July 01, 1994 by Rick Wood

Bring Back The King?

wood.JPG (4591 bytes)In this issue we talk about whether it is a Biblical necessity for us to complete the Great Commission before the Lord Jesus will return. Matt. 24:14 clearly indicates that world evangelization is a prerequisite to the Lord's coming. But the real question is how much do we want Him to return and what sacrifices are we willing to make in order to reach all peoples and clear away any and all obstacles to His return.

Some believe that Matt. 24:14 will be fulfilled supernaturally by the Lord during the tribulation period. Whether this is true or not does not change the Great Commission that Jesus gave us nor our obligation to do all we can to fulfill it in obedience. Jesus has patiently waited for almost 2,000 years for us to obey Him and complete the assignment He gave us to do. Jesus in John 17:4 said to the Father, "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do." It is our responsibility to glorify God by completing the work that Jesus gave us to do. That work is clearly to penetrate all peoples with the gospel, to "disciple the ethne" as the greek says in Matt. 28:19. It is time for us to take the Great Commission to reach all peoples very seriously.

The question is, How much longer will the world-wide Church keep the Lord waiting while we invest our lives, energies, monies, and time in lesser priorities. Let us commit ourselves to giving it our best to bring the gospel to every people by the year 2000. What is within our power to do we are obligated to do.

Paying for MF

As you can see on the next two pages we are making some progress in paying for MF but the pace has greatly slowed from the encouraging pace in January. If we continue at the current rate we will not succeed in covering the costs for MF this year. We will be forced to drain badly needed funds from other US Center projects in order to pay for this service. We are half way through this year and we have covered just over one fourth of the expenses. At this rate we might pay for half of the expenses by the end of the year. We are hoping that enough people will step forward to cover the costs for 1994. All we need is for 1.3% of the 77,000 people in the US who receive MF to respond with a gift of $136.50 or more. That is just a little more than one out of one hundred. I am asking each of you again to seriously pray about supporting Mission Frontiers with your gift of $136.50 or more. Smaller gifts are also appreciated. If you believe in the value and potential of MF to mobilize the world-wide Church, then please consider helping us. MF can only be as powerful of a tool for world evangelization as you enable it through your prayers and financial support. I hope that many of you will step forward to join me in making MF an even more effective tool for world evangelization.

We are doing all we can to lower our costs while at the same time attempting to make MF available to even more key Christian leaders overseas. We have begun printing and mailing MF for overseas distribution from India, saving over $67,000 a year while adding 12,000 Christian leaders in India for just 4 cents each. We are serious about bringing the vision of reaching all peoples to as many as will listen and doing so in the most cost effective way possible in order to be good stewards of the funds given to us.

I believe that one of the chief reasons for our failure to evangelize the world is a lack of vision and an inadequate understanding of the nature of the task. MF can give that vision to an exploding third world missionary movement that if properly trained and strategically deployed can have a tremendous impact on world evangelization. I would like you to be a partner with us in seeing to it that we are able to continue to provide this valuable resource to these key Christian leaders. I hope to hear from you soon.

"Summer Taste" is a delicious success!

Those of you who live in the US may have noticed a special invitation on the back cover of the last issue of MF inviting all of our friends to a special event that we called Summer Taste. It was a great time of fun and learning as our guests got to meet the staff and gain an understanding of what we are doing and why we are here. We had a tremendous response with around 150 coming for three days and an additional 50 coming for just the activities of Saturday June 4th. It was very encouraging for all of us on staff to meet some of our friends who are following this ministry and believe in what we are trying to do. I trust that we succeeded in being a blessing to them as well; sending them back home with a renewed vision to reach all of the unreached peoples. I overheard one participant say to another, "This is the best three days I have had in a long time." We hope to have another event like "Summer Taste" again sometime in the next year. If you wanted to come this time but were unable, we hope that we will get to meet you here the next time or come by anytime for a visit.