fyi --- STATS, STORIES AND MORE A Dangerous Assignment Missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham, seized by guerrillas in the Philippines in May, 2001, were held for 376 days. Just before a military raid led to Martin’s death and Gracia’s freedom, Martin said, “The Bible says to serve the Lord with gladness. Let’s go out all the way. Let’s serve Him all the way with gladness.” The Need About six hundred million people in the world claim a personal, saving relationship with Jesus Christ, leaving about 1.4 billion “cultural Christians” who associate in some way with the Christian religion but don’t necessarily follow Jesus as Savior and Lord. Another 2.5 billion people are non-Christian, but have some access to the gospel message by various means. More than 1.6 billion people have virtually no access to the gospel, a church, Scripture, or followers of Christ. Forty-one countries have populations that are 99 percent non-Christian. Support Base In his book, The Great Omission, Robertson McQuilkin points out that in the days before William Carey, the father of the modern Protestant missionary movement, the Moravians from Herrnhut considered a support base of four adequate to keep one missionary at the front. Using that formula, America’s forty million evangelicals could support ten million overseas workers. Using a more modern standard, it was said that during World War II fifteen personnel were needed to keep one man at the front. Using that as a basis, the American evangelical church could support a missionary force of 2,666,666. But evangelical churches of the United States, perhaps the wealthiest group of Christians in history, now have about thirty-seven thousand career foreign missionaries, about nine thousand of whom are engaged in full-time evangelism. “The truth is,” says McQuilkin, “less than 1 percent of full-time Christian workers are engaged in evangelistic ministry among the unevangelized of the world. Is this the way the Commander-in-Chief would assign His troops? Or is someone not listening?” Compassion If we could only read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 10:50:25 +0000
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