How much do you know about world missions?

I ran across these facts in a letter from the International Bulletin of Mission Research and through people might be interested in these not so trivial facts.

1. There is a total of 37,000 different church denominations worldwide.
2. Of the 6.6 million people currently living in the world about 31.4 % or 2.2 billion people call themselves "Christian".
3. About 44% of Christians are "white" and 56% are "non-white".
4. There are about 259 million evangelical Christians.
5. Some portion of the Bible has been translated into 2,238 of the worlds languages.
6. There are 4.4 million women in full-time Christian ministry serving around the world.
7. There 443,000 foreign Christian missionaries from 4340 agencies serving around the world.
8. The countries that receive the greatest number of foreign missionaries are: U.S.A. - 35,100, Brazil - 26,400, Russian - 20,100, France - 16,900, Britain - 15,800, D.R Congo - 15,800.
9. There are almost 19,000 Africans serving as foreign missionaries on other continents.

Most people think of the church being centered in Europe and America, but in reality there are more now Christians in Africa, India and Asia than Europe and America. As an example of how Christianity is growing in Africa, I recently received a report from Ghana that more that 1200 people attended the Easter Convention of the Fellowship of Christian Churches of Ghana in Salaga, Ghana, a small town in the north-eastern region of Ghana. It is so remote that many people traveled more than 16 hours to reach the site of the convention. Great things are happening in the church throughout the world.

An Era Passes in Liberia

This week I received the news of the passing of James W. Morgan in Buchanan, Liberia. James was one of the founding members of our mission to Liberia when Greta and I first went there in 1971. He was a co-founder of Liberia Christian High School, The Christian Education Foundation of Liberia and later one of the main leaders of the Christian Churches of Liberia. He came to the States in the late 1970s to study at Milligan College in Tennessee and returned to Liberia to continue his life work. He was one of the founders of the Liberia Evangelistic mission and has led in the start of several new churches as well as continued to work in Christian Education at many levels. During the Liberian civil war he became a target for attack and persecution by a group of rebels. He was held prisoner for some time and made to work as a slave on a rebel controlled farm. By God's grace he was set free and spent several months as a refugee in Ivory Coast.
James was also a member of the board of the Christian Leadership Training Institute, headquartered in Accra, Ghana. The Institute has Christian leadership training classes currently running in Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria. James was one of the Liberia representatives on the board. The picture above was taken in Accra, Ghana during an Institute meeting in 2005. It is the last time I saw him in person. James is standing between two of his daughters who were living in Ghana at the time. Danny Buegar is next to me and Freeman Wesseh on the right.
James was a true pioneer and faithful preacher of the gospel, but his heart was in teaching. He taught English and Math in Liberia Christian High School for almost 40 years. Before coming to Buchanan, he had been the principal of the school in his home village of Zondo, Grand Bassa County, Liberia. He liked to say, "I am a numbers man." But that was not totally true. He was a man of The Book. He loved to preach, and he had preached in the Buchanan Christian Church Sunday morning the day before he died suddenly on Monday, March 3, 2008. James did not know his true birthday or exactly how old he was. He told me that he had taken the day of his baptism into Christ as his birth date. From what I remember of what he told me, I believe he was about 75 years old.
James was also a good friend and a wise adviser for Greta and me as we worked in Liberia as young, green missionaries. We have lost a good friend and the people of Liberia have lost a great Christian leader. The following verse comes to mind, and for Liberia it is certainly true.
"Do you not realize that a prince and a great man has fallen in Israel this day?" 2 Samuel 3:38

Prayer

I received a note today from one of our missionaries in Ancona, Italy. The team is planning a two day (48 hour) prayer event where the team invites the local community (churches, missionaries, and even “irreligious” Catholics) to come to a prayer room for one hour during this 48 hour period give an hour of their cluttered lives to prayer. Josh admits that like many of us, that prayer to him is an “awkward” thing.

The thing that is awkward to us is accepting the Biblical doctrine of prayer. The Bible clearly teaches that there are things that God cannot/will not do unless we pray. As Jesus said, “You have not because you ask not.” Some of us think that in prayer we align ourselves with the will of God, “Thy will be done”. In other words we think that prayer changes us, not so much that prayer changes things.

However, in prayer, like in many other things, God is asking us to join Him as partners in his purposes. God,for example, offers salvation to the world and asks us to be partners with him in the “Ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18) and has sent us into the world to preach the gospel to every creature (Matt. 28:19).

E. Stanley Jones wrote, “For in prayer you align yourself to the purposes and power of God, and He is able to do things that though you He couldn’t otherwise do. For this is an open universe, where some things are left open, contingent upon our doing them. If we do not do them, they will never be done. So God has left certain things to prayer—things which will never be done except we pray.”

The Church

Since Greta and I came home from Africa 6 years ago, we have been struggling with how we Americans are “doing church” these days. The American church culture – across the board – has changed more in the past 10 years than it has in the last 100 years. Sitting in church today we often feel more out of place and out of our comfort zone than we ever did in the more than 20 years we lived and worshiped with churches in Africa. During those years we often sat in church for two to three hours while everything was done in a language we did not understand except the few Biblical references that were used. But we did understand that we were there to worship and praise God. Today we sometimes sit in church where we can understand every word but the noise is often so loud we cannot hear them and we more often feel we are watching a show, sitting as observers on the sidelines of a worship program that someone else is doing. How did it get to this?

For years the church has been saying “y’all come” rather than “let’s all go.” It seems to me that much of the currently popular “seeker friendly” church service is just the latest edition of the “y’all come” program. I remember reading recently. “If we want to win the world to Christ, we must be willing to sit in the smoking section.” That is where the lost are sitting. I learned some of that many years ago from one of our Liberian families. One day I went to visit a neighbor. They were all in their “kitchen” or cook house, a dirt floored, thatch roofed shelter where they cooked over a wood fire. I sat there, using a log for a chiar, and talked for some time as the lady of the house prepared food. As I realized that it was soon to be meal time, I made as to leave, but they said, “Won’t you stay and eat with us?” I agreed and stayed to share their simple meal. Years later, this same family was in our home, and as we shared our meal with them, the lady recounted the story of how I had come to talk with them in their kitchen. She then told me that no missionary had ever done that before and how much it had meant to them.

The heart of the Christian message to the world is that God didn’t expect us to come to Him in heaven. He came to us. Jesus, the king of heaven, was born in a dirty, stinking stable and lived in one of the world’s most backward countries as a poor carpenter. He “became flesh and lived among us and we beheld his glory.” (John 1:14) The church was sent into the world (Matthew 28:19-20) to be His hands, feet, eyes and mouth so that the world could continue to see His glory. It is time for the church to return to its roots; to be born in the places where it is most needed; to get out in the real world and get its hands dirty; to sit in the cook house and eat with its neighbors.

Putting Away Christmas

There are still some decorations and Christmas cards hanging around our living room. The tree is down and the lights taken down from the front of the house and all put away, but some things are still hanging around. It is just difficult to put away Christmas. It's so much fun. Great food, wonderful music, the family together, gifts, beautiful decorations and good will everywhere. So I guess it is no wonder that it is difficult to let it go.
Eventually it will all be put away and the New Year will move on. We will get used to writing 2008 on our checks and Christmas will become a distant memory or a more distant yearning for next year.
We had a great Christmas this year. Much of our family were together and we had some good times and, as usual, Mom outdid herself in the kitchen. Now my trousers have shrunk or something and I am looking for some way to drop the pounds I put on for the Holidays.
So, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, a little late, to everyone.

National Missionary Convention

The first National Missionary Convention met in Springfield, IL in 1947 and the 60th was held this year in Cincinnati, Ohio. For Greta and me is has always been a chance to meet long-time missionary friends and folk who have supported our work over the years. This year's convention was no different except it is getting larger every year. Over 6000 people attended the Cincinnati convention and there were about 700 different booths and displays from missions, mission agencies and mission related works all over the world.

We enjoyed having lunch with John and Anne Blackburn at a near-by English tea house. The Blackburns have worked in China for several years and are moving to the new team in Verona, Italy, so we will be serving them as their Field Coordinator for Team Expansion.

A lot of our time was spent at the Team Expansion booth meeting with friends, supporters and people interested in missions. Every year we make dozens of contacts at the convention with people who are interested in serving in missions. We try to connect them with the right place and type of work for their interest and talents.

Our Pictures of Verona, Italy

Verona Italy

Copy the link below and paste it into the address line of your internet search engine. Then click on the "Watch Show" link just above the picture. Let me know what you think. As time goes on, we will add other shows.
The Coliseum in Verona, at right
is 2000 years old and still in use.



http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=photoserver&p=hopewell&AID=4950804&Pres=Y