As I drove past bland house after bland house - Sarah Susanka

In the mid-1990s, when I’d been working as a residential architect for more than a decade, I had an epiphany one day while driving though the suburbs of Des Moines, Iowa. I had started noticing that new houses were getting extremely large, and decidedly unattractive. For miles and miles, all I could see were these “starter castles” marching across the prairies, looking self-important and soulless. At that point, I was spending most of my time designing homes that were better, not bigger; homes that fit the way my clients really lived, rather than a formal lifestyle that few people ever lived anymore.

As I drove past bland house after bland house, I realized that most homeowners did not know there was another option. They were only being shown the giant columns, windowless walls, and cathedral ceilings. If they only had access to the design principles that I used every day, we’d start seeing fewer McMansions and more high-quality homes with character, perfectly suited to the lives of their inhabitants.

The inspiration for what became a best-selling book series was born that day, and in 1998, the first in that series—The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live—was published, to almost immediate acclaim. Within a few months of its release, I was on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which catapulted me out of my architectural practice and into the life of a celebrated writer and public speaker. 

https://susanka.com/where-it-all-began/

An Individual Gospel - E Stanley Jones

"An Individual Gospel without a social gospel is a soul without a body; and a social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul.  One is a ghost and the other a corpse" E. Stanley Jones

 

All truth is God's Truth Publisher: IVP - Arthur F Holmes

It [the Gospel of John] presents the Logos as co-oeternal and coequal with God, and as the personal creator who transcends the world he makes from nothing. In the beginning was the Word  (John 1.1) echoes the opening words of Genesis: In the beginning God created and God said, "In Hebrew thought a word is not a detached comment, but a creative act, a decree that effects what it declares (cp. Ps 33:8-9; Isa 55.10-11) John's Logos also recalls the personified wisdom who governs the nations, rewards the just, and existed from the beginning of creation (Prove 8.35). John therefore declares that the Logos is personal, and one with God: He is creator of all and he gives life and light to men. By incarnating himself, he revealed both grace and truth(john 1:1-14)

The Logos is revealed both in the Incarnation and in the written words of the Scripture and, if less specifically, in the intelligible order of his creation. Hence non-Christians as well as Christians perceive the truth, if fragmentarily. All truth, no matter where it be found or by whom it be discovered, is still God's truth.

The scriptures and the church fathers clearly placed the focus on truth, they perceived its universality, and they recognized the ultimate unity of all truth in God. They believed, passionately so, that all truth is God's truth no matter where it be found. Yet today the Christian faith is too often seen as a private affair of the heart without reference to the larger scope of human knowledge and cultural affairs. Such a faith is too small to match the understanding which the early church had of the message of Scripture. God is creator and Lord of All; Jesus Christ reaffirms this by becoming incarnate to redeem human life. For the Christian, then, all of life matters and all of thought. All our learning must somehow fit together. Of course, A now we know in part and we see these things through a glass darkly.[1 Corinthians 13:12] But the Christian gospel of hope pertains among other things to our knowing and understanding the truth.

Reactions against a compromising identification appear in relation to political and social involvement as well as theological beliefs. Tertullian, for instance, spoke out in the early church against Christian participation in governmental and military affairs and against many of the social practices of the day, and some have argued that the church forfeited its early purity when it joined with the Roman Empire. When the Middle Ages wedded church and state and thereby identified the church with the social and political status quo, reforming and separatist movements arows: Fracisican, Waldensian, and others. In post-Refomation times, the Anabaptists refused to participate in many governmental tasks because the social and moral compromises they saw it would involve. In nineteenth-century Denmark, Søren Kierkegaard protested vigorously against a state church wherein one became a Christian willy-nilly by being born a Dane. And in the past few years, some of the Jesus people have repudiated the church's identification with what they see as an effete middle-class establishment and have developed a counter-culutre life-style instead.

All of these reactions are essentially counter-cultural, and each in its time contributed needed perspective to the life of the church. To identify the church with any historical status quo is a tragic betrayal of the church=s calling. To accept uncritically the structures of the present betrays a weakened doctrine of sin and loses that holy discontent which is always hungry for righteousness.

To identify Christianity with a historical culture loses sight of transcendent moral law. That the moral practices and social institutions of the day have been to easily hallowed by the church is evident in regard to war, slavery, work, sex, marriage, the status of women, and especially in America, a capitalist economy and democratic institutions.

Jacques Elul is a former French underground leader and mayor of Bordeaux, a Law professor, and a prolific writer on sociological and theological topics. He rejects both the identification of Christianity with current cultural movements and the practice of withdrawing from the world and its problems. In The Presence of the Kingdom, he maintains instead that the Christian is called to Challenge the suicidal direction of the world by spiritual means. We cannot hope to change society, for there are no universal moral rules as a basis for a political agreement between the Christian and a secular world. We must therefore learn to put up with the tension between sacred and secular, and develop a Christian lifestyle in response to the demand of God=s kingdom upon us. Thereby we shall bear witness to the hope we have in God.

Since the Christians cannot expect to change society for the better, Ellul refuses to sanctify secular methods or theories of politics or law or violence by making up a Christian justification of violence. He may have to us political or violent means as he does legal means because he lives in the world; but they are forced on him by the necessities of history, not chosen because they are either right of Christian.

The idea of a Christian culture or a normative Christian social ethic or a Christian political theory(as distinct from a Christian critique of society) is alien to Ellul. Ellul's doctrine of sin thus obscures both the doctrine of creation and the biblical conception of unchanging, universal and unified truth rooted in the God in whom we hope.

Whatever men do that is right and good they do by the goodness of God, for every good gift comes from above. Whatever men know they know by the grace of God, for all truth is God's truth wherever it be found.

Pilates' question is still with us[what is truth]. It was a rhetorical question, occasioned by Jesus claim to bear witness to the truth. Perhaps it expressed his cynicism about the perennial religious and political disagreements of Jesus accusers, rather than voicing a serious inquiry, But his words were spoken out of the divided philosophical background of a Roman culture. On the one hand, stoics and Platonists dogmatically maintained that truth is unchanging and universal, the same for everyone, that it is rooted in the unchanging rational structure of what is ultimately real, and that while it transcends changing human opinions it is nonetheless accessible to a disciplined logical mind. On the other hand, skeptics argued that all judgments are relative, all arguments are indecisive, and all so-called knowledge is mere, opinion, and truth if indeed there be any that is unchanging and unknown remains utterly unknown.

Emil Brunner sees revelation as a personal confrontation, an I-thou experience of God conceived on the model of Martin Buber's distinction between interpersonal experience with others as human subjects(I- Thou) and the more detached relationships(I-It) in which we treat things and propositions and even people as objects. When I talk about a person or my relationship to him, I make him an object instead of a subject; I depersonalize him and reduce the I-thou experience to the I-it level. For Bruner, revelation is a direct personal encounter with GodI(I-Thou). Propositions about God (I-It) reduce God to an object of thought and thereby falsify the truth of the encounter. The Bible is about (I-it) God's personal revelation (I-thou), and not itself a divine revelation to men. Accordingly, it remains a fallible human witness to God's revelation and can provide no royal road to learning, however insightful its witness may be

Author: Arthur F Holmes

Date: 1977

Source: All truth is God's Truth

Publisher: IVP

City: Leicester, UK

Its a wonderful life and ministry- sketch

 

It's a Wonderful Life

Helping a New Generation Enter a New Land

It;s a Wonderful Life

Purpose: To demonstrate how the important role of Senders is in completing the Great Commission.

Roles:

Angel 1 (small part) George (big part)

Joseph (small part) Clarence (big part)

Young couple (no speaking)

Joe Hobbs (no speaking)

Couple with suitcases (no speaking)

Scene 1:

(Angel 1) and Joseph with flashlights behind a dark background with holes in it to simulate the

beginning of the movie.

Angel 1: You called me, Joseph?

Joseph: Yes, we have a little problem down on earth with a man named George Sender.

Angel 1: Oh, George Sender is a fine, upstanding man. What could possibly be the problem

with him?

Joseph: George has been running the race well up until now, but he seems to have lost his

drive; he=s become despondent. Can you spare anyone at the moment to help him out?

Angel 1: Well, let me see; according to my records it looks like Clarence is up again.

Joseph: Clarence, huh? He really is a disaster looking for a place to happen (pause for

laughter). Well it can=t be helped. Please summon him and tell him that I=d like a word with him.

Angel 1: Certainly sir.

(Another light appears from the left side of the background and joins the others.)

Clarence: (out of breath) You sent for me, sir?

Joseph: Yes, Clarence, there is a man down on earth who needs our help. His name is

George Sender, and he has become very depressed lately. We need to help him understand his worth.

Clarence: Certainly sir, I=d love to help. But, uh, sir ...

Joseph: Yes, what is it?

Clarence: About last time...

Joseph: Oh, never mind about that, but please be more careful this time.

Clarence: Yes Sir.

Joseph: Now report to the library, you=ve got a lot of work to do. You need to understand

everything about George Sender and the culture in the place where he lives.

Clarence: Uh, where=s that?

Joseph: Southern California; you are familiar with the dialect of English spoken there, aren't you?

Clarence: (In Valley speak) Yeah, dude, no problem.

Joseph: (clears throat) Yes, well, perhaps while you're at the library you can brush up on that. Now run along.

Clarence: Oh, and sir ...

Joseph: Yes, what is it now?

Clarence: If I should, uh, well, if I should complete this mission successfully; do you think that I might earn my wings?

Joseph: Yes! Now get out of here!

Scene 2:

George sitting on a park bench looking depressed. Clarence enters stage left wearing a ridiculous

beach outfit.

Clarence: Hey, George Sender, dude! What's up!

George: Oh Nothin= Mu.... Say, how did you know my name? I've never seen you before.

(turning his head away) I'd remember you.

Clarence: I'm Clarence, your guardian angel. I've been sent to help you.

George: My guardian angel, huh? That figures. I might have known I'd have a guardian angel like you. Say, if you're from some cult, I really don't have time, and I don't want to buy any flowers. Just leave me alone.

Clarence: And I know a lot more about you than just your name, George. For instance, I know that you are a very important person at _________________ (church). You are much more important than you imagine.

George: Oh sure, I'm an important person. Look at me, I've got VIP written all over me. Oh, I get it! Did Wendy England send you? I bet you're trying to get me to work in the nursery.

Clarence: No, really George, I've been sent to help you. If you would only tell me your troubles.

George: You want to help me ... Oh... Ok, maybe you'll get bored and go away. But don't forget, you asked for it. Until lately I thought I had a pretty good life. I have a good job and a great wife and kids. I guess you could also say that I'm pretty active at church too ‑‑ but you said you knew that already. Anyway, I=m part of a couple of prayer groups at church; I witness to my neighbors when I get the chance, and the wife and I have been doing what we can to support the missionaries we have overseas.

Clarence: Well, George, it sounds to me like you're a rich man.

George: Rich, are you kidding? After all we're doing, we only keep just enough to live on. Sam Potter, my neighbor, now there's a rich man. Just yesterday he comes and tells me about his big promotion. He drives a big fancy sports car and just remodeled his house. I can't even afford an upgrade.

Clarence: But George, you know, even if Sam Potter doesn't, that a man's wealth isn't wrapped up in all those things, but in how he touches the lives of others. You've dedicated

your life to taking the blessings God has given you and passing them on to others. You have earned for yourself the richest title God bestows on any man. You, my friend, are God's Stewart.

George: The word is Steward, and I'm not so sure I buy that line anymore. What good am I really doing anyway? I spend my time teaching at home fellowship and discipling others and what good has it done? Just last month I organized people to send care packages to our missionaries. Did you know that not one of them has ever written me even a postcard? What does my work mean to them, or anyone? ... No one notices the work I do. Oh, why should they? Only people with exciting ministries get acknowledged. So, why should I even bother? I ask you, uh, what did you say your name was again?

Clarence: Clarence.

George: I ask you, Clarence, how in the world can you say that I am an important person. I think everyone would be better off if I had never been born!

Clarence: Never been born! Oh George, really that's... Wait a minute... OK, you have your wish. You've never been born. Let's just see how lives are different now that you've never been born.

Scene 3:

Young couple walks in stage left. They sit down and begin studying books. The husband becomes increasingly agitated and finally throws the book down. His wife comes over to comfort him but he pushes her away.

George: Say, what's going on here? Those are the Driscolls. They're in Japan studying language.

Clarence: Yes, and right now they are struggling with language learning, going through culture shock and are very homesick and discouraged. What they need is an encouraging letter from home. Look, she's going to the mailbox now.

George: Well, they should have gotten that care package today or even yesterday.

Clarence: Yes, George, but you're forgetting, you don't exist.

(The woman opens the mailbox and a puff of dust comes out. She looks at her husband and shakes her head no. He looks more discouraged and buries his head in his hands. Freeze.)

George: Wait just one minute, fella. I've written them a dozen times in the last year. I even sent them a care package last Christmas. That mailbox hasn't been used in months!

Clarence: You weren't there to write those letters, George, because you don't exist. Now look over here.

(Stage right, a young man staggers in, head low with a bottle in his hand and leans against the

wall.)

George: Say, that's Joe Hobbs. What's he doing here? He's supposed to be in Japan. And

what's wrong with him, he looks drunk.

Clarence: That's because he is drunk, George, and he never made it to Japan.

George: Nonsense, he's been there planting churches for four years. Why, just last month he baptized 25 new believers. I helped get him there. We used to pray together every week for the Japanese. I've discipled him since his first year in college. You never saw such an on fire Christian young man. This can't be him.

Clarence: It is him. Joe turned his back on Christ when he was in college. You weren't there to disciple him.

George: Then that means...

Clarence: All the people in Japan whom he would have baptized have still never heard the gospel. Now look over here.

(Stage Left: A couple enters with suit cases. They are saying tearful good‑byes to unseen friends.)

George: Hey, that=s the Woolls. Why are they upset? It isn=t time for their furlough yet, is it?

Clarence: This is no furlough for them, George, they are leaving the field for good. They can't stay because their support has fallen off too far.

George: Well, I know that I couldn=t provide all their support, but I thought others from the church were helping also. What about all those at church who are praying for them? Doesn't that help?

Clarence: All of that could have helped a great deal, George, but you weren=t there to encourage the others at your church to pray for and give to missionaries. You'd be surprised

how important a good example can be.

George: Well that doesn't seem right. There are people who may never hear the gospel if they leave.

Clarence: Yes, their work is very important George, but missionaries can't make it to the field and stay there without faithful senders.

George: Look, I don't know who you are, but I don't like this crazy stunt you're pulling, see? You just put things back the way they were. Those people out there need me. I'm an important part of their ministry!

("Hark the Herald Angels Sing" begins playing in the background.)

Clarence: George, just listen to yourself! Do you hear what you're saying? You just said that you were an important person; a VIP, if you please. And you're right, George. A sender's life touches many different lives, even people who don't speak the same language; people who he will never meet until we're all together with the Lord.

George: (Turns and shakes Clarence's hand) Thank you, Clarence, for showing me that my efforts really do count. I think I can hang in there for a long time to come. You know, this may sound kind of dated, but I need to say it anyhow. Clarence, this is a wonderful life.

(Both walk off stage right. After applause, a small bell rings off stage.)

The End

Used by permission. Larry Walker/ACMC, 1637 E. Valley Parkway, Suite 145, Escondido, CA 92027. (619) 746‑4285. 1/98

invisible warfare - Rowland Bingham

 

There is a constant invisible warfare that has to waged against the powers of darkness...It is fashionable in the Western world to relegate belief in demons and devils to the realm of mythology, and when mentioned at all it is a matter of jest. But it is not jest in West Africa or any other mission field for that matter‑

Rowland Bingham as quoted in From Jerusalem To Irian Jaya page 297

How Odd Ideas Survive - Geoffrey Cowley

It all seems perfectly ludicrous: 39 people don their new sneakers, pack their flight bags and poison themselves in the solemn belief that a passing UFO will whisk them off to wonderland. The rest of us have more sense than that, right? Actually , whether we think Jesus died for our sins or assume that the federal government created the AIDS virus, most of us harbour beliefs for which hard evidence is lacking. In fact our firmest convictions are often the hardest to justify rationally.

Viruses of The mind: How Odd Ideas Survive 

Newsweek, 20 November 1997 Geoffrey Cowley

Some Characteristics of Someone Who Follows God

 Characteristics of Someone Who Follows God

• Attentive to Christ - John 10.34

• Blameless and Harmless - Phil 2.15

• Bold - Prov 28.1

• Contrite Heart - Isa 57.15, Isa 66.2

• Devoted - Acts 8.2, Acts 22.12

• Faithful - Rev 17.14

• Fearing God - Mal 3.16, Acts 10.2

• Following Christ - John 10.4 &27

• Godly - Psa 4.3, II Peter 2.9

• Guileless - John 1.47

• Holy - Deut 7.6, 14.2, Col 3.12

• Humble - Psa 34.2, I Peter 5.5

• Just - Gen 6.9

• Led by the Spirit - Rom 8.14, Generous Isa 32.8, 2 Cor 9.13

• Loathing Themselves For the Evil in Them - Eze 20.43

• Loving - Col 1.4

• Lowly in Spirit - Prov 16.19

• New Creatures - II Cor 5.17, Eph 2.10

• Obedient - Rom 16.19, I Peter 1.14

• Prudent - Prov 16.21

• Righteous - Isa 60.21, Luke 1.6

• Sincere - II Cor 1.12 & 2.17

• Steadfast - Acts 2.42, Col 2.5

• Taught of God  - Isa 54.13, I John 2.27

• True - 2 Cor 6.8

• Undefiled - Psa 119.1

• Upright - I King 3.6, Psalm 15.2

• Watchful - Luke 12.37

• Zealous of Gods Works -  Titus 2.14

 "BE" Attitudes

• Poor in Spirit 
• Meekness - Isa 29.19
• Mourn 
• Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness 
• Merciful Psalm 37.26
• Pure in Heart 
• Peace Makers 
• Those Who Are Persecuted Because of Righteousness 
• We Are Blessed When People Insult Us, Persecute Us, and Say False Things about Us.

With Thee - E.H Hamilton

 With Thee

Into the night

I'll go with Thee, O Christ,

Without a light

Into the darkness,

For with Thee there is no night.

Into the wild

I'll Go with thee, O Christ,

like a child

Into Thy garden,

For with Thee there is no wild.

E'en into death

I'll Go with Thee, O Christ,

Give my breath

Back to my Maker,

For with Thee there is no death.

E.H Hamilton Afraid of What page 17

World View on Prayer - Peace Cereal

What is prayer, the world believes in a god, the challenge is the god is nuanced. It is not the creator god, and in fact often it is we ourselves. They might use the words that we use but the underlying meaning is different. 

Prayer goes where it will. 

And when the heart gets in the prayer,

 every beat of the heart creates a miracle. 

Our power is in our prayer. 

And where prayer goes, God Follows.

AUTHOR: Yog Bhajan

Another collection of Quotes

 

1. “I have but one can of life to burn and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light” John Keith Falconer

2. It is high time to make known the glad tidings in these dark regions of sin and spiritual bondage. Samuel Marsden

3. We have all eternity to tell of victories won for Christ, but we have only a few hours before sunset to win them. Anonymous GOC

4. Its amazing what can be accomplished if you don’t worry about who gets the credit. Clarence W. Jones

5. If we are going to wait until every possible hindrance has been removed before we do a work for the Lord, we will never attempt to do anything. TJ Back

6. “Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees.” J Hudson Taylor

7. Here am I, Send Me! Isaiah

8. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Jim Elliot

9. 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 Zinsindorf

10. I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third places and teaching the fourth. James O. Fraser

11. This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Jesus 2 –32 – forever

12. We talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first. Oswald J smith

13. His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us no other choice. John Stott

14. Tell the students t five up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ. Francis Xavier

15. Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. CT Studd

16. Will the heathen who have not heard the Gospel be saved?… “ It is more a guestion with me whether we who have the Gospel and fail to five it to those who have not, can be saved. CH Spurgean

17. The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed. CH Spurgean

18. I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light" -- John Keith Falconer

19. "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply" -- Hudson Taylor [ video ]

20. "God isn't looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him" -- Hudson Taylor

21. "The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed" -- Hudson Taylor

22. "If I had 1,000 lives, I'd give them all for China" -- Hudson Taylor

23. "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God" -- William Carey, who is called the father of modern missions [ more info ]

24. "The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become." -- Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia

25. "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose" -- Jim Elliot, missionary martyr who lost his life in the late 1950's trying to reach the Auca Indians of Ecuador [ info on video ] [ brief biography ]\

26. "We are debtors to every man to give him the gospel in the same measure in which we have received it" -- P.F. Bresee, founder of the Church of the Nazarene

27. "In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been" -- Robert Moffat, who inspired David Livingstone

28. "Can't you do just a little bit more?" -- J.G. Morrison pleading with Nazarenes in the 1930's Great Depression to support their missionaries

29. "Lost people matter to God, and so they must matter to us." -- Keith Wright

30. "The Bible is not the basis of missions; missions is the basis of the Bible" -- Ralph Winter, U.S. Center for World Mission

31. "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

32. "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." -- C.T. Studd

33. "No one has the right to hear the gospel twice, while there remains someone who has not heard it once." -- Oswald J. Smith [ more on Oswald Smith ]

34. "This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth!" -- Keith Green

35. "There is nothing in the world or the Church -- except the church's disobedience -- to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility." -- Robert Speer, leader in Student Volunteer Movement

36. "If you found a cure for cancer, wouldn't it be inconceivable to hide it from the rest of mankind? How much more inconceivable to keep silent the cure from the eternal wages of death." -- Dave Davidson

37. "If God calls you to be a missionary, don't stoop to be a king" -- Jordan Groom (variations of this also credited to G. K. Chesterson, Thomas Carlyle and Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

38. "World missions was on God's mind from the beginning." -- Dave Davidson

39. "Let my heart be broken with the things that break God's heart" -- Bob Pierce, World Vision founder

40. "No reserves. No retreats. No regrets" -- William Borden

41. "The reason some folks don't believe in missions is that the brand of religion they have isn't worth propagating." -- unknown

42. When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages." To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."

43. "Someone asked Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved? It is more a question with me whether we -- who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not -- can be saved." -- Charles Spurgeon

44. "God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him." -- Hudson Taylor, missionary to China [ video ]

45. "The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time" -- Carl F. H. Henry

46. "Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop." -- Kurt von Schleicher [ Apple pickers' parable ]

47. "Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God's delight in being God." --John Piper

48. "You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving." -- Amy Carmichael, missionary to India

49. "Only as the church fulfills her missionary obligation does she justify her existence." -- Unknown

50. "As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both." -- J. L. Ewen

51. "The mission of the church is missions" -- Unknown

52. "Sympathy is no substitute for action." -- David Livingstone, missionary to Africa

53. "The command has been to 'go,' but we have stayed -- in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth ... but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland." -- Robert Savage, Latin American Mission

54. "People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives ... and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted." -- Nate Saint, missionary martyr [ devotional thoughts ]

55. "We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God." -- John Stott

56. "Believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story." -- K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia Bible Society

57. "We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first." -- Oswald J. Smith

58. "Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ." -- Francis Xavier, missionary to India, the Philippines, and Japan

59. "The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity." -- Mike Stachura

60. "'Not called!' did you say? Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face -- whose mercy you have professed to obey -- and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world. -- William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

61. "It is not in our choice to spread the gospel or not. It is our death if we do not." -- Peter Taylor Forsyth

62. If God's love is for anybody anywhere, it's for everybody everywhere. -- Edward Lawlor, Nazarene General Superintendent

63. "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

64. "People who don't believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world. The early church took Him at His word and went East, West, North and South." -- J. Howard Edington

65. "It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions." -- John R. Mott

66. "In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God's work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer." -- Dick Eastman, president of Every Home for Christ (formerly World Literature Crusade)

67. "What's your dream and to what corner of the missions world will it take you?" -- Eleanor Roat, missions mobilizer

68. "We can reach our world, if we will. The greatest lack today is not people or funds. The greatest need is prayer." -- Wesley Duewel, head of OMS International

69. "Love is the root of missions; sacrifice is the fruit of missions" -- Roderick Davis

70. "Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love" -- Roland Allen

71. "I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages - villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world."
    - Robert Moffat

72. "The command has been to "go," but we have stayed - in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth…But 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland."
    - Robert Savage

73. "While vast continents are shrouded in darkness…the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by God to keep you out of the foreign mission field."
    - Ion Keith-Falconer

74. "I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done for China…I don't know who it was…It must have been a man…a well-educated man. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn't willing…and God looked down…and saw Gladys Aylward…And God said - "Well, she's willing."
    - Gladys Aylward

75. "Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees."
    - J. Hudson Taylor

76. "The man…looking at him with a smile that only half concealed his contempt, inquired, "Now Mr. Morrison do you really expect that you will make an impression on the idolatry of the Chinese Empire?" "No sir," said Morrison, "but I expect that God will."
    - Robert Morrison

77. "Here am I. Send me."
    - Isaiah

78. "And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives…and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted."
    - Nate Saint

79. "Jehovah Witnesses don't believe in hell and neither do most Christians"
    - Leonard Ravenhill

80. "Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary."
    - C.T. Studd

81. "Young man, sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine."
    - said to a young William Carey

82. "Oh, that I had a thousand lives, and a thousand bodies! All of them should be devoted to no other employment but to preach Christ to these degraded, despised, yet beloved mortals."
    - Robert Moffat

83. "We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God."
    - John Stott

84. "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
    - Jim Elliot

85. "A tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story."
    - K.P. Yohannan

86. "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 Zinzindorf

87. "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supplies."
    - J. Hudson Taylor

88. "He must increase, but I must decrease."
    - John the Baptist

89. "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him."
    - C.T. Studd

90. "The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner."
    - William Cameron Townsend

91. "Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes."
    - Robert E. Speer

92. "The saddest thing one meets is a nominal Christian. I had not seen it in Japan where missions is younger. The church here is a "field full of wheat and tares."
    - Amy Carmichael

93. "I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third places and teaching the fourth."
    - James O. Fraser

94. "It is just as proper, maybe even more so, to say Christ's global cause has a Church as to say Christ's Church has a global cause."
    - David Bryant

95. "If you are sick, fast and pray; if the language is hard to learn, fast and pray; if the people will not hear you, fast and pray, if you have nothing to eat, fast and pray."
    - Frederick Franson

96. "What are we here for, to have a good time with Christians or to save sinners?"
    - Malla Moe

97. "I tell you, brethren, if mercies and if judgments do not convert you, God has no other arrows in His quiver."
    - Robert Murray M'Cheyne

98. "It's amazing what can be accomplished if you don't worry about who gets the credit."
    - Clarence W. Jones

99. "Two distinguishing marks of the early church were: 1) Poverty 2) Power."
    - T.J. Bach

100. "Do not think me mad. It is not to make money that I believe a Christian should live. The noblest thing a man can do is, just humbly to receive, and then go amongst others and give."
     - David Livingstone

101. "From my many years experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross."
     - Sadhu Sundar Singh

102. "I pray that no missionary will ever be as lonely as I have been."
     - Lottie Moon

103. "All my friends are but one, but He is all sufficient."
     - William Carey

104. "How little chance the Holy Ghost has nowadays. The churches and missionary societies have so bound him in red tape that they practically ask Him to sit in a corner while they do the work themselves."
     - C.T. Studd

105. "I have always believed that the Good Samaritan went across the road to the wounded man just because he wanted to."
     - Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

106. "The more obstacles you have, the more opportunities there are for God to do something."
     - Clarence W. Jones

107. "Expect great things from God. Attempt great thing for God."
     - William Carey

108. "God's part is to put forth power; our part is to put forth faith."
     - Andrew A. Bonar

109. "All the resources of the Godhead are at our disposal!"
     - Jonathan Goforth

110. "The Indian is making an amazing discovery, namely that Christianity and Jesus are not the same - that they may have Jesus without the system that has been built up around Him in the West."
     - E. Stanley Jones

111. "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."
     - Jesus

112. "All roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ."
     - Keith Green

113. "Christians don't tell lies they just go to church and sing them"
     - A.W. Tozer

114. "I will lay my bones by the Ganges that India might know there is one who cares."
     - Alexander Duff

115. "Today Christians spend more money on dog food then missions"
     - Leonard Ravenhill

116. "It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home."
     - J. Hudson Taylor

117. "We talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first."
     - Oswald J. Smith

118. "God cannot lead you on the basis of facts that you do not know."
     - David Bryant

119. "And thus I aspire to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named so that I would not build on another man's foundation."
     - Paul

120. "Why do we insist on building the largest and most impressive structures in our city when people on the other side of town are hungry, jobless and worshipping in storefronts?"
     - K.P. Yohannan

121. "If every Christian is already considered a missionary, then all can stay put where they are, and nobody needs to get up and go anywhere to preach the gospel. But if our only concern is to witness where we are, how will people in unevangelized areas ever hear the gospel? The present uneven distribution of Christians and opportunities to hear the gospel of Christ will continue on unchanged."
     - C. Gordon Olson

122. "I spent twenty years of my life trying to recruit people out of local churches and into missions structures so that they could be involved in fulfilling God's global mission. Now I have another idea. Let's take God's global mission and put it right in the middle of the local church!"
     - George Miley

123. "Oh dear, I couldn't say that my church is alive and I wouldn't want to call it dead. I guess it's just walking in its sleep!"
     - Church member

124. "When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathen."
     - said of John Geddie

125. "At the moment I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer's love, I had a foretaste of the joy of glory that well nigh broke my heart to pieces. I shall never taste a deeper bliss, till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus himself."
     - John G. Paton

126. "Save others, snatching them out of the fire."
     - Jude

127. "The evangelization of the world in this generation."
     - Student Volunteer Movement Motto

128. "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring"
     - Jesus

129. "Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't."
     - John Piper

130. "His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all the nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us no other choice."
     - John Stott

131. "Today five out of six non-Christians in our world have no hope unless missionaries come to them and plant the church among them."
     - David Bryant

132. "Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ."
     - Francis Xavier

133. "Christ for the students of the world, and the students of the world for Christ."
     - Luther Wishard

134. "We who have Christ's eternal life need to throw away our own lives."
     - George Verwer

135. "Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell."
     - C.T. Studd

136. "When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone"
     - J. Hudson Taylor

137. "God has huge plans for the world today! He is not content to merely establish a handful of struggling churches among each tongue, tribe and nation. Even now He is preparing and empowering His Church to carry the seeds of revival to the uttermost ends of the earth."
     - David Smithers

138. "The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity."
     - Mike Stachura

139. "Answering a student's question, 'Will the heathen who have not heard the Gospel be saved?' thus, 'It is more a question with me whether we who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved.'"
     - C.H. Spurgeon