For my fellow missionaries- long

[bapmom]

Hi!

My preacher just got back from a missions trip to India. Now, all his preaching was done in conjunction with local churches. He went to several leper colonies as well, which had thriving churches. By thriving I mean they had a real heart for God. Our preacher was inspired by those dear people. He got back and said the people in the leper colonies looked happier than some of us did.....That was very sobering for us, too.

He was in a group of about 5 or 6 different men from America, and they said they saw many people saved. But I think it must have been different than those instances you cite, C4K, because all converts would have been handed over to the local church that they were working with on that day.

Does this sound different? I know my preacher, and I know he neither pushes people for insincere prayers, nor would he lead someone to the Lord and not provide contact info to the missionary he was with.

 

[Mexdeaf]

Originally posted by C4K:
We had an American football team come here from a Christian university. I read a prayer letter when they got back claiming over 100 people had been saved. None of our churches ever saw a single one of them, but pastors would ask us, "If ______________ football team can see 100 saved, what are you doing?"

Yup! That's the kind of thing I am talking about, seen it happen here in Mexico also.

 

[John of Japan]

Originally posted by mima:
Mexdeaf what this pastor has told you is more right than wrong. After being on the mission field four months in China I casually mentioned to a fellow missionary that my interpreter and I had seen four people accept the Lord Jesus Christ. Whereupon he told me, I do not believe you, I have been here 13 years and I have never seen anyone accept Jesus. At a going away party for me this same missionary ask, how many, 87 I said in six months(I only stayed six months because people feared for my safety) after hearing this this longtime, very baptist, very saved, missionary just slowly shook his head and said I can not believe it, I can not believe it. Does this message say how good I was? NO!!! On the contrary it points out how ineffective most of our missionaries are.

mima, you weren't doing badly until your last sentence, where you accuse "most of our missionaries" of being ineffective. Seeing that, I have to ask along with Paul, "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand" (Rom. 14:4).

To those of us who have laid our entire lives on the altar for Jesus Christ, someone who comes out to Asia for 6 months, then runs back to America "for my safety," and makes the kind of judgement you have made is offensive. Why didn't you stay out here and go to jail for Christ?

 

[John of Japan]

Fellow missionaries, mima's last line was quite offensive to me. But I ask you to consider the missionary he says was in China for 13 years and never saw anyone saved. Assuming all the facts are correct, I have to agree that this man was an ineffective missionary. I mean, he wasn't in a Muslim country where his converts would be killed if they trusted Christ, he was in China where some wonderful things are happening.

Remember Adoniram Judson, who had to find his own language teacher, write his own grammar book and dictionary of the language, write his own tracts and translate his own Bible. And yet Judson baptized his first convert after 7 years on the field, not 13, and probably won folks to Christ before that. And Judson didn't believe in baptizing a convert until he saw due fruit in their lives! Think about it.

 

[Mexdeaf]

John,

Good point. Another thing we need to take into consideration- (and this is another thread entirely) are we all on the same wavelength as to what 'saved' means? Maybe the fellow in China has a different definition than we do. To some people 'saved' is a prayer and to some folks 'saved' is a personal living relationship with Christ.

yknowhatImeanhuh?

 

[mima]

{Snipped - poster does not qualify to post in the Baptist only sections of the Baptist Board. Webmaster's rules require posters here to identify as a Baptist and attend a local Baptist church]

[ February 09, 2006, 03:53 AM: Message edited by: C4K ]

 

[John of Japan]

Originally posted by Mexdeaf:
John,

Good point. Another thing we need to take into consideration- (and this is another thread entirely) are we all on the same wavelength as to what 'saved' means? Maybe the fellow in China has a different definition than we do. To some people 'saved' is a prayer and to some folks 'saved' is a personal living relationship with Christ.

yknowhatImeanhuh?

Knowwhatyamean, Mexdeaf.

I remember a missionary who came to my church to preach when we were in Yokohama. The church landlady lived upstairs, and I witnessed to her just about every time I paid the rent. This missionary grabbed her when she came down to say hello, said "Pray this after me," (didn't even use a witnessing plan that time) and then let her go. I'm sure he counted that as a soul saved on his next ministry report, but next time I talked to her absolutely nothing had changed.

The same man came up here to Hokkaido and went out visiting with our co-worker to the home of someone they had worked with for a long time. He did the same type of thing, so from then on the couple said, "We're going to Heaven because we prayed that prayer, so we don't need church," and they never came back.

I don't know that this is what mima is doing--I certainly hope not. I don't believe it is wrong to have a person pray a prayer--missionaries in Japan have been doing that for 100 years (which I can document). It's just the careless, "Here pray this, okay you're saved" approach that I think we all oppose. That approach, as seen in my illustrations, can actually harden hearts.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

Hey guys, I am grateful for this forum and for you fellas. It is good to know that I am not the only one who has these feelings.

I once received an email from a Baptist Board member telling me how to use a "Free Raffle" to get people saved. This member used a car or money to get people to take a free raffle ticket and while they were there he had them pray. He said that 75% of the people who took tickets got saved.

I remember a missionary who came to my church to preach when we were in Yokohama. The church landlady lived upstairs, and I witnessed to her just about every time I paid the rent. This missionary grabbed her when she came down to say hello, said "Pray this after me," (didn't even use a witnessing plan that time) and then let her go. I'm sure he counted that as a soul saved on his next ministry report, but next time I talked to her absolutely nothing had changed.

The same man came up here to Hokkaido and went out visiting with our co-worker to the home of someone they had worked with for a long time. He did the same type of thing, so from then on the couple said, "We're going to Heaven because we prayed that prayer, so we don't need church," and they never came back.

This happens here ALL the time. Folks pray a prayer then consider themselves "safe" and their lives never change in ANY sense.

 

[John of Japan]

Okay, folks, mima gives his method of personal evangelism here:
http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/10/6067/2.html#000017

Not meaning to pick on mima, but if this is all he does, I think it is very important to say that he is not giving the Gospel. Of course the Gospel is, simply put, that Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification.

Returning to the OP, I think this is something that many pastors do not understand. It is a more difficult task to give the Gospel to a complete heathen than to the typical American WASP or even Catholic.

So many English tracts I've seen completely leave out the resurrection, as do many other presentations of the Gospel in English. I heard of a girl here in Japan who heard such a presentation and said, "Why should I believe in a dead man? We Japanese already pray to our ancestors."

 

[John of Japan]

Originally posted by bapmom:
Hi!

My preacher just got back from a missions trip to India. Now, all his preaching was done in conjunction with local churches. He went to several leper colonies as well, which had thriving churches. By thriving I mean they had a real heart for God. Our preacher was inspired by those dear people. He got back and said the people in the leper colonies looked happier than some of us did.....That was very sobering for us, too.

He was in a group of about 5 or 6 different men from America, and they said they saw many people saved. But I think it must have been different than those instances you cite, C4K, because all converts would have been handed over to the local church that they were working with on that day.

Does this sound different? I know my preacher, and I know he neither pushes people for insincere prayers, nor would he lead someone to the Lord and not provide contact info to the missionary he was with.

Sounds good to me, bapmom. Sounds like your pastor is a good man who tries to understand the people where he is ministering, a vital qualification for being a missionary. Careful--he may get called!!

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

It does happen. I was deacon chairman and head of the missions committee when God called me

.

 

[John of Japan]

Amen, brother. You can't steer a vehicle if it isn't already moving!

 

[Mexdeaf]

Originally posted by John of Japan:
Returning to the OP, I think this is something that many pastors do not understand. It is a more difficult task to give the Gospel to a complete heathen than to the typical American WASP or even Catholic.

So many English tracts I've seen completely leave out the resurrection, as do many other presentations of the Gospel in English. I heard of a girl here in Japan who heard such a presentation and said, "Why should I believe in a dead man? We Japanese already pray to our ancestors."

And just to put in a bit from my perspective, most pastors do not understand the differences in working with the deaf. Stateside pastors just assume that all (USA) deaf people can be taught and won the same as hearing people because they use English, right? No, WRONG! The first language of most deaf folks in the USA is American Sign Language, not English. And the same is true in any country of the world. The first language of the deaf in Japan is not Japanese. It is Japanese Sign Language. And there is no such thing as an 'Universal Sign Language'.

Most of our deaf folks here cannot read. Makes it tough to win converts and disciple them. Takes time to make sure they understand. Takes repeating things over and over and over again. Takes YEARS to develop disciples.

I have often said this world would treat and understand deaf people differently if everybody in the world could be deaf for a week.

Sorry, rant off. Don't know where that came from...

 

[Squire Robertsson]

Originally posted by John of Japan:
Amen, brother. You can't steer a vehicle if it isn't already moving!

I've always used the illustration:

It's easier to change the direction of a one ton block of concrete if it is moving at one mile per hour, than to do the same for a block that is at a dead stop.

 

[MikeinGhana]

I left this post for sometime an returned to see that it has evolved into a discussion on easy believism. I thought the post was talking about missions and how pastors perceived us and the easy life we lead. What happened?

 

[bapmom]

this area is so nice and relaxing on this board though, brother Mike.....I like hearing you guys chat and seeing constructive discussions.

btw, we're keeping our pastor...

But he's sending out lots of missionaries too. Seriously, who knows, maybe one day he'll go to a foreign field also.

Preacher had no illusions of how easy missionaries have it, but India in particular really was a whole different world. He gave us some stories about the roads and the experiences he had just being driven around! It was incredible.

This Sunday night we are going to have an "India night" and he's going to show some of the slides he took while there. He said he's got 400 to show....he pared it down from 900! He'll be preaching while showing the pictures.....

February is our missions month, so we get to see some of our missionaries each week.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

It is encouraging to hear of pastors who have a real interest in missions and are interested in how it really is.

 

[Mexdeaf]

Yes, there are some good missionary-minded and -loving pastors out there. One of my favorite supporting pastors has a brother who is a missionary so he relates very well to us. Another favorite who just retired was a missionary to the Dominican Republic before health reasons brought them home.

Bapmom, I am praying that God will use your pastor's message to break some hearts for missions.

 

[bapmom]

Thanks for the prayers! We seem to have a very missions minded church, but we can always see improvement. And perhaps we will see some of the people respond to going to the field.

Sometimes, because we are a church full of poor people, we get caught up in thinking of our own worries and needs...which are real. But we need a reminder that even the poor people in America are rich in many other countries.

 

[John of Japan]

Originally posted by MikeinGhana:
I left this post for sometime an returned to see that it has evolved into a discussion on easy believism. I thought the post was talking about missions and how pastors perceived us and the easy life we lead. What happened?

What happened was a well-meaning person named mima!