FA ll 2015
More than Just Money and Meetings
by Dr. David Stertzbach
I
n 1 Thessalonians 5:25, the Apostle Paul solicited the church at Thessalonica to diligently pray for him and his missionary team. The preceding verse attests to God’s faithfulness to accomplish His will, “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” The two are distinctly linked together for the accomplishment of God’s will concerning missions. Paul again mentions the same request to the same church family in 2 Thessalonians 3:1, “Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you.” If the Apostle Paul and his missionary team needed the local church prayer support in his day, how much more do our missionaries being sent out from our churches today? Our local church had a single male candidate, who was called to serve in Cambodia with BWM. Our leadership and the church body together acknowledged that call and our duty to support him in it. But the first need for that young man was a wife to help him in a faraway place. So I asked our people to make this a daily concerted prayer request that God would bring the right helpmeet into his life. As we prayed, believing that God was doing something when we could not see anything, God was working in the heart of a young woman and her family. She was on a short-term assignment in India with a Bible translation ministry, and she was praying for God’s will in Southeast Asia. To make a long story a bit shorter, God did it! Leigha Reed and Jason Carpenter were married and immediately hit the deputation trail to go to Cambodia with Baptist World Mission.
the church name and place, and the pastor of the church. I would, in turn, make a list and send that to our church family via email asking them to pray daily and diligently. I solicited them as Paul did the Thessalonian church. I asked them to pray for the church where the Carpenters were going to be and for the pastor (by name), that God would bind their hearts together and that the congregation of that church would lock on to Jason and Leigha as prayer partners and financial supporters. Our church family got the idea, and they did it! Each week, folks would mention where “the kids” were serving that Sunday and how they were seeking God for them with that pastor and church family. I knew they were praying by their conversations that revealed their love, care and constant prayers for them. I would often mention in the Sunday morning pastoral prayer where they were that day and ask God publicly to bind them to that church and to bind that church to Jason and Leigha.
“My initial intent was to get that couple to the field as soon as possible, but God’s purpose was so much greater!”
Now, however, this newlywed couple had the arduous task of raising financial and prayer support, which typically takes three or four years for most missionaries. It was here that I challenged our church family and instituted a focused prayer target to help that young couple to get to the field as soon as God would permit. I asked the Carpenters to send me their church deputation itinerary, that included the date when they would be there,
The result of that praying church was the miracle of God. In less than a year-and-a-half of full-time deputation, their support was fully raised. Over 50% was raised in the final six months when the full prayer plan was implemented. The deacons and I were specifically praying, sincerely praying and seriously praying that God would work magnanimously. It was a joyous occasion at Jason’s recent ordination for our church family to delight in their full support! Jason said this about the all-church prayer program for them: “I noticed a very marked difference in the connection with churches and the subsequent increases in support when I started regularly sending my itinerary to my pastor and church family.” But it did something miraculous for the church too. To see such answered prayer encouraged the church that God truly answers prayer! It uplifted us as a body of believers, and a renewed spirit of faith overflowed into virtually every area of our ministry. A rejuvenated local church was the Continued on page 2
In This Issue
2 Setting a Benchmark
3 Mission Matters: Love with Shoes On Ready to Go/Gone
4 Itineraries