Category: Helpful Resources

Posted on

How To Pray For Your Missionary

By Will Cosby, Veteran missionary of 40 years.

  • Pray for him to understand the people he is working with, and for him to know why they do the things they do.
  • Pray for him to have great patience in dealing with delay.
  • Pray that God will give him wisdom in making daily decisions.  Even a small mistake will magnify in days to come.
  • Pray that God will garrison his mind against evil thoughts.
  • Pray for him to have Holy Spirit power and a good influence on others.
  • Pray that others will de-magnify his imperfections.
  • Pray for his spiritual health to be good and his physical health to keep pace with it.
  • Pray for him to receive much benefit from his Bible study; first for himself, and then for others.
  • Pray that God will help him to be flexible without compromise, and steadfast without being rigid.
  • Pray for him to be able to deliver his sermons with great satisfaction to God, the people, and himself.
  • Pray that God will keep him from believing false information and to be able to discern it as such.
  • Pray that he will know how to arrange his daily schedule with proper spiritual priorities.
  • Pray for him to give the proper attention to his wife and family and not to neglect them for the work.
  • Pay for him to be ever conscious of souls in need and to be aware of opportunities to win them.
  • Pray for him to have an ever increasing and widening vision of his work.
  • Pray for him to love his people as a shepherd does his sheep and to know their individual needs and be able to administrate his work for the benefit of the whole body.
  • Pray that he will have great faith in God to achieve the impossible.
  • Pray for him not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think and that God will shrink his ego.
  • Pray for him to have great boldness to preach the Word without fear or favor of man.
  • Pray for him to have good convictions and not to compromise.
  • Pray for him that most of all, he will love God supremely with all his heart, mind and soul.

Posted on

How to not become a missionary or get 100% involved in world evangelism!

  • Do not look at the harvest fields John 4:35
  • Do what everybody else is doing. Get a bigger salary, a better job, a better car and house, a better retirement
  • Get married to someone who has no idea what it means to serve God, the Great Commission, or world evangelism. Get settled down, get a good job, and raise a beautiful family
  • Stay away from missionaries. Their testimonies and lifestyles will only make you uncomfortable and may cause you to think of living for someone besides yourself
  • If you happen to think of missions think only of the very difficult places so you can feel good about not going. Don’t listen to what they tell you about how to get even into closed countries.
  • Think about how bad a missionary you would make because of your past failures and lack of ability
  • Think only about missionaries as super talented, super spiritual people that sit on a pedestal otherwise you might even feel guilty
  • Believe that you are indispensable where you are
  • Worry constantly about money
  • If you still feel like you must go then do so without the proper preparation that way you can fail and come home soon and no one will blame you for trying!

Posted on

How To Help your Missionaries

I once heard this quote, “The true greatness of any church in not how many it seats but how many it sends!” A completely full church is encouraging, but how much more encouraging it is when a church sends out a missionary… one of it’s own. This brief article is to share with you a few ideas of what you can do to help, love and stand behind the missionary that your church sends out. The ideas come from what I have heard or seen while traveling. I hope they will be a blessing and help to you. Continue reading “How To Help your Missionaries”

Posted on

How to give your testimony in the service on the mission field:

(Austin Gardner wrote this when he served as a missionary in Peru, South America)

  1. Write out your testimony. It will surprise you how easy it is to get sidetracked by all the commotion and translating.
  1. Keep it brief, maybe about 3 minutes! With translation 3 minutes will turn into 5!
  1. Open with a greeting in Spanish. The folks like it when you try to speak their language and show a genuine interest in them.
  1. Tell who you are and a little bit about you, married, work, something about your family, etc.
  1. Add a couple of positive statements about the country, the church, and the people!
  1. Do not talk about the poverty of the area, the currency as funny money, how sorry you feel for them, etc.
  1. Tell what Christ has done for you, how did you get saved, how did you realize your need of a Savior, how has your life changed, how has Christ helped you lately.
  1. Give a verse and make sure and give the application.
  1. Do not give graphic details about your sin or your past life.
  1. Avoid slang and idioms in your testimony. They can be very difficult to translate and may have no meaning in the other language.
  1. Do not use very long sentences or very short either. Give a good thought that can be easily remembered by the translator!
  1. Avoid stressing your material success or blessings and especially making any comparisons to what the people have in the country you are visiting!
  1. Avoid speaking of the sacrifice that you made to get to the field. Remember what it cost you to get to the country may be several months of a workingman’s income.  You may share with them the blessing of being able to come and how good God was to answer your prayers and make it possible to be there!
  1. Don’t tell jokes, etc. without prior approval to make sure that they translate, etc.
  1. Thank the folks again and ask them to pray for you. Be excited about the country and the opportunity to be there.

Posted on

How to get your church to be an indigenous church

I heard and took these notes many years ago. As I read back thru them recently, I was very thankful and saw how many of these simple thoughts formed my philosophy and practice of ministry. In no way are these infallible ideas or promised, success principles for ministry – but I do believe they can greatly help any missionary serving in any country.

  1. Start the first service with giving a offering – it reminds them, shows where the money goes, motivates them to give.

Four accounts for giving:

  • Tithes – maintains local church (Have a Stewardship Month to teach Time, Talent & Treasure)
  • Faith Promise (Have a Faith Promise month)
  • Other (Building Fund)
  • New Works – 10% of tithes – tell them we’ve been given and we should help give to start other churches so others can hear.

You can have four different people carry the four different purses of the different offerings – trustworthy people Continue reading “How to get your church to be an indigenous church”

Posted on

How to get more people involved in your Church’s Mission Conference

One of the poorest attended meetings in the local church each year is the Church Mission’s Conference.  This is a sad indictment upon our churches and our concern for lost souls around the world.  However it also indicates poor planning and preparation on the part of the pastor and the church.  Someone said; “Everything rises and falls on leadership!”  That is certainly the truth!  Here are a few ideas that you might consider that might help your next conference. Continue reading “How to get more people involved in your Church’s Mission Conference”

Posted on

Hey, young person, “What are you going to do with your life?”

  1. “I want to be a fireman“. You know lost people can put out a fire – wouldn’t you like to put out eternal fires?

 

  1. “I want to be a doctor“. You know lost lost people can be doctors and fix a body – wouldn’t you like to see souls saved and serving God?

 

  1. “I want to be a builder“. You know lost lost people can build buildings – wouldn’t you like to build the Lord’s kingdom?

 

  1. “I want to be famous (sports player, musician, etc.)“. You know lost people can have a name in the world and win temporal prizes – wouldn’t it be better to work on and obtain eternal prizes?

 

  1. “I want to be in the armed forces“. You know lost people can be in the armed forces – wouldn’t it be awesome to be on the front lines as a soldier of Jesus Christ?

 

 

If you want to be used of God, it’s time to:

 

  1. Get busy! Start inviting people and getting involved in your church now!

 

  1. Begin to prepare your life! Come to the Our Generation Training Center for 1 year and let God lead you to the next step. A call to service is a call to prepare!

 

  1. Surround yourself around people who are consumed with serving God – Our Generation Camp every June (Trenton, GA) and Our Generation Summit every December/January (Gatlinburg, TN). The team of missionaries associated with Vision Baptist Missions is fired up, excited and serious about serving God.

 

 

How to get in touch with us:

 

  1. Call us – 770-362-3795

 

  1. Web pages – visionmissions.com or www.ogtc.info or www.bcwe.org

 

 

Here to Serve,

 

Jeff Bush

General Director

www.visionmissions.com