Journey’s 2019 Missionaries’ Christmas Wish List
Special Announcement:
Introduction
Along with my wife and two daughters, it was my great privilege to serve as a missionary for twenty years.
Our family’s years in missionary service were wonderful ones, though they most certainly had their challenges. What missionary family doesn’t know challenges: pulling up stakes, moving overseas, cultural adaptation, language learning, relationships, finances, endless visa papers, learning how to share the Gospel, local church ministry, relating to the national church, area church politics, itineration and life on the road, educating children, medical, four years of separation from family in the US, etc.
Don’t get me wrong: we have no complaints of any kind. Given the choice, we would go back and do it all over again. Joyfully. Gratefully.
The truth be told, we miss our life overseas.
Think of it! Out of all the people in all the world, God called us to serve in a land, language, and culture not our own. Not at first anyway. Not because of any thing we had done to merit such favor, but only because it pleased God to call us. It pleased him to use these humble vessels to deliver His Gospel to people in other lands, languages, and cultures.
I will never get over my life as a missionary, and I never want to do so. There are two reasons. First and most important, obedience to the Great Commission: I went to deliver the transforming power of the Gospel to others – I never want to “get over” the necessity and joy of obeying God in His command to take the Gospel to all the world. Second, and only to be understood by those who have been boots-on-the-ground, learn-the-language, immerse-in-the-culture for years missionaries: I was transformed by the Gospel in my life through my years living and serving in foreign lands – this one took me by surprise.
Serving the Lord in overseas missions all those years is a gift that keeps on giving still today – the Gospel itself continues to transforms me, but in a new and unexpected way because of my missionary service.
And so, with twenty years of missionary service still in my heart and now five years of coaching missionaries, it is my joy to present this Christmas Wish List for Missionaries. The gift suggestions are not my own (though I certainly agree), but those of church history’s missionaries and missions leaders.
Journey Pastoral Coaching’s 2019 Christmas Wish List for Missionaries.
New Passports
“They were citizens of a higher country, and their true homeland was heaven. Their passion for the lost was great, because their passion for God was even greater still.” Biographers of Moravian missionaries John Leonard Dober & David Nitschman
A Map
“Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell.” C.T. Studd
Fire
“Get on fire for God and men will come and see you burn.” John Wesley
“Men ablaze are invincible. Hell trembles when men kindle.” Samuel Chadwick
Abandonment
“I have one desire now: to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.” Elisabeth Elliot, “Through Gates of Splendor”
A Story
“The Christian movement is the story of thousands of World Christians burning with a world vision, disciples who have lived and died standing in the Gap.” David Bryant, “In The Gap”
A Death Certificate
“Some missionaries bound for Africa were laughed at by the boat captain. “’You’ll only die over there,’” he said. But a missionary replied, “’Captain, we died before we started.’” Vance Havner
Ambition
“Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come . . . to preach the gospel of Christ.” Francis Xavier
Adventure
“The Great Commission is the Great Adventure of Christianity.” Ron Luce
A First Love
“The primary qualification for a missionary is not love for souls, as we so often hear, but love for Christ.” Vince Havner
Delight
“Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God’s delight in being God.” John Piper
A Home
“I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.” Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
Leaven
“The chief cause of the rapid spread and ultimate triumph of Christianity in the first three centuries of its history was the transformation the gospel made in the lives of the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. The spiritual power of the life “in Christ” caused individuals to rise to a morality and a loyalty to God and their families far above that of heathen religions. The daily life of the believers was a living union with Christ, ever seeking the glory of God and the salvation of men. . . . We are told that the virtue among Christians was like leaven to the whole civil and social life of nations.” Phillip Schaff
The Ability to Say “No”
“No reserves. No retreats. No regrets.” William Borden
Ears to Hear
“A missionary is one who never gets used to the sound of unbelievers’ footsteps on their way to a Christless eternity.” Unknown
Persistence in Primary Things
“The history of missions is the history of answered prayer. From Pentecost to the Haystack meeting in New England and from the days when Robert Morrison landed in China to the martyrdom of John and Betty Stam, prayer has been the source of power and the secret of spiritual triumph.” Samuel Zwemer
Intersections
“Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is — where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge.” Robert C. Shannon
A Tablet
“When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathen.” Memorial Tablet to John Geddie, the “father” of Presbyterian missions in the South Seas.
Bells
“Ring them bells so the world will know that God is one
Oh the shepherd is asleep
Where the willows weep
And the mountains are filled with lost sheep.” Bob Dylan, Ring Them Bells
A Lever and A Fulcrum
“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Archimedes
A Song Along the Way
“Sing it with your life, sing with your heart;
Make melody with the words of your mouth.
But mind that you listen, tell it to others.
Hear the chorus of faith,
Live the chorus of faith.” Michael Card, Chorus of Faith
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Special Note: We invite you to purchase our recently released book, “When the Call Comes,” written to help ministers as they walk with those who mourn. Unexpected, or after an extended illness, there is no pastoral responsibility, or privilege, that compares with shepherding people as they say their final goodbyes and mourn their loss. “When the Call Comes” helps pastors serve those who mourn, from the initial call to the end of the funeral. We address issues like:
“What is the purpose of a funeral and how do I conduct one?”
“What is my role as a pastor, walking families through grief?”
“What should I say when I meet with the family?”
“What do I do in the case of a difficult death: suicide, violence, or infant death?”
“Why do we conduct funeral and graveside services?”
“What do I do when ‘the call’ comes?”
You can read the preface to the book by clicking on this link or you can purchase your copy by clicking here.
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NOTE: Journey Pastoral Coaching exists to provide pastoral coaching to Millennial ministers.
Saddled with large student debt, just beginning to set up homes and start families, and serving in low paying first and second positions, Millennials are those who most desire but can least afford to pay for pastoral coaching.
So we offer it to them at NO COST: Our members do not PAY for coaching; they EARN it by investing in each other.
We are able to do so thanks to the faithful and generous support of individuals and churches like yours who want to see young leaders not only enter the ministry, but remain in the ministry. If you or your church would like to help Millennial ministers in 20 US states and 5 nations build strong for a lifetime in ministry, please click here to contact us by email or to support Journey monthly or with your one-time gift. Thank you.
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“In the early years when I was becoming a pastor, I needed a pastor.”
Eugene H. Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir
