Live with Urgency sowing together for harvest

Transcription

1 Live with Urgency sowing together for harvest john 4:35-37 Canadian 2009 Prayer Guide for North American Missions

2 2 CNBC Goal $80,000 Don t you say, There are still four more months, then comes the harvest? Listen [to what] I m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ready for harvest. The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true: One sows and another reaps (John 4:35 37 Holman Christian Standard Bible).

3 Nehemiah church planters, Newfoundland New Life Newfoundland is our church starting ministry, which consists of our two families the Grissoms and the Dorseys. Both Steve and Adam are graduates of Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. We are working towards starting the first Canadian Southern Baptist (CNBC) churches in Newfoundland. God s faithfulness has brought our families here, and continues to sustain us. We currently lead three Bible studies in and around St. John s. One of our groups consists of a handful of believers in Ferryland a rural outport an hour south of the city. We have been working with this group for more than one year teaching, serving, praying, and preparing them to become a church. It is our conviction that they will constitute as a church in the coming year. We also teach a Bible study on Sunday afternoons at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). Over the past year, we have been able to proclaim the gospel and study the Gospel of John with students from Iran, Saudi Arabia and China. In addition to our Sunday afternoon study at the university, we recently started an evangelism training course. Through Steve Grissom s ministry on campus, a Chinese student named Rolly came to the course, and brought with him several of his Chinese classmates who were not Christians. We found ourselves teaching non-believers how to share their faith! We are currently discipling Rolly, who has communicated to us that God is calling him to be a pastor. We have committed ourselves to discipling him and training him for pastoral ministry. As believers, we marvel at the grace of God as we gaze upon the glory of our risen Saviour. As church starters, we proclaim the gospel faithfully, trusting that God will accomplish what He desires in the way of new churches (Isaiah 55:11). for open doors for the gospel for God s wisdom as we move closer to starting our first two churches in Newfoundland Steve Grissom Sheena Grissom Adam Dorsey Christi Dorsey 3

4 More Than Gold Vancouver 2010 Olympics It was a snowy Christmas in Vancouver, British Columbia, but underneath the blanket of white the city was hard at work preparing for their upcoming moment on the world stage the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The same is true for CNBC churches in the area. Alan Au, a NAMB appointed missionary, leads the WestCoast Baptist Association and its efforts to impact the Vancouver region for Christ. He also serves on the Board of Directors of More Than Gold (MTG), a network of Christian churches and organizations in the Vancouver area and beyond. MTG was formed to connect and coordinate Christians for service and witness to the Olympic family, international visitors, and local people, before and during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Volunteer Janet Campbell and Mission Service Corp missionary Kevin Sigsby are our Baptist field coordinators working with More Than Gold. Southern Baptists have been active in MTG outreach efforts at many Olympic and worldwide sporting events in the past. Since the 2010 Games are in North America, NAMB and several state conventions are providing funding to help with this unique outreach opportunity. Currently, Janet, Kevin and the WestCoast associational leadership are spreading the word about how local congregations can be involved. They are recruiting churches to host neighborhood events. Volunteers can share Christ through distributing welcome bags, pin trading and warming stations. They can also host athletes families in their homes. 4 They are receiving applications from potential mission teams and individuals to come from outside Vancouver to work alongside locals in the MTG ministry effort. Through all these avenues, they hope to share Christ with the thousands of international visitors and Canadians who will be attending the Games. It is hoped that through this outreach effort local congregations will be enlarged and new and stronger partnerships will be forged with churches from across North America. Alan Au Janet Campbell Kevin Sigsby for openness from visitors to hear the gospel for local homes open to hosting athletes families for housing to be available for ministry teams Consider applying to be a More Than Gold volunteer. Contact Janet or Kevin at: , janet@vancouverfocus.ca or ksigsby@yahoo.com

5 Southwinds Church Lake Chaparral, Calgary Bo Neal and Jordan and Dani Mortson serve as Nehemiah church planting missionaries with Southwinds Church, which was planted a little over a year ago out of Trinity Baptist Church in Calgary, Alberta. This birthed the SouthTrails Network that has a vision to plant churches throughout a part of Southeast Calgary. Jordan Mortson is the church lead for Southwinds Church Lake Chaparral. He meets regularly with a core team (people from Southwinds and Trinity) to prepare for a public launch in September Jordan has served with Southwinds Auburn Bay for two years, providing pastoral care, running A/V, preaching, directing small group ministry, maintaining finances and overseeing ministry in Lake Chaparral. Dani has been an integral part of the children s ministry, as well as hosting the No Fuss Ladies Night each month, a great time of fellowship and outreach for ladies of the church and community. Bo Neal is the church lead for Southwinds Church Auburn Bay. He has been with the leadership team of Southwinds for three years. He oversees worship and set-up/tear-down, preaches and provides pastoral care and leadership with children. Bo also oversees ministry within Auburn Bay and Cranston. Bo will continue to lead at Southwinds Church Auburn Bay when the Lake Chaparral plant is launched in September. Living life with urgency and sowing the seeds of the gospel are life calls that these church planting missionaries strive to live out daily. The communities they reach into through the SouthTrails Network are much like other communities in Canada. They are full of people that do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why they have been called to go. Bo Neal for the core team as they prepare to launch a new plant Jordan Mortson in September ; that God will continue to provide vision and draw people to Himself as they seek to see God s Kingdom grow and minister in this community. for Southwinds Church Dani Mortson Auburn Bay; that God will continue to raise people up to take part in ministry as others follow God s call to minister in Lake Chaparral. for new communities around both these church plants; that God will show Southwinds how He wants to reach into new communities being built all around them. 5

6 Mathieu Sainson-Hart, US/C2 missionary, Quebec My name is Mathieu Sainson-Hart. I moved to Sherbrooke when I was 16 and God brought me into His Kingdom when I was 19 years old. I had not been living the Christian walk, but through unique people, I was discipled to the new way of life intended by Jesus. When I finished my undergraduate work, I was challenged by a friend to do a half- marathon. I then met Robert Pinkston, a university campus minister, who helped me train for the half-marathon and we shared a vision for reaching the Quebecois. I asked him if he needed my help with reaching out and starting a church in Sherbrooke. It has been two years since I have been working with him and a team of great people. We have been planting seeds here and have started a church called Renaissance. The soil is hard here but we have found some men and women who want to follow God with us. Our vision is to teach anyone how to follow and learn about the teachings and claims of Jesus-Christ. Sherbrooke is a town of around 150,000 and is 90 percent French speaking. Ministry here is quite different than anywhere else. Most of the Québécois have no Biblical knowledge. They know Jesus was a historical person, but that is about it. They have no concept of a need for a Saviour, even if their hearts might long for one. It is really pantheistic here, basically saying that God is in us and is the entire universe. What they need to change from pantheism to Jesus is to hear that God came to earth through Jesus to show us the way to the Father. Jesus is an image of a perfect relationship between God and man. They also need to see the love of Christians in action, so they can see the difference between Jesus religion and any other religion. Mathieu Sainson-Hart for people to come to Christ and be baptized for the Lord s presence in all I do 6

7 Mathieu Sainson-Hart, US/C2 missionnaire, Québec Mon nom est Mathieu Sainson- Hart. J ai déménagé à Sherbrooke à l âge de 16 ans. Dieu m a amené dans son royaume à l âge de 19 ans. Je n ai pas vécu la vie chrétienne comme Dieu le voulait, mais Dieu m a donné de sages personnes pour m enseigner la vie de disciple. Quand j ai terminé mon baccalauréat, j ai rencontré Robert Pinkston, un missionnaire qui voulait commencer un ministère à Sherbrooke. Je lui ai proposé mon aide et c est depuis que je travaille avec lui. Depuis deux ans, nous plantons les graines de l Évangile. Ce n est pas facile ici, car la réaction du monde est trop souvent négative. Cependant, des gens ont répondu à l appel pour suivre Dieu avec nous. Notre vision est d enseigner à quiconque l enseignement de Jésus-Christ pour qu il devienne un disciple à Sherbrooke. Sherbrooke est une ville d environ personnes. La population est à 90% francophone. La plupart du monde n a aucune connaissance biblique ni de Jésus. C est un homme sage dans l histoire, juste ça. Ils sont beaucoup panthéistes, agnostiques ou même athées et ils savent défendre leur position. Pour changer de position, les Québécois ont besoin d entendre que Dieu est venu sur la terre pour nous montrer la voie d accès à lui après la mort. Jésus est d autant plus l image parfaite de la relation de Dieu avec l homme. Ils ont besoin de voir l amour entre les chrétiens pour différencier la religion de Jésus et les autres systèmes religieux. Prendre du temps pour moi-même Dieu soit mon temps de repos Mathieu Sainson-Hart 7

8 Gary and Sue Smith: NAMB Featured Missionaries Gary and Sue Smith are 2009 Week of Prayer missionaries serving as North American Mission Board national missionaries based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Photo by Findlay Muir By Mickey Noah Gary Smith and his 11-year-old son, Caleb, tooled down the Trans-Canada Highway in their rented Toyota on a winter s day. They were in the middle of a 12-hour, 600-mile road trip from Quebec to Prince Edward Island when reality hit the 41-year-old missionary and he suddenly started to cry. What s going on, Daddy? asked an alarmed Caleb, the oldest of Gary and Sue Smith s four children. What s happening? Through his tears, Smith asked his son, Caleb, do you realize that in all of these towns, cities and villages we re passing by, there are no Christian churches to tell the people about the Gospel? There are no Sunday school classes for kids. There s nothing like you ve known all your life. As he looks back now, Smith thinks that s when Caleb finally got it realizing why his daddy was gone from home so much. He and I stopped and prayed together for those towns, cities and villages, recalls Smith, and it was a precious time for just the two of us. It s a fact, Smith said, that some 1,000 communities in Quebec have no evangelical church at all, not one. The Smiths are national missionaries for the North American Mission Board and the Canadian National Baptist Convention, responsible for planting churches all across Canada. They are two of the some 5,500 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, and are among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 1 through 8, This year s theme is Live with Urgency: Sowing Together for Harvest. The 2009 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering s goal is $65 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like the Smiths. Smith, a native Kansan, realizes he s not in Kansas anymore when it comes to the difficult challenge of planting new churches and sharing the Gospel amidst a vastly lost Canada. In eastern Canada, there s a spiritual void, he says. If you re under 40 years old and in Quebec, you probably don t know who Jesus Christ is. I ve had some people literally tell me, 8

9 fighting vast lostness in vast eastern canada Oh, that s a curse word. That s all they know about Jesus. And this is where we are trying to evangelize, witness and plant churches. It can be a hard place but it gives us an incredible opportunity, said Smith. Can you imagine the sweetness of sharing Christ with someone who is hearing for the very first time? They have no concept of Jesus. They re a blank slate. Smith says that only eight percent of all Canadians are connected to an evangelical church, compared to 28 percent in the United States. Montreal has nearly five million people. Almost all of them are lost. Only half of one percent are evangelical Christians. We ve been here eight years now but only scratched the surface. As an example of the fading spiritual condition in Montreal Quebec s largest city 95 percent of Montreal citizens attended a Catholic church weekly in Today, it s only five percent. The Catholic Church has not only lost most of its spiritual ground in Montreal, it s almost been kicked out of the culture, according to Smith. 9 New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Smith said, despite local church planting by Southern Baptists many of the churches in these provinces have either died out or been turned into art museums. Smith says sharing the gospel in Canada often calls for new, unique and creative tactics in lieu of traditional hard-sell methods. In a country where so many know of Jesus Christ only as a curse word, tangibly reflecting the love and compassion of Christ proves more successful. On an airplane recently, I met a young French woman who was a social worker in Trois Rivierre, Quebec, one of the most unreached cities per capita in all of North America, he said. Not only was she a social worker, she had a caseload of 50 unwed pregnant teenagers, average age 13. I asked her if she had ever heard of Jesus Christ and she gave the typical reply. Yes, Jesus is a curse word. I told her, No, He s much more than that... He loves moms and babies. Église de Rocher Vivant Communauté Chrétienne (Church of But the same holds true for the Living Rock) gives away Bibles and introduces ministries of Protestant churches in other the church at a booth during Family Fest Canadian provinces such as Continued on page 10

10 Montreal: 5 million people Continued from page 9 Smith got her address and phone number and weeks later, told the young social worker s story at a Baptist missions conference in Florida. The folks in Florida got so fired up that five weeks later, I had these huge boxes delivered to my doorstep in Montreal. We opened them A city park in Montreal, Quebec. up and it was incredible baby snowsuits, diapers, wipes, things for the moms, etc. When Smith drove to Trois Rivierre to personally deliver the baby items to the social worker, she and her colleagues told him, it s so incredible what you ve provided. And I told them, No, Jesus Christ provided these things for you today. This is who He is. That was these Canadian social workers introduction to the Gospel, Smith said, adding that reflecting Jesus compassion in any lost place can make the mission field there much softer to plow and harvest. Smith s church planting role for NAMB and the Canadian National Baptist Convention is much bigger than himself to the extent that he partners with fellow missionary Jeff Christopherson in Toronto, and oversees volunteer church planting advocates stationed in other Canadian provinces. Toronto is the most culturally diverse city on the planet, according to Christopherson. In 2001, over 50 percent of the Toronto population was born outside Canada. By 2016, there will be more than 1 million Mandarinspeaking Chinese from mainland China living in the Greater Toronto area. But 95 percent of them will be unchurched. People don t realize it, but there are more Italians in Toronto than any place else in the world outside of Italy. You go to Brampton, a city of 400,000, and there are 90,000 Sikhs there. There are 50,000 Bengalis in Toronto. Christopherson said Toronto is also Canada s headquarters for the country s major corporations, media outlets, the Canada Stock Exchange and the major banks making the city a combined New York City and Los Angeles. As such, Toronto impacts the rest of Canada. 10

11 Toronto: a culturally diverse city Gary and I work well together, said Christopherson. He s an incredible guy one of the most catalytic people I ve ever met. Public skating rink in downtown Toronto, Ontario. Photo by Elena Elisseeva, Dreamstime.com Although Smith who recently shifted his home base from Montreal to Winnipeg, Manitoba is primarily responsible for Eastern Canada, including Montreal, and Christopherson oversees Toronto, the two men say there are no turf battles. We see ourselves working together, and there is no this is my city or this is your city, says Smith. We don t care whose name is on what we want to see these two strategic cities reached for Christ. In Toronto, we need to see an explosion, he said. Jeff is right now following up on nearly 50 potential new church planters. We don t have enough people, resources, or staff. It seems impossible to reach Toronto. But like the Old Testament says, I ll make a way where there seems to be no way. Another Canadian church planter, Jarret Hamilton, who pastors Affinity Church in a Toronto suburb, Oshawa, also sings Smith s praises. Gary is, first and foremost, an enormous encourager and supporter, Hamilton said. Like everything we do, he s the first 11 one to celebrate and the first one to offer encouragement. Gary also has a tremendous amount of wisdom and knowledge that he passes on. But one thing I appreciate is that Gary doesn t force it on you. He waits for you to ask for it and then gives you insight and encouragement. And what does the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering do for church planters in Canada? I m thinking of a guy in New Brunswick, said Smith. It s a dynamic church plant, supported by the Annie offering. They ve led over 200 people to Christ in this one church plant. And that s because of the Annie offering that supports that church plant. I believe a church planting movement can arise out of Canada that would turn the tide for North America. For more information on this year s Week of Prayer missionaries and the ministries of the North American Mission Board, visit

12 North American Mission Offering Ways Your Offering Could Be Used Did you know? $1 New Testament for an unbeliever $5 Study book used in literacy missions $10 Bible in a Bucket delivered to Native Alaskan homes in the Arctic $25 Sports Bibles for distribution to collegiate athletes $50 Refreshments for a children s evangelistic outreach event $100 Newspaper ad for a new church plant $250 Signs advertising location and worship times for a new church start $500 Materials and supplies for a new church plant to hold its first Vacation Bible School 12 There are 5,500 North American missionaries serving in church planting and evangelism, church and community ministries. 3 out of 4 people have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. The mission field has come to us in North America with people groups from all over the world at our doorstep. What will you give? What will you do? How will you live with urgency to sow, reap, and celebrate for God s harvest? North American Mission Board

13 Who is Annie Armstrong? Each year, we honor the life and work of Annie Walker Armstrong ( ) when we give to the annual offering for North American missions named after her. As a tireless servant of God and a contagious advocate and supporter of mission efforts throughout the world, Annie Armstrong led women to unite in mission endeavors that ultimately led to the formation of Woman s Missionary Union, for which she served as the first corresponding secretary. Annie believed in Christ with all her heart, but it was her hands that expressed that belief in tangible ways. She spent a great amount of time typing and handwriting letters in support of missions. Many of these letters were quite lengthy and all were filled with conviction that more could and should be done in our mission efforts. In 1893 alone, she wrote almost 18,000 letters! Annie also never hesitated to use her hands to reach out to hug a child or distribute food and clothing and the Word of God to those in need. Her hands held her own Bible as she studied to know how best to share God s love with others. And, most important, Annie was a woman of prayer, folding her hands in prayer to intercede for the missionaries and for those they were helping discover Christ. Annie rallied churches to give more, pray more, and do more for reaching people for Christ. As we continue to unite to make her vision a reality in North America today, we can be confident that her legacy will also be ours. Annie Walker Armstrong ( ) Source: 13

14 Opportunities for Mission Service namb missionaries are appointed career missionaries who serve in a variety of areas. msc (mission service corps) missionaries serve at least 20 hours per week for at least 4 months. They are often self-supported and receive training and ministry assistance from the NAMB. semester missionaries are university students who assist local churches, campus ministries, and NAMB missionaries with evangelism and church planting. They serve for four to ten weeks during the fall, spring, or summer semester. summer missionaries are university student who assist local churches, campus ministries, and NAMB missionaries with evangelism and church planting. They serve four to ten weeks in the summer. 14

15 Opportunities for Mission Service innovators is designed for students who desire a hands-on experience of taking their Christian witness to the work place. Innovators work at a secular job (usually 40 hours a week) while assisting local missionaries (8-10 hours a week) in evangelism and church planting. us/c2 missionaries are univesity graduates who serve two years. NAMB believes US/C2 missionaries make a significant contribution in reaching North America for Christ. nehemiah church planters have received seminary classroom training and had field experience under proven pastors in how to lead people to evangelize and build a reproducing local church. After completing the church planting program, a student can be assisted financially and with coaching in planting a new church. Nehemiah church interns are still in their first two years of training. For more information or to apply to be a missionary: 15

16 CNBC Goal $80,000 cnbc Canadian National Baptist Convention 100 Convention Way Cochrane, AB, Canada Printed February, 2009