August 01, 1985 by Ralph D. Winter

I guess it is slightly presumptions of me to try to specify exactly what God has done or how He has led. (He gets blamed for lots of things.) Indeed, the steps through which God has brought us are things we see as in a glass darkly." But we know He has been very patient, leading us a little at a time. Thus as I try here to explain His ways with us, please dent think that I consider my interpretations infallible, Even the hindsight that comes along later keeps changing as each new step of faith brings all of reality, past and present, into clearer focus. So! am telling you only how I think it was. Some day I expect to be able to'do better.

One Measure or Faith

Okay, let's go.

Brushing past many immensely rewarding and equally scary smaller steps and details, we came one day (early 1977) to the place where we either had to get an "option' (the exclusive right to buy the campus) or give up. At that moment, it was as though the trail of some months had suddenly led right up to a cliff facing a chasm a mile across!

Yet right then and there we were confronted by an amazing gift: we found we could buy an option for less than one tenth of its usual price. Still, what was required   $15,000  was in fact a hundred times as large as our resources. Within hours, however, two totally unsolicited gifts from people we barely knew appeared out of nowhere, and we paid the $15,000. That gave us six months to raise an impossible $850,000, which was the first part of the down payment.

Another Measure of Faith

In the midst of another strange and compelling 'measure" of faith, we immediately "wasted" three of those six months, painstakingly lining up mission leaders behind the concept of the project itself. When 45 had agreed to be consultants (out of 47 that we asked), we then turned actively to make our needs known to the public.

And Another Measure of Faith

Even that took faith. We had no mailing list, no constituency, no denominational backers. We didn't know how to use radio or television, even if we had the money to do so. We were in possession, uneasily

The Startling Nature of Faith

Faith is not something in our the cross, He acted in faith when He Rejoice ' Moses and Jesus and Paul power to create. And it is not said, "Remove this cup from me. Yet (as well as many others) each found that something we easily seek or readily not my will but thine be done.' What the obedience of faith involved a cross, choose. Each time it conies, it startles. He said was an ACT of faith. The faith It led, and it leads now, through thickets It is a startling gift of God! itself was the strange and amazing of difficulties as well as gracious Faith is not something we do, but confidence which allowed Him to say it. wonders and unworldly rewards for what God does. The Bible says (Heb Jam embarrassed to use so tragic a which they (and we) would not trade all 11:1) that it is the 'evidence of things scene from the Gospels to try to the worlds monetary wealth. The not (otherwise) seen.' Our response to illustrate something of our own simple fact of His presence and His faith is But the light of experience with faith. We have not been guidance is enough. What folly to seek faith (at which our believing obedience sweating great drops of blood, as Jesus any other reward. Faith is the victory! is acted out) is God's initiative, not did. But the parallel is there. We ours, It is of His making. It is not a certainly have been tested. You would resolve to be courageous. It is a think the path of faith would not The scriptural phrase "have faith" strange, quiet confidence that leads us embroil you in suspicions, accusations, means to acceptor lay hold of faith. and asks us into things that we would misunderstandings, doubts close to Similarly, "faith comes by hearing" "never in the world" do on our own. We despair. means God gives more faith to those make "steps of faith," but the prior At such times the Bible has been a who "hear" or "harken" to what light of reality is that God gives "measures of great solace if only to make clear what faith they already have. "To have faith" faith!" Paul put so bluntly: "All who live is not to create faith, then, but is a The leading of faith may look godly will suffer persecution," Jesus synonym for responding to faith, e.g., especially strange to others. It is hard, also warned us to expect believing obedience. Faith is the light perhaps impossible, to explain. It misunderstanding: "Blessed are you from God in which we believe/obey. simply IS! It may not even be when men revile you and persecute you And "obedience of faith" brings more attractive. It may be forbidding. Think and say all kinds of evil against you faith into our lives, more "light" in of Jesus in the garden, facing torture and falsely for my sake and the Gospel's, which to respond of a strange and compelling faith that there were enough of Gods people in this country who could (and who WOULD) pass the word on quickly enough to enable us to make that $850,000 payment.

You know the story. We came down to the last few days and had only $550,000; hours before the deadline we were short a third of a million dollars, and two Christian organizations and one individual came forward with $100,000 each as loans   without any prompting from us and with no security. (Note that God did not give faith for this project to us alone! Who knows, perhaps our faith has never exceeded that of others whom God has moved to join us.)

Still Another Measure of Faith

The next "burden of faith that took us unawares' was even more unusual. It was so contrary to conventional wisdom that it took us months before we felt sure enough to move ahead. In short, we gave in to a strange additional measure of faith that God would supply all our needs even if we only asked for onetime small gifts. (Some missions ask for nothing.) We felt it would be honorable to avoid like the plague any "fund raising" that either cost a lot of money or diverted funds headed toward existing mission enterprises.

For example, we were concerned that in buying such a large piece of property, we might possibly attract more than our share of attention and tempt mission minded people to shift their giving to us rather than digging down for new money. Also, in the light of this peculiar faith, the last place to which we felt we should appeal for funds was to church mission budgets. But we gradually began to realize that almost every conventional mechanism of fund raising could conceivably damage the sources of giving of the other agencies.

But the clincher for the small gilt route   however much more difficult it might be, was the startling realization that being forced to reach a large number of people would have the incomparable advantage of fulfilling simultaneously one of our most fundamental purposes: namely, to give a large number of people a brand new aggressive optimism about the overall cause of world missions. Recently I have called this 'The Priceless Vision In spite of our own project's needs for funds, we felt compelled by God to direct the major part of our time to awakening the sleeping (or perhaps distracted) giant of American evangelicalism. We have tried in each new step of faith to set forth an accurate picture of God's continual faithfulness in land after land across the globe, giving hope that even in our generation, or, by the year 2000, we could finish the job of evangelizing all peoples on earth. How to spread this electrifying new HOPE that would nourish the work of all mission agencies? That is the urgent question!Yet it has been difficult for us to decide to dedicate most of our time to mobilizing the American church when our need to raise funds for our own property has been so great. Furthermore, the decision was not easy to explain. But the best decisions are not always the easiest decisions. It is not necessarily hard to follow the pathway of faith, but it is not characteristically easy either, Thus it was the same strange and compelling faith that led us to work for the financial benefit of other missions when our own project was in such jeopardy. Yet God has blessed those efforts.

How It Has Worked

A. For example, millions of dollars have come in to other organizations employing the Frontier Fellowship Global Prayer Digest, which we produce. As we intended, far, far more has come to others than to us. Twenty two organizations now have their own imprint editions. (Fifteen more are right now enquiring about special editions of their own.) Even for these other organizations, the Frontier Fellowship

MISSIONS: YOUR PERSONAL CRISIS (SELF TEST: Are you UNwilling to be a missionary?)

This crisis is yours (as well as mine). You didn't ask for it, but you cannot shake it. It is no more an option for you to face than is the soon coming of Jesus Christ. As followers of our Lord, we're not of this world, but we are in the world by His appointment.

It's His creation from the dazzling and unfathomable mysteries of the subatomic particles to the stunning glories of outer space.

There's a lot wrong with it. There's much more that is right about it. There is the vile, the immoral, the hateful. There is also the sterling character, the stubborn determination, the gentle, firm true love, the inner drive of those who have discovered both the majesty of God and the incredible concrete excitement of His purposes for His people.

Where do you stand in all this? Stop and pray. Be on tiptoe. Reach out with your "utmost for His highest."

If you've done that, then missions becomes a crisis of opportunity, not a crisis of fear or of drawing back is primarily a vision spreading rather than a fund raising activity. Soon we will begin to employ our own imprinted version, but our version will constantly remind people of the growing list of other organizations to which they may prefer to be related. No one on our staff has had a more powerful impact in the spreading of "the priceless vision" than the changing handful of faithful writers who produce that precious booklet. But that's only an example.

B. Another example is our Touch Ten" plan. When missionaries or even mission agencies have asked about participating in this, we have made it clear that we are not asking them to ask THEIR supporters for $15 for us, but that they ask their supporters to mail out ten invitations to their friends, on our behalf. Thus the money to us would not come from their own supporters, but from their supporters' friends, while all new names arising from those invitations would then go to the cooperating agencies for their follow up. (We are not trying to develop a permanent giving constituency. We are trying to help other agencies to do so.)

C. Still another example is the Mission 2000 plan. There about 88% of all of the money coming in goes to the cooperating agencies, and our project is merely one of many "neutral crucial activities which would benefit from the other 12%. All in all we might 1% of the money coming in.

More Startling Still

Our most recent leading   the most radical yet   has been to propose the "missionary lifestyle" challenge to all believers everywhere. We have suggested that people either find out the precise level of consumption expected in the case of a specific mission agency (ours if they wish) and follow that, or that they try out a trimming down of one third for three months, whichever is less "disastrous." Already some valiant families have decided to do this. (See box.)

However, the point here is that this proposal is for the benefit of all agencies. People may send what they save each month for three months to us, but we hope they will like the idea of "living as a missionary" well enough to live this way from now on. You'll notice that we have printed in this issue an update of our own "Mission Associate" plan, which allows families across America to enlist as missionary associates while staying in their present employment, theft extra time as well as their extra funds being held out for mission giving to any mission, no matter which mission they belong to as Associates. (See pages 27 and 28 for details.)

One verse that sums it all up is Matt 6:33. Dare we apply that to a project? Or to the life of a whole community of believers here working on the staff? We believe so. It thus reads, "Seek first the spreading of the Vision and all these small gifts (or large advances) will be added unto you."

As you know, we have been tested again and again in our obedience to this kind of strange and compelling faith. We have not always had the money we needed to meet our own payments, and consequently the interest rate is now up, from 8% on one half of the property and 8 1/2% on the other to 12% on both halves.

Frustration, Survival, Victory?

Not everyone has understood this "small gift plan" and may have felt frustrated in trying to help us. Others have given lavishly of their time in spreading the vision (and thus increasing the number of small gifts coming in).

Still others, unasked, have responded with large gifts, sometimes over and over again. When this has happened, we have not felt we should argue with their leading, nor have we felt it went against our own. We have simply thanked God for their faithfulness and obedience, even as we have also tried to be faithful and obedient.

Interestingly, the $7 million that we have received thus far has come mainly from these unsolicited larger gifts. Still, in time, once this campus is completely paid for with small gifts, we expect to repay or reassign the larger ones. (If from churches or missions we will return them;. If from individuals, we will reassign them at the donor's preference to other mission projects.) We do not know when we will be able to do this It may be one year, two years, perhaps five years from now. It obviously cannot be until the campus is completely paid for and small gifts continue to come in to replace those larger advances which have helped in the meantime. We expect to follow the same procedure for any other large gifts that we receive in the future, such as the new "1/3 x 3" gifts (from people who have joined with us in giving 1/3 of theft income for 3 months).

But notice! Now, for the first time in eight years, we are asking for large gifts. Has our faith failed? No. But the circumstances under which we are operating have changed considerably. It is now necessary to pay off this campus as soon as possible so as not to end up paying millions of dollars in extra interest. The increase in interest is deadly. Just as earnestly as we believed God wants us to continue to ask for small gifts, we believe that I ic wants us to ask for large "advances" to pay off the campus right away. We are crippled in our work with the stress generated by financial uncertainties.