Spr ing 2014
Holding the Rope:
Missions Is More than the Missionary by Dr. Kevin L. Brosnan
Holding the Rope: Analogy
The year was 1792. William Carey, later dubbed the “father of the modern missionary movement,” had challenged his Baptist brethren to obey their responsibility to take the Gospel to unreached lands. Baptists of mid-England formed The Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen and appointed Carey and John Thomas to go to India as missionaries. In 1793, Carey said a tearful farewell to his church in Leicester, England. The Society then came together for a farewell service for Carey. Sometime during that all-day meeting, Carey met with the four leaders of the Society. Those men promised Carey that, “as he went forth in the Society’s name and their Master’s, they should never cease till death to stand by him.” Andrew Fuller, one of those men, later described the occasion with an analogy. He said that the mission to India seemed like a few men who considered going into a deep, unexplored mine. It was as if Carey said, “Well, I will go down, if you will hold the rope.” The meeting, in Fuller’s mind, was as if he and the other brethren gave their word that “whilst we lived, we should never let go the rope.” The analogy stuck. Missionaries today continue to go “down into the mine,” seeking to win those who have never heard and to shine the light of the Gospel into the darkest corners of humanity. These frontline soldiers of the cross continue to rely on those who “hold the rope.” The rope analogy stuck, because it pictures a biblical truth—God designed New Testament missions to be a team effort. Maybe God has not called you to be a foreign missionary. The question then is, “How do we hold the rope for the missionaries?”
Holding the Rope: Access
Just as the men of the Baptist Society faithfully “held the rope” for Carey over many years, so Baptist World Mission “holds the rope” for missionaries today. In fact, we believe the necessity of a mission agency has only grown since Carey’s day. An increasingly complex and dangerous world presents new technical challenges for today’s missionaries—challenges which are often impractical or impossible for the average local church to navigate. BWM “holds the rope” through time-tested expertise in financial, governmental, logistical and educational assistance. Through these
services, BWM provides missionaries with access to foreign fields, local churches and an array of logistical support. BWM also gives missionaries access to churches by providing moral, ethical and doctrinal accountability. For the missionary, access is everything.
In This
While the value of a mission board is highlighted for all to see Issue during a time of crisis, the missionaries themselves best understand how BWM “holds the rope” for them every day, freeing them to focus on the work of planting churches worldwide. BWM believes monthly support for the home office or field administrators is a very wise use of foreign missionary dollars. Your prayer and financial support of the home office and its administrators are important and practical ways to “hold the rope” Highlights from the for the missionaries.
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Highways & Hedges
Holding the Rope: Affirmation
Perhaps the most important way we “hold the ropes” for missionaries is by remaining faithful to the Word of God ourselves. Missionaries rely on their supporting churches and mission board to stand firm in this day of theological drift. Our missionaries often express thankfulness that BWM has never wavered from its historical commitment to personal sanctification, separation from ecumenism and a literal, dispensational interpretation of the inspired Scriptures. Many a missionary on furlough has been disheartened to find some of his supporting churches or mission board in various stages of compromise. Instead of “holding the rope,” some are “dropping the ball,” and the consequences are grave for the missionaries, the churches and the Great Commission.
3 Mission Matters Holding the Rope (Cont.)
4 Itineraries
On the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary in 2011, BWM’s Board of Trustees, directors and administrators signed “A Solemn Reaffirmation,” which stated in part, “we reaffirm to our constituency and the world that our purpose is and shall continue to be carrying the Gospel to the ends of the earth through a ministry that is ‘strictly Baptistic and committed to local church ideology, biblically missionary and dedicated to the establishment of kindred Baptist churches worldwide; unquestionably separationist in affiliation and practice; and unashamedly fundamentalist in recognition of the sole authority of the Word of God’” (Reaffirmation quotes from BWM’s original mission statement).
Continued on page 3.
Ready to Go. Gone!