Let's have a word of prayer together, and
then we'll make a start.
Our God and Father, once again, we are
thankful for this opportunity to spend this time
together, and to be able to consider this
important subject.
And, Father, again, we just ask for your
help, and your guidance, and your direction.
And, Father, we pray that you would be
the one working in the lives of individuals
to call those to service, that you would
have to be there.
We pray it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
As you've heard already this morning, the emphasis
today is upon missions, thinking primarily of foreign
missions.
Although the Lord does call various people to
various ministries, we're very thankful for each one
that the Lord places within their home assembly,
to be able to serve there, for those
who called to serve in foreign places.
I was reading something recently from a little
book by W.E. Vine on the divine
plan of missions.
And he says in that, There was no
appeal to the churches by the missionaries to
send out laborers.
There was no humanly arranged effort to meet
the tremendous needs of other lands.
Everything was done by the Spirit of God.
Our purpose here this morning is not to
be able to give an emotional appeal, or
in any way to challenge people along those
lines.
We truly believe that that is the sovereign
work of God's Spirit to do that.
But what we want to help people do
is to be able to think through some
of the issues that are related to the
idea of going to the mission field.
I have been in Ireland for just two
years.
My father was a missionary in Zimbabwe, in
Africa, for 11 years.
He was there and has been involved in
full-time ministry, an itinerant ministry here in
the United States since returning.
Neither of us felt that we were the
best qualified to be leading this seminar.
So one of the things that we did
was we sent out a questionnaire by email
and asked some of the missionaries who are
actively serving and some who have retired for
some of their input on a number of
questions.
And if you'll see, I think it's almost
in the back of your binder, there's the
notes.
On the back side of that, we've done
just a very brief summary of some of
the information that was gleaned from that.
And there were some very helpful things that
we'll be sharing, particularly in relation to question
8 and question 11.
We'll be going into more detail in the
seminar itself.
But just to highlight a few things on
the back here, you'll see that there were
24 missionaries who responded.
I don't remember how many were sent out
to.
We only sent it out to people that
I knew and who were on email, so
it was limited.
But you see that we spoke with people
who were commended as early as 1946 and
as recently as 1995 with an average of
19 years of service.
So these were people who have been actively
serving the Lord for a long time.
They're commended from a number of different countries
and are serving on 14 different fields.
The average age of those who, when they
first went out to the foreign field, was
28 years of age.
The oldest couple was, the husband was 50
and the wife was 45.
The youngest couple was 22 and 21.
So we see that there's a great range
there.
And I think we tend to see a
movement towards people going out a little bit
later with additional training and more experience in
serving the Lord in their own assemblies.
And we'll talk more about that as well.
One of the questions, and we'll make reference
to this again later, was whether or not
they had visited the country to which they
were hoping to serve before they went out
there.
Eleven of them said that they did.
Thirteen said that they had not.
When we asked them if someone wrote to
them and said, would you recommend a visit,
16 of them were very strong, very adamant,
saying yes, definitely.
We would recommend that if someone was interested
in serving the Lord on this field, that
they would come and visit the field first.
Five people said it was a good idea,
possibly a little bit more ambivalent on that.
And three were very strong and dogmatic, no,
that we need to accept that if God
has called us, we go regardless of what
that field is like.
So just to show you again, there's some
very strong feelings on both sides of that.
The other thing I just want to point
out as well, on question 10, whether or
not they are serving on the same field
as when they originally went out.
And we see that there were some people
who went out to certain areas, and then
for some reason, and we don't have details
on those reasons, there was a change in
their field of ministry.
And I'm sure that if we didn't ask
them, but I'm sure there would be many
people who would have said that what they
expected to do when they got there turned
out to be very different than what they
went out intending to do.
And what we need to recognize is that
God is the one who leads in all
of these things.
And although we make plans, we need to
hold those plans with a very loose hand,
recognizing that God will lead and direct as
we go along.
On the front side of that sheet, we
have just three brief areas that we'd like
to look at this morning.
I'm going to speak with you for a
few moments about understanding the call of God,
and then my father will speak about personal
inventory evaluation, and then we'll kind of collaborate
on some practical advice at the end there.
We want to try and leave some time
for questions at the end, and so we
ask you to hold your questions until then.
Because of the number of people who are
here, it makes it a little bit more
difficult for questions and answers, but we will
try and allow time for that.
So let's look first at this area of
understanding the call of God.
In my own personal experience, this was probably
one of the most difficult areas for us
to deal with.
And based on people that I've spoken to,
I would guess that there's a lot of
other people who are struggling with the same
thing.
How do we understand what the call of
God is?
How do we know if God has called
us to serve him in a full-time
capacity?
It reminds me a little bit of when
I was a student at Emmaus, and there
was a friend of mine there who had
just gotten engaged.
And I think I had just broken up
with a girl and was all confused about
this whole romance and relationship idea.
And I said to him, How do you
know that this is the girl that you
are to marry?
And I didn't like his answer at all.
He says, When the time comes, you'll know.
I wanted some measurable statistic that I could
say, Okay, this is the one.
I will definitely have no doubt that this
is the one.
But he just said, When the time comes,
you will know.
And I don't think that there is anything
that we can tell you this morning about
the call of God that is going to
be a measurable standard by which you can
say, Yes, I have been definitely called by
God.
Let me mention two books to you quickly
as well.
One is one that my grandfather wrote called,
God's Called a Special Service.
And I have to admit that when I
was first thinking and praying about serving the
Lord, I didn't finish the book.
I became dissatisfied.
Am I allowed to say that?
I became dissatisfied with the book because it
wasn't answering the question that I wanted.
It's a very helpful book, a very well
-written book, a lot of wonderful information about
it.
He goes through ten people in Scripture who
were called by God.
But as I looked through them, all of
them had direct revelation from God.
And I'm not expecting any direct revelation from
God at this point.
So how do I know?
Now, he does end up with a little
summary at the end of the book where
he does give some guidelines, and it's well
worth looking at it for that.
The other thing you should have received in
your packet from CML, the book Global Strategy,
which has just been revised and updated.
And there's a very helpful chapter in there
on the call by Ken Fleming, and I
encourage you to read that.
I think that you'll find that helpful as
well.
I think part of the problem for me
stemmed from the fact that I heard so
many missionaries, so many full-time workers, down
through the years, talking about when or how
they were called by the Lord into full
-time service.
And when you hear that phrase, when you
hear people say that, you kind of get
this idea in your mind that God spoke
to them audibly, that there was a call
like we would read about in Scripture, a
bright, shining light that would come.
I remember a friend of mine told me
a story.
He said that there was a man who
came to the elders, and he said, The
Lord has called me to go into full
-time preaching.
And I said, Well, how do you know
that?
And he said, Well, I was out in
the field working, and I looked up in
the clouds, and there was a cloud formation,
and it said, PC.
And he said, I just knew that it
meant preach Christ.
And the elder said, Well, how do you
know it didn't mean plant corn?
And we shouldn't be expecting, I don't think
at this point, that God is going to
be giving us some direct revelation.
But I think we do need to have
some guidance and some guidelines on how.
And so we had asked, in the survey
that we had done, we had asked them
to briefly summarize how the Lord called into
missionary service.
And so we have some first-hand testimonies.
Perhaps you've heard many of these things from
the missionaries themselves before in reports that have
been given.
But I just want to draw a few
things from the words that they have stated
so that you can have help in understanding
these things.
I have to keep moving here because we're
going to run out of time.
It's a lot to cover in just an
hour.
Let me just read some of this to
you.
I wrote this out just because I knew
that because of the tightness of time, if
I start going verbatim, I'll go on forever
and ever.
But let me just read some things to
you here.
After much prayer and discussion with other mature
Christians, I came to the conclusion, this is
speaking about myself, that I should not be
looking for such direct revelation, and for that
reason admit that I feel uncomfortable using the
phrase, the call of God.
In my life, God used a specific, unlikely
incident to create a burden, and that was
about as strong as I was willing to
say it, a burden that was placed upon
my heart to dedicate my life to serve
him more that ultimately led, over a period
of several years, to our going to Ireland.
Based on the responses to our survey, it
would seem that others would concur.
As Mark Hartley in Spain says, I don't
think a call is a one-time thing
or a lightning bolt that hits you one
night.
I prefer to use the word burden because
I see it more as a gradual process,
being willing to go and do whatever the
Lord has for you.
Floyd Schneider, formerly of Austria, now at Emmaus,
says, I understand the call to be the
Lord putting desires in our heart to serve
him.
We do what we think will please him
most and go where we think we can
serve him best.
Before we went to Austria, people would ask
if I was called to go to Austria.
I told them I wanted to please the
Lord by going, and that in five years
I would tell them if I had been
called or not.
It's much easier in retrospect to look back
and say, yes, the Lord did call me.
It's very hard to know in advance that
the Lord has called you.
But again, these burdens and these desires that
the Lord puts upon your heart.
Stephen Yule in Portugal says, The Lord placed
a desire upon our hearts.
Circumstances pointed to overseas service.
Doors opened.
The elders that are commending the assembly confirmed
our decision.
It's also interesting to learn of the various
ways in which missionaries were led to the
mission field.
For many, the influence of their family life
was key, and I think this is very
important for parents to take note of as
well.
Prince Ray Barham of Zambia was brought up
on the mission field and gradually became aware
that the Lord wanted him back in the
land of his birth.
Gavin Aitken of Brazil says, It seemed as
if my childhood was spent in missionary get
-togethers, send-offs, prayer meetings, conferences, etc.
My parents fostered this missionary interest over the
years and lived to see the day when
I would be on the mission field.
Another influence came through reading missionary biographies in
my early years.
So the family had a very profound influence.
He grew up feeling like he was always
at these missionary get-togethers, and his life
was permeated by it.
And so parents, I encourage you with that.
Make sure that you don't keep your children
home from the missionary reports and the missionary
meetings.
It has a great influence upon their hearts
and minds.
And then also the idea of biographies are
very influential.
If you are thinking about serving the Lord
overseas, read missionary biographies.
Read how the Lord has worked in other
people's lives.
Rachel Malatik, who we heard of, sorry, we
didn't hear of her earlier, but she serves
in other areas as well, says, I was
raised in a missionary-minded family.
We had missionaries in our home regularly who
planted a vision in me for the foreign
field.
We prayed daily for the missionaries.
On the other hand, her husband Michael says,
for me it was largely a matter of
obedience to the word of God in accordance
with the gifts, abilities, and interests that he
had given to me.
So we see that there are various ways
that people were led to go out.
Richard Clark in Spain says that the Lord
gradually gave him the conviction through his first
year of university that he should not spend
his life in the career he was preparing
for, but that he should spend his life
on the mission field serving the Lord.
Throughout the year that conviction grew stronger and
with growing peace in his heart, he knew
that the Lord was calling him to be
a missionary.
But for his wife Connie, it was a
more dramatic experience.
She says that while having her devotions one
morning when she was 18 years old, the
Holy Spirit clearly spoke through a verse in
the Bible with a definite and clear call.
For some months she couldn't believe this was
for her, yet the Lord continued to confirm
it until she really believed that it was
true.
But she then decided she didn't want to
be a missionary, and a rebellious inner struggle
ensued for the next six months.
When the Lord won that battle in her
heart, she had an immediate joyous desire to
be a missionary, and the next day changed
her major in college.
So the Lord had spoken through his word,
and again that was one of the things
that, again, we see again and again the
missionaries advising and counseling, spend time in the
Word of God.
Be able to hear the Word of God
as it's spoken to you from the pages
of Scripture.
The next area that was a major struggle
for me, once I was convinced within my
heart that the Lord was calling me to
foreign missionary service, was where.
And again, we had asked the missionaries whether
that was something that they felt.
Do you understand the call to missionary service
to include the place of service?
Sixteen of them said not necessarily.
Some of them said, well, it might come
later, but the initial call will be to
serve the Lord, and then he will lead
and guide and direct into the place that
we should go.
Again, speaking of my own personal experience, I
was now convinced that I was to devote
my life to serving the Lord, but the
question was where.
Thus began a process of personal evaluation and
an effort to match my gifts with needs
and opportunities.
But there were so many needs and so
many opportunities that we didn't feel the Lord
was clearly guiding us to any one place
yet.
So we continued to wait and to pray,
to write to missionaries and to seek counsel,
and eventually the Lord placed a burden on
our hearts for Ireland.
We asked other missionaries if they felt that
the call to missionary service included the place
of service.
Most felt it did not.
Mike Atwood believes that we are called to
a specific ministry, not a specific location.
The Malatech says theirs was a call to
a people group, so they went where they
could best reach them.
They're not actually serving in the country right
now, but they are outside of the country
ministering to that same people group.
Gavin Akin wrote, Missionaries in the Book of
Acts were commended to the grace of God,
not a specific location.
It was a boyhood dream of mine to
serve the Lord in the country of Angola,
but I ended up in Brazil due to
the war conditions in Angola at the time.
Floyd Schneider says a call can include the
location, for we tend to go where we
have interests or burdens.
And Mark Harkey says, as we by faith
move forward in obedience to the burden God
has laid on our hearts, he will gradually
show us a specific country and even city
that he has prepared for us.
Dave Johnson of the Philippines emphasized, I believe
the most important thing is to be surrendered
to the Lord, and if you believe that
he is leading you to serve overseas, then
he will guide you to the place or
places he wants you to serve.
And then we talked a little bit about
this idea already of whether or not there
should be a visit to the land.
Beth and I wondered whether it would be
a good idea for us to visit the
country we were praying about serving in.
We wrote to one missionary who said that
we shouldn't visit, but should wait until we
were certain of where the Lord was calling
us.
So we posed the same question in our
missionary questionnaire.
We found that there were strongly held beliefs
for and against.
Charles Shorten, who has retired from service in
Angola, was unequivocal, no, accept the call of
God.
His wife Betty adds, in my case I
longed to do so, to make a visit
to Angola, but felt that it would be
a lack of full conviction as to God's
calling.
Anyway, in those days it was too expensive
to consider.
Similarly, Floyd Pierce, retired from Brazil, says, no,
unless he or she is independently wealthy, which
not too many of us are, even then
I would hesitate to recommend such a visit.
Richard and Connie Clark emphasize that my feelings
or intuition upon visiting a country do not
determine a call.
That's very important to remember.
That your feelings, if you like the place
or not, is not an indication of whether
or not God is calling you.
Feelings can be very deceiving.
If I am called, I go because of
obedience to the Lord.
Connie is personally thankful that she never made
a trip to spy out the land, as
she did not like Spain upon first impression
or even for some time afterwards.
For her it was a question of obedience,
and that lesson was very worthwhile.
On the other hand, Hank Gelling of Belgium
would strongly encourage someone to visit first.
He said, absolutely, I would say it's almost
obligatory.
And Gavin Aiken agrees very definitely.
It removes the romanticism and helps the person
face reality.
Floyd Schneider says it's usually a good idea
for the would-be missionary to meet the
people he'll be working with or beside.
And Mike Atwood writes, it will help getting
to know the candidate, and if he would
fit in, as well as help the candidate
see things for himself.
People can have a real misconception about a
field.
Now, as I said, we'll leave time at
the end for questions.
I'm going to turn over to my dad
now, and he'll talk about the idea of
personal evaluation.
It's good to have this opportunity to share
some of the things that perhaps I found
applicable in my own life and in my
service to the Lord.
I grew up on the mission field.
My parents were missionaries in Angola.
And so I can relate very much to
people like Ray Barham who understood that they
had grown up among these people.
I had visited Africa, so I knew something
of what conditions were like there.
But as I thought about this and as
I thought about the question of preparation for
missionary service, there were certain things that I
have found were absolutely vital in my own
life.
I became a Christian when I was very
young, and as has been said, exposure to
missions and missionary service was something that I'd
always known.
But there was this sense of, what is
it that I'm being called to do?
We find it in the Gospels, and I
found it interesting glancing through the book Global
Strategy last night that Ken Fleming also refers
to the same thing, that there were four
times in Peter's life when God, the Lord
Jesus, directly said to him, follow me.
The first time was when he was involved
in his normal day-to-day occupation.
He was out there fishing, and the Lord
saw him and said to him, follow me.
And it says that Peter left all and
followed the Lord.
Then we find that later on, when the
Lord was going to reveal to the disciples
the fact that he was going to have
to go to the cross and die, there
was going to be the offense of the
cross, and Peter, you remember, rebuked the Lord.
And the Lord had to say to him,
Peter, you're going to have to understand that
there is to be an offense in following
me.
And so he says, I don't care what
you might think about is going to happen.
Peter, follow me.
So there is going to be offense.
And we've been hearing something of that.
We were talking to a brother just very
briefly here before the meeting started, and if
you've been reading missionary activities, missionary reports at
all, you will know about the people that
were killed in India for the sake of
the gospel.
A man with his two sons, they came
and they locked the doors of the car,
set the car on fire, and he was
burned to death for no other reason except
the fact that he was a preacher of
the gospel.
So there is an offense to following the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And then we find that at the end
of John's gospel, there's a third time when
the Lord Jesus said directly to Peter himself,
follow me.
And it came in the context of the
Lord saying to Peter, the day is going
to come.
He says, today you get up, you dress
yourself, you go where you please.
The day is going to come when somebody
else is going to come and pick you
up and take you where you don't want
to go.
And you're not going to be pleased with
the outcome.
We understand from tradition that Peter was crucified
because he was a follower of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
So that in spite of the outcome, we
are to follow when God calls.
And then at the end of that chapter,
there's a very interesting little thing.
And this is something which perhaps we all
need to remind ourselves about.
And that is that when the Lord said
for the fourth time to Peter, follow me.
Peter looked around and he saw John standing
there.
And he said, but what about him?
The Lord said, don't worry about him.
You follow me.
So that it is something which becomes a
personal responsibility.
Now, as we look at this, and being
assured of the fact of the Lord's call,
there are certain things that we need to
do.
By the way, if you don't have a
copy of the handout, there are some additional
ones here.
And maybe if you'd like to put your
hand up, some of our friends here at
the front would be willing to get one
to you.
The first thing that I suggested was your
relationships.
How are your relationships?
And, of course, the primary relationship is the
relationship that we have with the Lord.
What is my personal dealings with the Lord
day by day?
And, of course, we go over to 2
Corinthians chapter 8 and verse 5.
And I realize that the context there is
in connection with giving.
But the Apostle Paul commended the Macedonian believers
in 2 Corinthians chapter 8.
He says, They gave themselves first to the
Lord.
And this is going to be the place
where we start.
There must be that personal dedication to the
Lord.
What is it that the Lord wants you
to do?
You remember that the Apostle Paul, on the
road to Damascus, the time when he was
converted, his first question was, Who are you,
Lord?
The second question was, What will you have
me to do?
It was a question of personal dedication to
the Lord.
There has to be a strong, personal commitment
to the Lord and a tender conscience with
regard to his claims day by day.
And then a second area that I think
is absolutely vital is what is your relationship
with the elders in your assemblies?
This is something which is absolutely vital because
they are going to be able to give
advice to you as to how they see
your area of spiritual growth and maturity.
They're going to be able to tell whether
you are fitted for A, the country that
you maybe have in mind.
There are certain countries which place tremendous demand
on the physical capacity of a person so
that if their health is not good, they're
going to be able to help to deal
with you.
So there's going to have to be this
open communication with the elders in your assembly.
There is also the fact that you're going
to want to be assured of their full
confidence in you that you're going to be
able to do the work that God is
calling you to do.
Sometimes we feel that we're ready.
David has referred to this already.
We've been told at this conference one of
the hardest things that we have to do
is to wait.
When I was really quite young, I really
felt that I wanted to go into missionary
service and my elders at that time told
me to wait.
And I have to confess that I was
pretty rebellious about it.
I thought I was ready to go and
they said wait.
And God said to me, and looking back,
I have to recognize that they were very
wise in the things that they said.
The third thing is that there has to
be that submissive spirit.
And even though, as I said, I tended
to feel rather rebellious that their advice for
me to wait, I realize now that it
was good advice so that there must be
a submissiveness to the guidance of the elders
in your assembly.
A third area of relationship applies primarily to
those who are married.
And this is what is your relationship with
your spouse.
And here again, I think that this is
something vital.
Because unless you are united in your desires
with regard to this that you're going to
do, there's going to be areas of friction
which are going to place tremendous strains on
your marriage.
I find that when we were living in
Zimbabwe, we were told at that time and
whether it is true or not, or whether
it was effective or not, I don't know,
but the spiritists, the people who believe in
spiritualism or whatever you call it, were praying
to Satan for the breakup of Christian marriages.
And you're going to be faced, particularly in
some of the foreign fields, in some of
the primitive societies, in some of the areas
in which God might call some of you
to work, there are going to be some
tremendous temptations that you're going to face.
We were told in the prayer meeting this
morning that a new little assembly has just
been started in the city of Las Vegas.
And you have to recognize that those who
are living and working there are going to
daily be faced with tremendous temptations morally and
in so many different areas of life.
And unless there is this strong commitment to
your spouse and open communication between yourselves, that
this is an area where there could be
absolute disaster.
Another area, of course, has to be in
the area of total fidelity to your wife,
to your spouse.
That unless there is that, unless there is
that total faithfulness, again, it can lead to
tragedy, it can lead to the breakup of
your testimony, it can bring disgrace on the
name of the Lord Jesus.
So there has to be that recognition that
you're together in these things.
And then, of course, as I said at
the beginning, there has to be agreement as
to the goals that you're intending to follow.
And I would say that this also includes
matters of finance.
I've done a little bit of pre-marital
counseling.
And one of the things that I often
speak about as I deal with this is
the questions of mutual agreement with regard to
finances.
Sometimes one partner in the marriage might be,
tend to be very open-handed and generous.
The other partner might tend to be rather
tight and want to keep a tight rein
on the purse strings.
And unless there is a mutual understanding in
those areas between the members of the family,
that again can lead to terrible disaster.
One of the things that we have to
recognize, and again it's a thing that Ken
Fleming deals with in his little book, and
there's also a little booklet that is available
through CMML written by Carl Knott, one of
the missionaries in Spain.
How do you get there from here?
And he deals with the question of financial
support.
And of course he does say that many
of the mission boards will advise that you
go around and speak and become known, make
appeals for money, get pledges, and that is
one route.
But mostly among the assemblies the route is
that we look to the Lord.
We don't make our personal needs known.
And there are going to be times when
there's going to be tight as far as
finances are concerned.
There are going to be real needs, and
the Lord is going to challenge you and
maybe challenge your commitment to Him with regard
to work in that specific place because there's
not very much money available.
What about your family?
If you are older and have children, what
is your relationship with your family?
Are they in agreement with going?
Because sometimes this can also lead to real
problems.
Not only that, there's the area of loving
discipline with your children.
We're told in 1 Timothy chapter 3 that
if a man does not know how to
control his family, then how can he be
missionaries and to missionary activity, encouraging them along
these lines.
Shared goals, especially with the children, so that
those children, and when we were considering, when
we finally went out, we had six children
ranging in age from 15 down to two,
and we used to have family conferences, and
this is what we're doing.
This is the stage that we're at, and
we try to endeavor to bring our family
along with us so that they would be
able to be in harmony with us in
this.
And then there's the area of relationship with
co-workers.
And I know that this is one area
where on the mission field you're going to
be thrown into close contact, maybe on a
mission station, very little outside contact with others,
and missionaries all tend to be very strong
-minded, and unless you can know what it
is to be able to work with others,
to be able to quietly present your point
of view without getting angry, without compromising your
principles, it's going to be very difficult to
work.
And so here are some areas of relationship.
And then personal assessment.
What about your personal life and testimony?
Do you have a strong and consistent Christian
life and testimony?
What about in your workplace?
Do people look at you and know that
you are a believer?
When I was growing up, there was a
saying, and it goes back to the old
sailing days about nailing your colors to the
mast, that in those days when they were
going into battle, it was always possible to
pull down the flag, identifying which side they
were on.
And so the captain would send a sailor
up to the top of the mast, and
the flag, identifying who they were and what
side they were on, would actually be nailed
to the mast so that it could not
be pulled down.
Do people at work know that you are
a Christian, or are you compromising in your
testimony in the workplace?
What is your reputation?
Do they see you as somebody that's lazy,
or do they speak of you as being
someone who is conscientious, someone who is honest
and trustworthy?
These are areas that are so important.
What is your reputation in the assembly?
And again, we have to emphasize that if
you're not busy here, you're not going to
be busy anywhere else.
Get involved in the work of the assembly.
What is your reputation in the community, the
area where you live?
Do people know you as Christians?
And we've already heard about letting your light
shine in the area so that people know
who you are and what you are.
And D.L. Moody, one time, is reported
to have said that character is what a
man is in the dark.
When you think nobody is looking, when you
think that nobody knows you, how do you
behave?
Do you behave as a Christian, or do
you compromise?
And then there's the area of consistent pattern
of prayer and Bible study.
And maybe I should have started with this.
Unless I have set patterns in my life
of spending time set aside that nothing is
going to interfere with, of prayer, of discipline,
communion with God, of reading His Word, of
studying His Word, we're going to have great
problems in days that lie ahead.
One of the advices that was given to
my dad as a 15-year-old when
he first trusted the Lord was buy a
good alarm clock and a good Bible and
make sure that you get up real early
so that you can spend time studying the
Word of God before you go to school,
before you go to work, before you become
involved in the affairs of the day.
Now, I know that some people are night
owls.
They can do it at night.
Other people tend to be early birds and
they can get up early, bright, and able
to go ahead with that.
But set aside a definite time, disciplined time,
set aside for intimate communion with the Lord
and for personal feeding on the Word of
God.
What is your present involvement in the activities
of your home assembly?
And just very quickly, they say that there
are different kinds of people in an assembly.
There are people that are like stones.
They just sit there.
They don't move.
There are people that are like wheelbarrows.
They need to be pushed before they'll move.
There are people that are like sponges.
You have to squeeze them to get anything
out of them.
There are people that are like honeycombs.
They just drip goodness.
And we can assess ourselves.
You know where you stand.
You know what your personality is.
Do you attend the majority of the meetings
that you're able to get to?
Do you participate in some of the activities
that go on?
Obviously, we cannot get involved in all the
activities.
We have to set priorities.
But are you involved where you are able?
Do you see things that need to be
done and do them without having to be
asked to do them?
Volunteering where your skills can be used.
Maybe some of us are better in the
kitchen.
Maybe some of us do a good job
scrubbing the floor.
All these things are necessary.
There was an article in Moody Monthly a
while ago that said, thank God for janitors.
We don't often think of janitors as being
servants of God and yet how important they
are.
Now, what about your language skills?
And this is something which as a foreigner
I almost hesitate to touch because I see
great areas of lack in American education particularly
when it comes to language skills.
Do you know your own language well enough?
Are you skilled in grammar and vocabulary?
Because if you're not and you're going to
go to a foreign country where you're going
to be learning a foreign language you have
to have at least a basic grasp of
principles of grammar and vocabulary so that you
can get involved in these things.
And I have to say that here is
one area where age definitely does become a
factor.
Somebody was saying to me that this seminar
was primarily for young people and I agree.
And if you're young and you're still your
mind is still flexible enough that you can
learn start learning now start learning a foreign
language.
Maybe it won't be the language that you
necessarily will use in the future but it
is good mental exercise.
I didn't go out to the mission field
myself until I was 40 years of age
and I found it very difficult and I
have to confess that I never really fully
grasped the language.
Do you have a definite goal as to
the type of work that you have to
do?
That you're hoping to do?
Obviously evangelism is going to be a primary
and church planting should be paramount.
The utilization of your present skills.
If you are trained in a trade or
in a profession these things can be used.
Medical work mechanical work.
On Sunday we were at an assembly and
there was a man going to a country
which totally restricts the entry of missionaries but
he is a doctor a pediatrician and he's
going there to use his skill and this
way he's going to be able to get
into the country.
The Lord can use these things in opening
fields for you.
Communication with workers on the field that you
hope to go to.
They'll be able to give you advice and
then are you flexible enough that if you
get to that field and then find that
you cannot use that particular goal that you
had in mind are you flexible enough to
go off into something else?
I was trained as an electrician.
My early exercise was to go to a
mission hospital and work in the hospital as
an electrician.
That door closed.
The Lord opened another door and then I
thought I was going to do village work
going out into the rural areas.
A war broke out just as the time
we got to the country we weren't able
to do that and I ended up teaching
scripture in schools.
Can you be flexible that as the Lord
closes certain doors and opens others that you're
going to be able to accept that as
coming from the Lord?
We see in Acts chapter 16 that the
Apostle Paul as he went out to do
his missionary work we find in Acts 16
he wanted to go one direction and it
says that the Lord closed that door and
they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit.
In verse 10 it says concluding that the
Lord had called us to preach the gospel
in Macedonia they accepted and they went there.
And then lastly what are your communication skills?
Communicating in resolving disputes sometimes the work of
a mediator is one of the most tedious,
most necessary jobs that there are.
The ability to present your point of view
calmly without losing your temper.
One writer suggested at least 50% of
the problem may well be with you and
it's up to you to examine yourself and
deal with that before you try to put
other people right.
What about dealing with problems dealing with difficulties
before they become problems?
If you see something that you're uncomfortable with
if you see some worker maybe doing something
and you don't understand deal with it first
go and talk to the person deal with
it before it becomes a problem that is
going to bring a rift between you.
And then lastly what about dealing with authorities?
Especially those of us from this country as
we go out to foreign countries we're going
to find that you are a visitor there.
Can you deal with them courteously?
Can you deal with them gently?
Can you accept the fact that sometimes they're
going to be very abrasive against you?
Dealing with authorities how do you accept the
authorities in this country?
I have a nephew and with this I'm
going to finish.
I had a nephew when he was a
teenager the rule in the town where he
was living was that you could not go
into the mall with no shoes on.
Guess what he did?
He went into the mall with no shoes
and then got very annoyed because the authorities
reprimanded him for it.
Can we work with the authorities?
And so here's some areas in which we
can examine ourselves in order to prepare ourselves
for whatever work it is that the Lord
is going to call us to.
Al Davis.
Just to summarize a few things that Dad
said things that I think were mentioned in
there that came back again in the survey
that we received from the missionaries we had
asked them if there was any counsel that
they would give to potential missionaries and much
of that Dad incorporated into that personal evaluation
there one of the things that came out
very strongly was the importance of learning the
language or learning a language making sure that
your mind learns how to do that getting
the skills to be able to do that.
When I was in high school I had
a year of Latin when I was at
Emmaus I took a year of Greek and
learning the Latin helped me do the Greek
much better.
Now going to Ireland I haven't had to
learn an additional language but it's part of
that process of your mind learning how to
be able to do that.
An important suggestion that one of the missionaries
made as well this was Stephen Ewell in
Portugal he said if there are established assemblies
in the country you're going to find out
what they're like.
They will not be a reproduction of the
assembly where you come from.
It's important to make sure that it's a
situation you are comfortable with so as not
to create problems.
Certainly there are cultural issues that are at
play in various countries as well we need
to be aware of those and just things
that we have accepted as being the way
that things are done might not be done
in other countries.
One of the advice that was given to
me early on as well was that when
you go to a country determine that for
at least a year or maybe two years
that you're not going to try and change
anything that's there.
Recognize that there might be reasons why things
that are done that are culturally bound that
you don't understand as a foreigner coming in
and so be willing to sit tight and
to learn before you go and try to
change the world.
One of the things again and again that
came out from the surveys and has been
mentioned already is the importance of having personal
discipline in your own life.
Recognize that as a missionary you are self
-directed most of the time.
Perhaps if you're involved with a school you
might have a set schedule provided by the
school but many missionaries are out there and
you have to develop your own plan for
the day.
What am I going to do during this
week?
And to be self-motivated enough to be
able as we heard to be able to
get up and to be studying the Word
of God to be able to have our
personal time of prayer to know when we're
going to go out doing evangelism when we're
doing teaching when we're doing discipling you have
to have control over your own agenda each
day.
Something that was mentioned as well was the
need for long-term missionaries.
There are people who go out on a
short-term basis and there's value in that
as well to be able to get exposure
but as we said many of these missionaries
that we wrote to it has been their
life.
They have devoted themselves wholeheartedly to that and
it's best to be able to go out
with that intention that unless the Lord directs
otherwise this is how you will spend the
rest of your life.
One missionary wrote and said make yourself indispensable
to your local assembly.
If you were to leave your local assembly
right now would they miss you?
Or would they be glad that you're gone?
We need to be so indispensable where we
are or else we're not going to be
much use somewhere else.
So make yourself indispensable there and to be
a team player and not a maverick.
Again as was mentioned many missionaries are strong
minded people particularly those who are involved in
pioneer work but there is that necessity to
be a team player and to be able
to work with others drawing on the strength
that they have.
We believe in the plurality of leadership in
the local assembly and that needs to come
into play in missionary service as well.
And someone said start now to practice the
art of not being easily offended.
I thought that was good.
Not to be easily offended but it is
easy for people to criticize you.
Whenever you stand up and do something people
are going to criticize you and you need
to be able to handle that when it
comes your way.
Someone else has said if you are hesitating
or unsure wait.
Don't try and get ahead of the Lord.
The Lord often does call us to be
able to wait.
And here's some strong words that we'll end
this section with.
It says if you believe becoming a missionary
will make you the Christian you should be
or will equip you to do what you
should do stay home because you're dreaming.
Do it now and don't expect that when
you get out there that that will happen.
We want as we said to leave some
time for questions here so I'll open it
up now for questions.
You'll have to speak up loudly it's hard
to see you as well with the lights
but raise your hand or stand up and
if you have a question we'll try and
get the expert over here to answer that
for you.
Anybody have any questions?
Yes sir.
Okay.
The question was for the recording do we
know of any situation that would specifically exclude
someone from being a missionary such as divorce?
I think as long as your assembly are
accepting of I realize that and I've a
couple of years ago had to give a
talk on the question of divorce and I
realize that there are so many widely divergent
views with regard to this.
However my personal view is that if your
assembly are happy with your life as a
strong and consistent Christian that your relationship with
your present spouse or whatever is good and
strong I do not see that necessarily as
an obstacle.
Obviously I did mention other things like health.
A person who is suffering suffers in this
country from ill health this could become a
difficulty particularly if you go to a country
like the Philippines where the climate is very
very trying if you're a cold country person
and you go where it's hot and humid
you're going to suffer tremendously.
There are other areas similar to that I
would imagine that could become obstacles for missionary
service.
I think the other thing just to mention
with that and I think it's implied in
what we've said but just to reiterate it
is that it is the local assembly that
commends.
CMML and MSC are not a screening board
they have no control over the missionaries they
are a service organization that provides services to
the missionaries and it is up to the
local assembly to evaluate.
Once they have commended someone as a missionary
CMML will then serve them but CMML does
not have a screening process at all that
they have any control over.
So the question is whether your elders whether
the local assembly is willing to commend you
to the Lord's work.
Other questions?
You are either so perhaps especially if you
don't wrongly recommend that you are in
school for some time before you go out
into the beach.
If you don't know what it is to
do at home you're not going to know
what it is to do a 58 hour
job out in the field.
And then also I want to say about
the money working here sending out letters looking
for money.
The Lord has promised me that God has
set my every need and it's not so
far from the country that I live Mr.
Stifler.
Yes, the question first of all of being
employed in a job, I'm sure David will
pardon my reference to him, when he finished
at Emmaus he was ready to go then.
He had done three years at Emmaus, he
felt the Lord was calling him into full
time service and yet my counsel to him
at that time was that very thing.
Take a job, learn what it is to
be under the discipline of working as David
said, a 40 hour week, not only learning
the discipline of work but also the discipline
of handling money.
You're going to be earning a wage, setting
your budget so that you know how to
handle the money because when you get out
onto the mission field there's not going to
be somebody looking over your shoulder, you're not
going to have to punch a time clock,
you're going to have to, as David has
already stressed, be able to be self motivating.
And then again the question of money really
again a reference from our own family, when
my dad went to Africa as a 21
year old, only with a letter of commendation
from his assembly, unknown virtually in the city
in which he lived, somebody came to him,
in those days you didn't travel by plane,
he went by ship and somebody came to
him and handed him two small coins that
were worth about four dollars.
And he said to him if you ever
run short of money here is something that
you can fall back on.
51 years later, at his 50th wedding anniversary,
he put his hand in his pocket and
took out those two small coins.
God had provided for him for all of
those years without any letters being sent out,
even suggesting that there might be needs.
The pattern apparently that the word of God
sets down is that we present our needs
to the Lord and he will supply out
of the abundance that he has.
Any other questions?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, I would repeat the question here.
If you're convinced that the Lord has called
you and that you're well-suited, what would
be the next step that you would take
or the first step that you would take?
Certainly, I would say that there should be
a consultation with the elders all throughout that
process, that it should be undergirded by prayer,
that ultimately it is the assembly that is
commending you to that work and you need
to have their support and their encouragement to
do it.
So I would say yes, that would be
the first thing would be to speak with
the elders.
But that should have been an ongoing process.
I think that communication with the elders needs
to be an ongoing process and very often
you're going to be the one who will
need to take the initiative in doing that.
The elders are busy people and often caring
for a great number of people.
Let your burden be known to them so
that they can pray along with you and
they can be able to give you counsel
and advice.
They know you better.
Again, I think this idea of personal evaluation
is good, but it's also helpful to have
some objective evaluation that if you can have
the elders evaluate you, again, you might think
that you're ready, they might not think that
you're ready.
They might be able to point out some
areas in your life where they think that
you need to work on those areas, so
that communication with them will be very helpful
there.
I think perhaps another area that has already
been mentioned is communication with whoever it is
in the country, working in the country that
you might be interested in, so that they
too can have some input into your life
and into your exercise, your burden, as to
what type of thing that you might be
suitable for.
Yes, over there.
Advice for singles?
Well, not speaking from personal experience, obviously, but
I think as you look at the handbook,
there are a number of single missionaries who
are serving on the field, and that there
are opportunities for single people to be able
to serve.
There are challenges, obviously, involved with that as
well, again, because you don't have perhaps the
emotional support as you're going out that a
couple might have, but again, I think that
there are all sorts of opportunities for service
for single people.
My grandfather did go out to Angola convinced
that he should be a single man, and
to be free to be able to serve
the Lord, but found that in that culture,
as I understand it, that was not a
practical, it wasn't looked on well by the
local people, so that there was a necessity
for him to be married.
I think, again, what David has mentioned with
regard to loneliness, you're going to be out
there by yourself.
There's going to be maybe a couple working
alongside of you.
You're going to be seeing things that you
don't have, and these can become major areas
of discouragement, but, again, there is a lot
of, and to me, one of the scandals,
if I may put it that way, of
our missionary handbook, in one area maybe very
encouraging, the number of single ladies that are
on the mission field, and the relatively few
number of single men, or even of married
couples.
I realize that there are reasons for this.
Young men, perhaps, are trying to establish themselves
in life, trying to get their career going,
maybe trying to get their training completed, and
then this becomes a thing that occupies so
much time that there's little time left.
But it was emphasized last night by Tom
Taylor that all of us, whether we're here
or whether we're overseas, we're all of us
missionaries.
As Mr. Stifler said, we're either missionaries or
a mission field.
So wherever we are, we need to be
involved in that service, and then we'll see
how the Lord leads from that point on.
Yes.
The question is, for single women, do we
recommend they have an occupation?
Certainly, I would say that that would be
helpful.
There are tremendous needs for nurses, for teachers,
there are a number of missionary oriented schools,
there's the Faith Academy in the Philippines, there's
the Casey School in Zambia, there's Black Forest
Academy in Germany, there are a number of
Christian schools directly involved in teaching missionaries' children.
And this, of course, raises a whole other
question, that what do parents do with their
children?
What do they do about education?
And this is something that needs to be
very seriously dealt with between the husband and
wife before you go out to the mission
field.
Let me just mention a example where difficulties
have arisen.
I know of people who are involved in
door-to-door work, and they feel very
strongly that the men who are going out
don't want to go out with a single
woman doing door-to-door work because of
the testimony that if someone sees them with
a woman other than their wife doing that
kind of work, it could create problems, perceptual
problems.
So, there are limitations, I think, in that
kind of work.
But I think even in the area, there
are lots of opportunities, even for things like
personal discipleship and personal evangelism that can be
done by single women without being involved in
a profession, per se, on the field.
There are opportunities for it.
But, again, it's one of those things that
really, again, has to be handled on a
case-by-case basis.
But I think, again, it's important to know
before you go out what you're planning to
do and what you're going to be involved
in and whether it's possible to do what
you want to do in the country where
you're hoping to go.
I think our time is about gone here.
We'll ask to close in prayer and then
we'll hang around for a few moments if
anyone else has questions they'd like to ask
us.
Let's pray.
Our Father, we thank Thee for the good
number that are here this morning.
We thank Thee for the exercise of heart
of so many with regard to Thy desire
for their lives.
And we will pray for them.
We pray that Thou art to give very
definite guidance.
We thank Thee for the interest in mission
fields around the world.
And we recognize that while need is not
necessarily a call, yet we know that this
is something that is sometimes laid on our
heart as a burden which will lead to
full-time service for Thyself.
We pray, Father, that You'll give very definite
help to each one that is here.
For some that perhaps might be older and
that are involved in counseling with younger ones,
we pray that grace and wisdom might be
given to them, too.
And we pray that above all, in all
of this, that as we've been reminded at
this conference, that we might let our light
so shine as to glorify the person of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who we ask it
in His name and for His sake.
Amen.