Friday, January 13, 2012

Why Most Missionaries Fail Part 24

We had a teacher in our Christian school whose father was a big shot in the church. She was able to rebel against our Godly principal and get away with it. She was in charge of children's church but it was a disaster, and she never volunteered to help. One day, she announced that God had called her to the mission field. She did not go soul-winning and would not obey authority, but she started raising financial support.

So the church started helping her fake her resume. We were ordered to attend a seminar she conducted on how to teach. Several of us, including me, were angered at being forced to waste our time listening to her. With help from the church, she assembled a phoney resume that was good enough to get her to the mission field. For over a quarter of a century, I have been receiving her newsletter, and she hasn't won a single soul to Christ yet.

I've learned since then that other missionaries did a lot better on their resumes than people who knew them would believe, and it is one more reason why most missionaries fail.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Why Most Missionaries Fail Part 23

Back when I was teaching Christian school, the pastor asked me to teach the adult Sunday School class, the most prestigious class in the church. God blessed, the class grew, and the pastor's son-in-law decided that he should have the class. He openly stated that he wanted people to think of him as a leader of adults; he wanted the status. He and the pastor agreed to replace me without telling the class in advance.

Okay, I played some dirty church politics. I told a few people, the class revolted, and I got to keep the class. It is unusual for the Christian with little ability to win in a situation like that, but I did. And the class continued to do well.

In those few instances I know of when a person with a little ability keeps the ministry God has given him, despite the efforts of someone who THINKS he has more ability, the ministry continues to succeed.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Why Most Missinaries Fail Part 22

Newly graduated from Bible college, I was approached by my new pastor. He explained that their children's church was running about 175 kids, mostly from their successful bus ministry, and would I agree to be in charge?

Over the next several months, several of us visited heavily on the bus routes, and the children's church grew to 300. Then I was suddenly called into the pastor's office, where his enraged wife demanded that she be put in charge. A hateful, untruthful woman, she was the stereotype bad pastor's wife, seizing all the pastoral authority for herself that she could. Galatians 5:18-21 makes clear that people like this have never been born again, but I didn't know that at the time. Although she was doing nothing at all to help the bus ministry or the children's church, she demanded that she replace me.

Three years later, she had the children's church down to 10 kids, and the bus ministry had folded. Other Christian school teachers told me of similar experiences, and they all had one thing in common: whenever a person who THINKS he has a lot of ability steals a ministry from a person without a lot of ability, that ministry declines.