Much mission effort is wasted because of no coherent strategy for turning a continuous stream of contacts into workers

<p>Much mission effort is wasted because of no coherent strategy for turning a continuous stream of contacts into workers</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

East Bangladesh Mission of SDA

The State of Missions in Adventism

Eugene Prewitt

The Bible on Missions

I want to welcome you to our series on the state of missions in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

I'm speaking to you today from Bangladesh.

Our Father in heaven, I'm asking you to bless us as we talk about the most important things about the work we have to do.

Guide us by your Holy Spirit, I ask in the name of Jesus, amen.

So in this sermon or this message, in the next few as part of a series, I wanna talk to you about your part and my part in missions, about what's going on in Adventist missions, what I know about it, the very good and the not so good, and parts that really need attention.

And we'll look at some Bible evidence too, and even some thoughts from other sources.

It wasn't so long ago that I was in Malaysia and there my wife and I had made some friends in Malacca.

And 1 of our friends had a friend, a friend of a friend that we invited to eat with us 1 day at a restaurant there.

And as we began to share with him some ideas from the Prophet Daniel, this young man, Abdullah, he admitted that he was on the verge of becoming an atheist.

He had seen things in Yemen that had really turned his mind against Islam.

He saw the very popular public preachers there, the Islamic preachers, switch from being oriented towards the Sunni ways of Saudi Arabia to the Shia ways of Iran in just a few days.

That is, they just turned coats just like that over the political situation in their country.

And this really made Abdullah doubt that religion was real.

He studied, he became a believer, and he went through some real struggles.

1 of the real struggles he went through was in relation to marriage.

Yemeni men often have intended a fiancee for many years before they marry because it's hard for them to raise enough money to pay the dowry.

And he had had an intended woman for him for a long time.

They'd known each other since primary school.

And now he finally had enough money from working there in Malaysia to marry her, but she was a Muslim and he was a Christian, and he struggled with that.

And eventually he did marry her, and his own interest in these things had cooled down a bit but it wasn't long after that that a young man there, we'll call him Sajjad, but that's not his real name, He was studying the Bible for himself in the university.

And he looked on YouTube for some evidence and he became a Christian.

He began to share Christianity right there in the university.

He lost his scholarship there and maybe some of you even are the ones that helped sponsor him still.

He's graduated now and But his work in trying to reach other Muslims in the university led to several young men giving their lives to God, and also reminded Abdullah of his experience.

And he began to join Sajjad there at the university, and they became a team.

And the warmth of Sajjad brought Abdullah back to the table.

Well, today, Abdullah and his wife and their baby, they're in France.

He's attending an Adventist church there near where he's working as a researcher, and Sajjad is awaiting baptism in the country where I met him.

Beautiful things are happening in missions.

Let me talk to you about some of the things that are on my mind.

If you have a Bible with you, turn to Philippians chapter 1.

Philippians 1 was written when Paul himself was in prison.

And we're going to look at verses 15 to 18.

It says here, some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill.

So Paul recognized that among preachers, you have various types.

Some are really trying to compete with each other.

Verse 16, the former preached Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains, not meaning that their ambition was to hurt Paul, but meaning that their ambition hurt Paul, It really hurt him that they were striving for supremacy.

He says in verse 17, but the latter, out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.

That is, some people who loved their neighbors and were trying to reach them knew that Paul had been prepared to speak.

He'd been given visions that would prepare him to know what to say in the right place.

Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached.

So, when I'm talking to you in this and the next few messages about the state of Adventist missions, if I tell you about someone or something that's going on that's negative, I don't want you to end up thinking that there's no reason to rejoice in the work that's being done by that person or that situation.

Whether in pretense or in truth, if Christ is preached, it's something to rejoice in.

God can use insincere persons to reach sincere persons If only those sincere persons will talk about Jesus and about his gospel.

So, if we talk about the biblical basis of mission, We have 2 passages that I think you're very familiar with, but we need to mention them both.

There when Jesus gave the Great Commission, it has a few elements that we might need to think about more.

He said, go, that's the first step, as opposed to stay.

He said, go and why don't you turn there with me, we'll just see it.

Matthew 28, the last page of Matthew 28 and verse 18.

He said, actually I'm starting in verse 19 after the all power in verse 18.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things, whatever I have commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.

But what it says right there is that in this business of Adventist missions, there needs to be a strong teaching component before baptism, that's denied by some, and a strong teaching component after baptism.

That is, there needs to be a strong preparation for baptism and a strong discipleship program after baptism.

And those 2 ideas would make such a difference in Adventist missions.

But now turn to the other familiar passage, Revelation 14.

Revelation 14, and looking at verse 6 and 7.

My goal in giving this short series is to make a difference in Adventist missions, maybe even in how Adventist missions are funded and what you do.

Revelation 14, verse 6, it says, "'Then I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, "'having the everlasting gospel to preach to them who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.

In this talk, I'm not gonna get to the content, that's in verse 17, but I want you to see how tribalism opposes the first angel's message.

How when Jesus sent us to preach to every kindred nation, tongue, and people, he was saying that it's not right for Caucasians to preach only to Caucasians or to seek them out, or the Japanese to speak to the Japanese, or the Tongans to the Tongans only.

Revelation 14, 6 requires cross-cultural missions.

There's a reason why in the Philippines that foreigners are the ones reaching some of those hill tribes.

There are plenty of avenues in the Philippines to reach every class of people in the Philippines.

I'll call it what it is, it's tribalism that prevents a lot of the good work that could be done.

So as we're getting into the Issue of missions, but let's keep these ideas in mind the idea that tribalism is anti gospel The idea that we need to do strong Preparation work before baptism and have a beautiful discipleship program post baptism 1 that brings people to practice all the things that Jesus said, and then he promises when we have those 3 components that he will be with us always, even to the end of the world.

So as my first point after that introduction, I want you to consider what you would find if you read Acts 7 and 8.

I won't read it to you, but Acts 7, that is where you find Stephen, the newly chosen deacon, is preaching and he is stoned, and he dies there in chapter 7, and that just puts the church on fire.

I mean, the church is scattered because of persecution, and they go everywhere preaching, that's 7 and 8.

I wrote a little jingle or a little rhyme over that.

What I mean is, how do we respond to persecution?

In Malaysia, where I've been working many of the last few years, it was, I was told when I got there that someone who reached out to the Malay people was killed.

And I learned later from Johnny Wong that someone that he knew personally, a Malay convert there in Sabah, was also killed by his own family in an honor killing.

You know, when I learned that story about the first man, I was told that story as a warning to kind of stop me from reaching out to the Malay people.

It was as if persecution was an ice pack designed to freeze the church to stop it.

Codependent Missions

I want to welcome you back to the second lecture in our series on the state of Adventist mission and let's pray and get right into the thought.

Our Father in heaven, I'm asking you to bless us as we talk about the work that needs to be done and that must be done.

Guide me by your spirit, I ask in the name of Jesus.

I was stuck in my home in Tennessee, the 1 I am renting out now.

And there I had time to reach out to people by social messaging, but 1 person reached out to me.

That wasn't her real name, but it's her pen name, the 1 she used, and Nahal wanted to escape from Afghanistan.

Well, I couldn't help her escape, but I did begin sharing with her some prophecies from Daniel and when she took an interest in them, I turned her over to 1 of my friends in Germany who speaks the same language as Nahal and is also a female, and they were able to study together for about a year.

And after about a year, Nahal finally gave her life to Jesus.

She became a believer, and in that state, I began to encourage her to reach out to people.

She reached out to her daughter and her daughter became a believer.

She reached out to her mother, her mother became a believer.

She reached out to a boy she hoped to marry and he became a believer, but they didn't get married.

And that young man has been reaching out ever since.

And to make the story short enough, now there are about 30 believers in Afghanistan because of that 1 lady in the hall.

And I think, when I think back to my time being stuck at home and how many people I tried to reach out to, maybe I tried to reach out to several hundred people.

I couldn't know what was gonna prosper, this or that, but it only took 1 of those several hundred to prosper enough to make the whole effort worth it.

I have more good things to tell you later, but right now I'll tell you a little bit about history.

1 of the first Adventist missionaries, not the first, not the second, but 1 of the early was Abram LaRue.

And I love Abram for a few reasons, not least of which is that He volunteered to be sent as our first missionary to Asia, and when they told him he was too old for language learning and adapting, he raised his own money by selling books and sent himself.

And Abram is the 1 who planted a church in Hong Kong, he did good work in Hawaii, he planted the first church in what is now Malaysia.

He didn't become bitter when the church failed to give him the position that he was craving.

He didn't become angry over a slight over his age or his qualifications.

And I think if we would learn something from Abram to not be so easily hurt or offended when we're neglected or pushed the wrong way.

When I think of Abram-Lerue, I end up thinking about Abraham too.

You remember Abraham, he had a rural retreat that was just some distance up the hill, out of the valley where Sodom was.

And Lot, poor Lot, was taken captive by Chetelomer and the other 4 kings that were confederate with him.

And when Lot was taken captive, there was nothing he could do for the people of Sodom.

But Abraham from his outpost was able to save the people of Sodom.

And that picture is for you, it's for me.

It's to realize that you might think the only way to save the cities is to be in them.

Lott's Save Sodom program resulted in a negative, negative 4 or 5 people being saved.

That is, he saved no 1 from Sodom, plus he lost his wife and all his children.

Sure, 2 of them lived, but if you read the story, he lost them.

So we don't want kamikaze missionaries, And we could work, when I say from an outpost, I don't mean you need to like find a place in the wild to Montana.

I mean that you want to be somewhere close enough to the city that you can visit people there and they can visit you, where you can be a help when they have a problem like a flood or a fire or an earthquake or a riot, where you can go right in there and be of assistance and then bring someone back to your little retreat and they can learn something about the God of Abraham.

Abraham was always building little altars around where he traveled, where he prayed.

And many heathen persons stopped at those altars and prayed to the God of Abraham.

1 more thing in the Bible before we get to the state of Adventist mission, and that is in Ezekiel 20.

That's the passage we quote in our prophecy series about the Sabbath being a sign of sanctification in verse 12 and Sabbath being a sign that he's our God in verse 20.

There in that chapter, if you read the whole thing, you'll see why God was patient with his people.

It was because what it says in Ezekiel 20 is that if God had destroyed his rebellious people, it would have confused the heathen.

That is, the heathen would have concluded that Jehovah was not a safe God to worship if God had, in fact, destroyed Israel for the rebellion.

It gives you an idea that missions have always been a big part of God's thinking.

He's tried to reach them through Abraham.

He tried to reach them through the preaching of Noah.

And he's still trying to reach them today by holding up, I'm thinking of Deuteronomy chapter 6, where he says that, or maybe it's chapter 4, verse 6, where it says that all the nations are going to hear about the laws of Israel and say, how wonderful a nation it is that has God so close to them.

God has always been interested in missions.

So today is my first problem I wanna confront.

I wanna talk about the issue of codependency.

Codependency, yeah, I mean church codependency.

Do you know that in the islands of the sea, I'm thinking the ones in Micronesia in particular, there is a codependent relationship between North America and the church in Micronesia.

We need them to not be ambitious enough to take charge of their own clinics and schools, to send their own students to study how to be doctors, nurses, and teachers.

We need them to just stay at their level of being fishermen and tourist guides and let us handle those things.

Because we need a mission place to go to that is safe, with great snorkeling and great weather.

And what I'm trying to tell you is that when we support these places that have plenty of Adventist by supplying their clinics, their hospitals, their schools with teachers, nurses, and doctors.

We are causing those churches to remain immature.

We're causing them to fail of development.

They could, in fact, develop quickly if necessity required it.

They could put some of those young people to study, and those young people, if they were raised mission-mindedly, would leave to study and come back to that island nation, but if they're raised to be fishermen and tourist guides, then they'd like nothing better to immigrate to a city where they can take off and have more fun, more parties, and nothing to do with Adventism.

Yes, I'm glad you have an interest in missions, but I wish, church, that you would give up on supporting the islands of the sea that have plenty of Adventists by supplying their institutions.

If you have a Bible, let's look at something about this.

Now someone is saying, but I shared the gospel there in Palau, or there in Yap.

I made a difference in the lives of the people.

You did something and that's better than your neighbors that did nothing.

But let's make sure that the good we do isn't doing harm at the same time, because if you had gone somewhere else, you still could have reached someone for Jesus without crushing someone's ambition.

Hebrews chapter 5, looking at verse 12, it says, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you have become like 1 that needs milk and not solid food." Do you see what Paul is saying here?

He says to the brand new believers, I mean every believer was brand new while Paul was alive.

And the people, most of them had been believers for a year or months or 3 or 4 years.

He says that you've been a believer long enough that you ought to be a teacher.

Paul was saying that we need to have a program that is developing you and giving you responsibilities where you can be on the output.

1 of the real great developments in missions right now is a Zoom Adventist Fellowship that's primarily for believers in closed countries.

It might be some of you want to participate in that some.

I'm speaking there sometimes, but don't come there to listen to me speak, please, but to be able to encourage and fellowship with people who live in closed countries, to show them what real Christian fellowship is like.

But in that Zoom Administ Fellowship, we're going to be using the FAST discipleship materials, the ones produced by Dan Biss, the editor, and those materials are designed to develop a solid experience to build people into workers in a short enough time, like 1 or 2 years, instead of just letting them kind of hang in there for a few decades, forgetting almost everything they ever learned in a prophecy series.

So Hebrews 5.12, we don't want to be enabling immaturity, we want to encourage people to grow up.

And sure, even if we encourage them to grow up, some of them are going to be slow.

And that's why Paul wrote Hebrews 5, because some people were slow and still needed an introduction.

But he said he was going to move on to perfection in chapter 6, that is, on to completion or dealing with the things that need to be addressed.

Then another issue in missions is what I called a raw potato problem.

When I came here to Bangladesh about 2 years ago, that's where I am now, I began to interview the workers all over the country, and I found very few that knew what the seal of God is.

Now, I don't really blame that on the workers I was talking to.

Making a Connected Mission Strategy

Welcome back to our series on the state of Adventist missions.

And let me pray for us and we'll get right to it.

Our Father in heaven, I'm asking you to bless us as we talk about missions and what can and should be done.

So I wanna tell you about a man named Mustafa.

That's not his real name, but Mustafa lives in Iraq.

And when I was stuck at my home and began reaching out to those foreigners in close countries.

He was 1 of the ones that I reached out to.

It took me a year for most of them to become Christians, but not with Mustafa.

Mustafa was ready to abandon Islam on day 2.

The reason was because of his background.

He had personally known English translators that were killed because they were English translators after the Gulf War.

That is, the local militants in his area suspected everyone that was gifted in English as being a translator for the Allied forces opposing Saddam Hussein.

Well, that arbitrary way really affected Mustafa and he began reading through the Conflict of the Ages series.

He cried when he read about the fall of Adam and Eve.

He had never realized to what extent a little sin is destructive.

Have you ever realized to what extent a little sin is destructive?

And so he has been reaching out to friends already, but it looks like, at least at this stage, that he really hasn't had much success in reaching people.

He's working for a foreign national company there, and maybe there'll be people working in his area somewhat soon, It's not at all clear.

I want to talk to you today, though, about the problem of waste in missions.

If you have your Bibles, turn to John chapter 6.

In John chapter 6, Jesus feeds thousands of people.

John 6, and we're going to look at what he says in verse 12.

So when they were filled, he said to the disciples, gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing is lost.

This idea of gathering the fragments is in every 1 of the Gospels.

I remember when I was in India about 12 years ago, I saw in the back of the quarterly an advertisement for a number of Ellen White's books, and the prices were really good.

I thought, let's get them, a lot of them, and let's start teaching the people to sell them.

I was helping Amazing Facts start a school there in India.

And so I began asking around, where can I order these books?

I couldn't find anyone that knew where to get the books.

He took me upstairs to an unused floor in 1 of the tallest buildings there, and there In plastic trash bags, there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these Ellen White books as they had been damaged by dampness and ants and bugaroos and abuse.

I began to put things together and I realized what had happened.

Some nice person from a western country had come and sponsored the printing of those books.

He'd also paid to have them advertised at a low price in the back of the quarterly, they were advertised.

But there never was a plan put in place for the distribution of those books.

There never was a plan put in place to get them into the public.

And as a consequence, no 1 thought it was their responsibility to do it.

Series

The State of Missions in Adventism

Making a Connected Mission Strategy

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

ASI 2011 Seminar: Finishing Strong

Reaching Out: Why People Leave the Church and What We Can Do About It

1h 13m

The Doctrine of Personal Ministries

Part 2 - Who Fed the 5,000?

1h 13m

Acts: First Generation Lessons for Last Generation Believers

7. Guile

57m

ACM: 2 God’s Plan for City Ministry

52m

Plenary

Who Fed the 5,000?

1h 45m

Talking Points 4th Quarter 2023: God's Mission My Mission

06 Motivation and Preparation for Mission

29m

Talking Points 1st Quarter 2026: Uniting Heaven and Earth: Christ in Philippians and Colossians

01 Persecuted but Not Forsaken

30m

Talking Points 4th Quarter 2023: God's Mission My Mission

02 God’s Mission to Us Part 2

30m

Kickstarter Series '15-'16

First and Second Barcelonians

54m

The Doctrine of Personal Ministries

Part 5 - Mining the Manual

1h 16m

ACM: 3 Establishing Urban Centers of Influence

1h 27m

Amazing Disciples

5. As a Witness

31m

Sound Doctrine