This is a big Sunday for us. We have passed out hundreds of invitations and will be passing out over 500 more tomorrow. We are excited about the opportunity and are praying God will use this Sunday to work in the hearts of all who attend. Please pray with us for this big day. We look forward to sharing the great love of the greatest Father, our Heavenly Father! Thank you for praying with us!
From the Blog: Preparing for the Field: Read
If you are going to be an astronaut, you have to prepare. If you are going to be a lawyer, you have to prepare. If you are going to be a doctor, computer programmer, designer, chef, and a mountain of others professions, you will have to prepare! Why in the world would anyone think that a missionary does not need to prepare? If you are interested in the mission field, you must prepare yourself for serving in this capacity. I don’t think there is anything better in the world than advancing the Gospel. It is fun, hard, time consuming, and slow, and it is wonderful. I am using the things that I have learned as I have prepared for serving Jesus on the mission field.
With that in mind, one of the ways you can prepare is by reading. I have heard statistics that claim very few read much after they graduate from high school and college. I hope that is not true. We grow by reading. Now the question is what books to read…
Where To Start
Obviously a missionary ought to read the Bible and have read the Bible through many times. How can a man explain the eternal truths of God if he doesn’t read the book that contains the eternal truths? Read the Bible, read it again, read it daily, study it, and apply it in your life. But we also need to be reading other books and there is no shortage. Here are a few categories and recommendations…
- Missionary Biographies: They will burn in your heart and help you dream big! They can be exciting, motivating, heart breaking, and stirring all at the same time. There are all kinds to choose from. I recommend a good biography of Adoniram Judson, Jim Elliot, and William Carrey, but there are many more that are worth reading.
- Books on missions: These books help explain how to serve in another culture. Some great books to start with would be “Cross Cultural Servanthood”, “Ministering Cross Culturally”, and “Planting Churches Cross Culturally”. There are more, but these are good to start with.
- Books on Culture Shock: This topic is for a whole other post (one I might add that will be coming soon). Culture Shock is very real and will beat you up really bad. Identifying it is key to successfully overcoming it. A book I recommend, “Culture Shock” by Myron Loss. Another great book that will help you in another culture is “The Ugly American”. It has nothing to do with missions but it gives you insight of what Americans can look like to nationals. It is an excellent book
- Discipleship: My favorite book in the world is “The Master Plan of Evangelism” by Robert Coleman. Start with this book! It will change your life. There are many more, but this book will build your ministry philosophy with the biblical principles it so clearly explains. Read it, TWICE, then read it a few more times for good measure…
- Motivational books: There are a few great books that will motivate you to get out and do something. Missionaries need drive. A well-liked book is “The Rhinoceros Success” but my favorite is “The 10X Rule”. This book will push you! Get the audible version, it has even more content.
There are many more books that are available that should be read. My mentor has said that after a certain age, we grow by the people we know and the books we read. So go buy a bunch of books and start reading. I am in the middle of a wonderful book right now about leadership. So start reading and never stop. Keep reading!
Quick Update: Preparing for Father’s Day
Father’s Day is just over a week away and we are preparing for it now. This is our big service this month. We have made special invitations for this. We are encouraging those who regularly attend to invite others to this special service. We will have a special gift for every father who attends. Tomorrow we will start passing out invitations in the community. Sunday we will push it in the service. Please pray with us that God blessed our efforts.
Preparing for the Mission Field: Serving
We started a new blog series last week about preparing for the mission field. I think a very important preparation for the field is serving in your own local church. How can someone surrender to be a missionary, to take his family across the world to reach and serve others when he is not doing so in his own church? That just does not make sense! I am very thankful for my home church and Pastor. Pastor Lawrence gave me opportunity after opportunity to serve in our church. I served with children in junior church, helped in special teen events, helped work with the nursery ministry, the bus ministry, special days, senior saints ministry, revivals, conferences, website ministry, missions team, outreach ministry, teaching Sunday School, and many other aspects of ministry like cleaning, unclogging toilets, laying pine straw, pressure washing sidewalks, and the like. I certainly did not know it at the time, but God was using these different ministries to prepare me. So how do you get prepared for the mission field? Get busy serving in your church! There is always something to do in the church! I have been in over 300 churches through the deputation process and there was not one church that didn’t have an open area of service in ministry! Get involved. If you are involved, get more involved!
Maybe you don’t want to be a missionary, you still need a ministry in your local church. This goes beyond preparing for the mission field, it should be what we all do as Christians. You are a member of the body of Christ and you have a function in the ministry (1 Corinthians 12:12-31). Every member has a function just like every member of the body has a function. The only part of the body that doesn’t have a function is excess fat that sits on the body doing nothing but weighing the body down. No one wants to be “the excess fat” in the body of Christ! Don’t just sit there in the pew, serve in your church!
This by no means makes you prepared for the mission field, but it is a necessary step for sure! The man who is not serving in his church will not magically change on the plane ride over to the mission field. You are only more tomorrow what you are today. So step one to preparing for the mission field is get busy serving in your own church! The next steps in preparing for the mission field are much more concentrated. This is a very necessary foundation!
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