Article Archive

Biblical School of World Evangelism (BSWE) majors in missions1 because missions is the passion of First Baptist Church. The reason our church is passionate about missions is because God is. A vibrant healthy church is an incubator for missionaries, encouraging the development of what it models. Such a church contributes much more to the training of missionaries than it may realize. After seven years of training students for missions at BSWE, one thing is conspicuous to me – it takes more than three or four years to “make a missionary.” If the church6 does not doher job in modeling spiritua...

In the early 1970’s, my pastor, Rev. Howard Nelson, had a burden to reach Communist Russia and Eastern Europe with the Gospel. At that time, most mission boards called that part of the world closed, but the Bible says, “... Go ye into all the world ...” (Mark 16:15). Pastor Nelson believed that if God gave the command, He would provide a way to accomplish the task.

Let’s take the bottom line first. After researching three large fundamental mission boards, all with over 1,000 missionaries on the field, my long-felt assumptions proved true. All three boards gave almost word for word this quote: “Seventy-five percent of all missionaries on the field today (their missionaries) believe that God laid missions on their heart by the age of twelve!” They knew by twelve that God wanted them to be a missionary some day.

In dealing with young people and their future, it is important not to force our desires as adults upon them. Young people need the counsel of those that are older than them, but they need to be taught to seek God’s will from Scripture. The thought of God searching for someone to fill a need is found often in Scripture. Young Samuel was called by God in the Temple. The prophet Isaiah surrendered to God’s will when he saw the greatness of God and the lowliness of himself. Young David took a step of courage and faith when he ran to meet the giant Goliath. Esther was put in the position she was...