Investing in Missions for the Future
Dr. Fred Andrews, Pastor of Calvary Independent Baptist Church
[Transcribed and edited by John Yingling]
I was very blessed that when they began the ministry and began the school (Calvary Christian School in Chattanooga, TN) from the very beginning they had a plan of what they wanted to do. We were able to pick that up and just carry that forward.
The Scripture you and I use so often especially in regards to missions is that Scripture where it talks about that He saw the multitude and He was moved to compassion and prayed that He would send forth laborers. I say, there are three interlocking words here (saw, moved, pray). Number one you got to see. If you do not see you won’t be moved. If you are not moved then you will not pray.
But what that Scripture also tells me is that we need to realize the investment in missions is more than dollars and cents. There is no question that that is being challenged more than it has ever been. I know we have a philosophy, we had our conference last week, which I tell our people that if we are going to take a missionary on we are going to support them because the integrity of our church demands it. I am not saying that something could not happen in our church and I pray it doesn’t, but we have families that we have supported 25 or 30 years and they’ve gotten their money every single month. That is to God’s glory and to our people’s commitment to what we are doing.
Missionary Highlight
The Abrams Family
Sam and Mandi Abrams
Please pray for Sam and Mandi Abrams. They are on deputation, raising support for Hong Kong. They have a desire to reach Cantonese speaking people.
Because of Hong Kong’s past association with Great Britain this land has been exposed to the Gospel for many years. However, only 6% of the more than 7 million people are considered Evangelical Christians. There are two main reasons why Christianity has not made strong in roads. I believe the obstacles are an eclectic mixture of traditional beliefs and affluence.
BIO has a registered presence in Hong Kong – Baptist International Outreach, Limited. Pray that more missionaries will surrender for this needy land. Pray for a genuine movement of God from within the churches that are there, and pray that God would help the Abrams raise their support quickly.
Missionary Humor
A missionary from England was visiting America. After being the recipient of some wonderful southern hospitality the English brother graciously told his host, the pastor’s wife, that she was very homely. In England “homely” means that the person is a good housewife and hostess.
Missionary Quote
“In the Old testament it is Come and See; in the New testament it is Go and Tell.” J.D. Crowley
I truly believe this. If you can explain it God’s not in it. It is when you can’t explain it; and I don’t know about you, but if you are in the middle of something like that it almost frightens you because you don’t want to get in the way. You are afraid that you’ll do something to mess it up and you just want to let God keep doing what He is doing.
There are a number of things. We are not the largest church. We do not have a lot of affluent people. But the one thing that we did is that we have given a lot of careful thought in what we wanted to do and what we wanted to accomplish, not only in the regards of money but more importantly in the investment in our young people.
There are fewer missionaries going to the field and more going home sooner than ever. And as a church do we have a responsibility to try to support missionaries? Absolutely! But many times there is an opportunity that we miss and that’s the opportunity of trying to invest in missions for the future. That comes through your young people.
We are very privileged that we have our school ministry. We try to incorporate constantly, all the time, our missions into our school ministry. There are a number of things we do. We want our young people to have the right kind of heroes. I can tell you that they don’t get the right kind of heroes out in the world. They don’t! If we do not teach them who the heroes are then they do not view them as heroes. We want to teach them that those that give their lives, sacrifice and are obedient to God, they are the real heroes. If you promote this with your young people they’ll have a whole different perception of what missions is all about and what serving God is all about. So we want to promote the right kind of heroes.
We are very blessed that we have within our church make up a lot of men and individuals that are involved in missions in some capacity. We have a gentleman that is the General Director for Word for the World. His whole life is missions. We have a gentleman that is involved in deaf ministry. He goes over the whole world and throughout the country ministering to the Deaf. We have a man who is involved in Jewish ministry. We’ve got a man involved in help ministries. What these men will do is take our people on mission trips. The man who is involved with Deaf, he’ll take our young people on missions trips. The man that’s involved in helps will take our young people on mission trips. They expose our young people to the mission field. They let them see it firsthand.
In the school we constantly are focusing on missions. We just had our conference. We incorporate our missions conference into our school, and we do it with a lot of thought. For example, when we have our chapels in the morning our young people are in there. Then our missionary families eat lunch with our kids. We want our kids to be exposed to them, to be around them. Our teachers will ask our missionary families to go into their classroom and to talk with them about missions. And so we try to incorporate that into our school ministry.
Not only that, but we have chosen as a missionary project VICKtory School (a Joyce’s Kids Ministry – a Deaf School in Ethiopia). We made them our sister school. And every week in all of our chapels, our elementary chapel, our junior/senior high chapel, our young people will take an offering for the young people of VICKtory School and we’ll pray for VICKtory School. Mrs. Faye (Mrs. Faye Dykes, Director of Joyce’s Kids) is there and spent last week updating our young people on VICKtory School. When pictures come we show our young people; and so, they have investment in VICKtory School.
Our junior/senior high kids, they do it on their own because I do not want to prompt them, numbers of time they will come to me, and this year they have done that, and said, “Pastor we would like to take care of Christmas for VICKtory School.” We have so much and there is so many things so I call Faye and say, “What is it that they need,” and our young people right now are saving and collecting money so that the kids at VICKtory School can have Christmas.
A number of years Gomeju (The Director of VICKtory School) said to us, I’ll never forget it, she said, “Do you think maybe you can give us a basketball, a soccer ball? We don’t have anything to play with.” And our kids sent over there dozens and dozens of balls for those kids to play.
Another thing is our senior class, every senior class for 36 years has raised their own money to take a missions trip. Our seniors have literally been all over the world. The result of that is that they see firsthand and it opens their heart.
We have numbers of graduates, for example the Sykes family, both of them are graduates of Calvary Christian School, the Cloud family, both of them are graduates of Calvary Christian School. Rebecca Sinclair and her husband, Ben, are in Cameroon. Melissa Daniels and Josh are down in Brazil. They are graduates of Calvary Christian School. And so, when they come home we expose them. And they’ll say, “Listen, I was sitting where you are sitting and never dreamed that I would be on the mission field, but God spoke to my heart.” And so, it is something we constantly do.
Another thing we do by design is when a lot of these families come home, because of our heart for missions, we will have a lot of missionary young people in our school. And, we are involved with the I-20 visas that we can bring young people from foreign countries to America and go to Calvary Christian School. We’ve got young people in our school from Korea, Venezuela, Philippines, from Romania. Our kids are around those kids and the different cultures and again that helps the minds and the hearts of our young people.
I think we are missing it. By thinking, “Well, we don’t have a lot of money; our budget is tight; we’re limited.” Well, that’s important, but where is the next generation of missionaries coming from? That is something that we’ve got to give thought to. It is something that we’ve got to emphasize. A church of about 140, we’re the sending church of 9 missionary families. That is because of the constant emphasis and focus.
Our people know that my first love is the people of Calvary. Nothing is more important than our people at Calvary. I don’t go fluttering around the county going to a lot of meetings. If you do that, that’s fine. The only time I am away from our people is up here at BIO; because, they know I think this is important enough that I would come up here and be away from them.
Let me challenge especially the pastors. Think about the investment in your young people, and do everything you can to expose them to the right kind of heroes. I can’t give you the answer other than that it’s simply God. But I know that I am thankful for and it’s a blessing that we have young people in our school already called to preach, called to the mission field. We have young people that went away to school this year that are called to missions. I want to believe its because that from the time they are in K-4 until they go to the 12th grade they are constantly reminded of missions. God has honored that. I think that is a great need today, and I am thankful for what God is doing.
Recently I was part of a conversation where the question was raised, “What if the American economy actually collapsed; what might happen to the many foreign mission-works which are heavily dependent upon finances from the U.S.A.?”