June 2019 Newsletter

We hope and pray that this month you are doing well in the Lord. University classes are going well. We just crossed the halfway point in this class. One thing that stood out to me from my Church Planting reading today (June 24) is from David Hesselgrave’s book Planting Churches Cross-Culturally. He writes,
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"But prayer is more than the starting point. It is the continuing force behind the entire program of outreach. Over and over the apostle Paul exhorted believers in the churches to pray not just for their personal needs, but for him and for the work of Christ among the lost. And pray they did. And pray we should. After all, they and we are servants who minister to the Lord of the Church. We are children who should be communicating with our Father about the family business. We are solders – in an army that goes forward only on its knees!" 

Yes! We, the Church, must be about our Father’s business! What is the Father’s business? In the words of T.A. Hegre, a founder of Bethany International, “No matter who we are, we are called to be workers together with God in His great program of rescue and recovery – the evangelization of the whole world.” This great work is empowered by the Holy Spirit through prayer. 

In connection with the local church and every believer making its mission “the evangelization of the whole world,” I am led to bring to everyone’s attention a local church for their commendation and our encouragement. Kabekona Community Church (KCC), a small church up in the northern Minnesota town of Bemidji, has decided to take us on as missionaries to be sent out. The Missions Director told me, “The missions program is just one part of the church that we are using to reach the end goal: Glorifying God through obedience to Him and seeing souls transferred from the kingdom of darkness and into the Kingdom of His Dear Son!” To encourage the church as a whole “to keep missions in front of the congregation throughout the year, and in a relatively easy way, guide the folks into greater missions awareness and involvement,” they have given a “Missions Challenge” for the year 2019. What is included in this KCC Missions challenge? 

1) Pray regularly for our missionaries this year. 

2) Challenge your faith by reading two missionary biographies. 

3) Visit or correspond with two of our missionaries two times each. 

4) Give regularly and purposefully to missions.

5) Pray for two unsaved families and invite them into your home two times. 


The Missions Director went on to say,

"Yes, we are stretching ourselves from where we have been historically, but I believe that much of what God has provided for His eternal work on earth, is being tightly held by His stewards instead of being released for the purposes that it was intended.  So, we are challenging the congregation to pray and examine their giving before God this month, and then call them to be obedient to what He has revealed to each one individually.  Specifically, we will be reiterating the need that our partners in the Gospel, the Witts, have, and that the Benson's seem to be the answer to the prayer for the very real need.  Now we trust that God has provided the resources to get the Benson's fielded and a portion of that support likely resides with the congregation of KCC!  So, let's give it! Show the need, pray about our part in fulfilling that need, and then acting in obedience to meet the need, by God's grace!"  
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It is of great encouragement that a church with zero history with my wife and I are getting behind us with such whole-hearted urgency! They are obeying 3 John 1:5-8 by supporting us strangers. The Gospel must go and will go forth to the Unreached People Groups of the world who, without outside infiltration (missionaries), will not be reached with the Good News of Jesus.