khan requested them to ask the Pope to send 100 teachers of science and religion to instruct the Chinese in the learning and faith of Europe.
The Pope only managed to send two Dominican friars with the Polos in November, 1271; but a war frightened the two friars, and even they turned back. The Polos, including young Marco, continued their journey to the Chinese emperor without the requested religious teachers. How might the history of Christianity in Asia been different had this incomparable opportunity been seized!
That opportunity may be gone, but today there is an excitement in the air as people all around us in America are crying out for something real. I’ve got it and want to pass it on!
Tags: China, history, missions, mistakes, opportunity
Several years ago Rev. Kim Tracy and I travelled to Manaus, Brazil, to dedicate a church building New Hope had helped to finance. We were Sunday morning guests of the mother church downtown, a mega-church of the Presbyterian variety. Kim was a musician and was getting ready for the sound check just prior to the service, which was already packed with several hundred people. He wanted more sound in his monitor, so jestered upward with his thumb to the sound man in the back. He continued to pump his thumb up and down waiting for the appropriate volume.
The missions pastor of the church shook his head and kept advising, “Don’t do that.” When Kim finally got the desired volume, he ceased his jesturing. Kim was later humiliated when we were told that the thumbs up sign in Brazilian culture is an obscene jesture, equivalent to the middle finger in America.
The communications principle in this story is to beware of your jestures. People may read more into your wink than that you are making a joke. Body language says a lot about your demeanor and what you are thinking. So, think before you yawn or fold your arms.
Got any further illustrations of body language goof-ups?
Tags: communication, humor, missions