All posts filed under: Missions

Platform Generation

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We live in a day and age where numbers really matter. The number of followers and friends you have on social media matter. It matters so much that people buy followers to make themselves look influential. Studies show that people spend up to 9 hours a day trying to boast their status in the blogger sphere and on social media. This phenomenon is so strong that even the number of members in any organization can change the status of both the organization and its leadership – positively or negatively. Positively they are able to leverage their influence to change the world. Negatively they become self-absorbed, narcissistic and needy for the praise of men. Sadly, when it comes to numbers, a lot of people think you need a huge following to change the world. I disagree! For example: If your church is small, it doesn’t mean you need to fold your hands and be mediocre. It doesn’t mean you remain silent. I pray that your church grows; I pray that you find what it takes to bring in …

When he came there was no light, when he left there was no darkness

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The title of our post today is actually story of one man’s life. A. W. Milne was a missionary around the 20th century. He was part of a group of radical missionaries who history has dubbed – “One Way Missionaries.” What these men and women of God did was pack all their belonging in a coffin, buy a one way plane ticket to wherever they felt called by God. Many parts of Africa and other places around the world was known in those days and many years after as the “white man’s graveyard. These men and women of God knew they would never return home when they decided to go to the mission field. As for A. W. Milne, he Knew that most of the missionaries before him died a martyr’s death, still he accepted the call of God to minister to a tribe in the New Hebrides – island group in the South Pacific Ocean that now is the nation of Vanuatu. There he lived for 35 years. God’s timing and favor had given him a break through among …

In our world no one is rubbish

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Spend a few days on Africa Mercy Ship and you will see how two worlds collide at the intersection of courage and compassion. I lived in Togo for about 8 years as a missionary. So I am very pleased to see Mercy Ship back in Togo. The story of few doctors and nurses reaching, serving and touching lives of people who have been utterly rejected and labelled rubbish. Take a few minutes of your time and watch this video you will not regret it. Their story was featured in ’60 Minutes’ which aired Sunday Night on CBS. This is what the Christians are all about – looking right into the eyes of the hurting and ostracized to say “you are God’s child – and you are not rubbish.” This one is for all my SISTAS who were told that they are damaged goods… that is a lie straight from hell. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Hudson Taylor Part 2 (The matter of giving and receiving)

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I am not a pastor who encourages his congregation to give because of what they can get out of it. That does not mean they shouldn’t give. Having said that, the matter of giving is almost never just the matter of giving. According to Paul in Philippians 4:15, “Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only” – it is the matter of giving and receiving. You never ever hardly give and don’t receive – even though receiving is not the motivation here – there is always a receiving. And God determines that which is received. Here is a story in the life of Hudson Taylor that explains this: This is an excerpt from the biography of the life of Hudson Taylor In November, 1851, Hudson moved his lodging to a noisy suburb of Darinside, a neighborhood on the edge of town. Here he began a rigorous …

The Most Influential Evangelist You’ve Never Heard Of

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The Most Influential Evangelist You’ve Never Heard Of by BARBARA BRADLEY HAGERTY Listen to the Story All Things Considered [9 min 8 sec] transcript EnlargeHarry Cabluck/AP Republican activist David Barton speaks before testifying before the Texas State Board of Education in 2009. August 8, 2012 David Barton says Americans have been misled about their history. And he aims to change that. Cue The Tape: How David Barton Sees The World “It’s what I would call historical reclamation,” Barton explains, in his soft but rapid-fire voice. “We’re just trying to get history back to where it’s accurate. If you’re going to use history, get it right.” Barton has collected 100,000 documents from before 1812 — original or certified copies of letters, sermons, newspaper articles and official documents of the Founding Fathers. He says they prove that the Founding Fathers were deeply religious men who built America on Christian ideas — something you never learn in school. For example, you’ve been taught the Constitution is a secular document. Not so, says Barton: The Constitution is laced with …

Let nothing cause your spirit to waver and your soul to sink

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Those of you who know me well know that am a big fan of David Livingstone. In fact, he is an inspiration to me, a hero if you will. One of the things I admire the most about him is the sacrifice he made in spending so much of his life in Africa. The amazing thing about this is David himself doesn’t even regard it as anything extraordinary. Here is his perspective on the subject: If you knew the satisfaction of performing a duty as well as the gratitude to God which the missionary must always feel in being chosen for a noble and sacred calling you will have no hesitation in embracing it. For my part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk about that sacrifice I have made in spending much of my life in Africa. Anxiety, sickness, suffering or danger from now and then, with a foregoing of common conveniences and charities of this life may make us pause and cause the …

Hanging in the Bay

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<;;;a I just met a guy who offered two gospel tracks to me. I did take them because I wanted him to give it to somebody who needed them. I asked him if he was a believer and he said yes… A convert from Islam. That Jesus appeared to him in his dream and told him to believe in Him and in the gospel. Well, he did and his entire family from Iran are now followers of Jesus. We sat and talked for a good 20-30 minutes and didn’t fail to mention how the Lord healed his dad from cancer – and how his dad immediately began following Jesus. My new friend is from Iran and I can not show you his picture nor share his name. He is on his way to India to do some missionary work. Please pray that God will protect and use this mightily. You can call him the evangelist from Iran when you pray for him. Friends, there are hundreds and thousands of these guys all around the world …

Missionaries to America

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You have heard of missionaries who went to Africa to tell the people about Jesus. But did you know that in the late 1800s an African man came to our country and showed Americans the love of Jesus?  I was reminded over the weekend of one of these mighty men of God Africa. His name was Samuel Morris, or Kaboo, as he was known to his tribe. His story is as amazing today as it was to those who met the young Samuel Morris more than 100 years ago. Here is his story based on his own account. Pay or Sammy Suffers! The year: 1872 The place: My native country of Liberia, in Africa “You must pay if you want peace,” threatened the enemy chief. “We will pay,” thundered my father, “We will pay.” As the oldest son, I was taken as a hostage until my father, also a tribal chief, could pay off the war debts. Each month, my father brought gifts to the enemy chief, but they were never enough. The chief beat …

Edging God Out – First Episode

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Ego Part 1 Egoism is defined as an “inordinate concern for One’s welfare and interest.” Jonah was a man completely devoted to his own interest. His thinking, feeling and acting were all driven by and devoted to himself. Usually an egotistic person will have no room for God, he readily, easily edges Him out. In chapter one, God commissions Jonah to go and preach to the 120.000 people of Nineveh, but Jonah refuses to go and he decides to run from God.  There is something disturbingly wrong with Jonah’s response. Is because he really felt that God would have compassion on these Gentiles? I think there was something else going on.  I think Jonah loves the Lord and is faithful to him in many way, but only when it’s in his interest (2 Kings 14) and for his people. But like all of us there is something still in Jonah that God is trying to unearth. Something deeply embedded in him either through his culture or through a false theological assumption. You see, He had a deep seated …

Seven Things Every Christian should do on Halloween

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It is 6:45 pm here on the west coast and I am looking out my living room window watching my neighbor get ready to walk the neighborhood. As a believer or a pastor, I personally do not celebrate Halloween, however my kids this year are dressed up – one like a bee, and the other like a butterfly, and they are on their way to a harvest festival at a local church in the area. I know some of you may be looking for some explanation as to why we should or should not celebrate Halloween but I am not going to enter into the argument about whose right or who’s wrong. I do however, will like to ask that you take into consideration – in some cases the religious as well as the historical and cultural significance of this holiday and use Colossians 3:17, and 1 Corinthians 10:31 both as guiding principles.  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through …