TEMPORARY MISSIONARIES
(Friday Church News Notes, January 14, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)
This is the generation of short-term missionaries, of missionaries who don’t put down roots and stay put in order to plant solid, self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating biblical churches.
The situation has changed even in my lifetime. It is rare today for a couple to go to a “field” and stay put. [Oh! No! It is a wonderful and COST FREE experience to have and "provide" for their children! How else would a family of SIX, to include a small toddler be able to travel so much (Yes! They were in other countries!) and have two homes in different states immediately upon their return, eh, Matthew Furan, of Calvary Baptist Church of Niagara, who was a "missionary" in Sri Lanka for but a few months?! More like a MOOCHIONARY, RIGHT, MATTHEW?
One just has to do the math, especially considering that according to Matthew Furan, he wasn't even saved but for 15 years, during which time they both, he and Barbara, went to Bible college in Oklahoma, where it was THE KING JAMES BIBLE that was taught! Yet, for two and a half years, NEITHER could bring the importance of this Bible to the congregation here in Niagara Falls, where the NKJV and the NIV were used!
One has to understand that in these very poor third-world countries, the white man is catered to, has many servants, etc.. And that is exactly how these lived, with servants.
I know this from experience: when in Goa, which it is where I was born, I could not have counted the number of servants there were at my step-grandmother's house! Labor is extremely cheap!
We, my brother and I, each had a nanny to ourselves when growing up in Bombay, India. Labor is very cheap, and easily abused!
I WONDER THE WORTH TO THE NATIVES OF SRI LANKA, AS WELL AS OTHER EXTREMELY POOR PLACES, OF SUCH A REVOLVING DOOR EXERCISED BY SUCH, UNCOMMITTED, MISSIONARIES, WHO BRAG ABOUT THE HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY POURING IN MONTHLY!!
But ah! from the proud look that Barbara exhibited when she'd recall all the countries, places, to which they had been...!! PRICELESS, INDEED!!
The sheer WASTE OF GOD'S MONEY on the likes of these! Yet, these are the type churches, as the one that sent Matthew Furan on the world-wide tour, that continually push "missions" to the clueless congregations that give a LOT EXTRA MONEY for this purpose! DISGUSTING! THESE ARE NO MORE THAN THIEVES, AND MATTHEW FURAN HAS PROVEN TO BE ONE!]
See also related posts:
Leadership in the Church (updated last on 10/31/10)
Revisionist's History, according to MATTHEW FURAN
The following is from Pastor Buddy Smith’s e-publication Heads Up, January 7, 2011 --
“I recently received as a gift the biography of Granny Brand, the mother of Paul Brand, outstanding missionary doctor to India. He pioneered the leprosy surgery needed by so many in India and Africa. There are so many precious passages in the book about Granny Brand, but one especially stood out to me. Granny Brand prayed for years and years for more labourers to reach the people living in the ‘Mountains of Death.’ Many came to survey this neglected field, but very, very few stayed. One after another they came, they saw, and they fled. Of one such group, she wrote, ‘They didn’t do enough to hurt them out here, but they had to go home on furlough to get over it.’ I can’t help wondering if these two little paragraphs do not describe precisely the present state of the churches at the end of the age? Maybe the jacuzzis and the shopping malls are calling, and because we are so idle and so apathetic, we hear and follow.”
The Euphoria of Supporting Missions
By David J. Stewart
There is in America's churches today, a feeling of Euphoria concerning the financial support of overseas missionaries. The tragic part of all this is that there are millions of people, if not tens-of-millions, right where we live who've never heard the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. I call it the "Las Vegas Effect," that is, when people first come to Las Vegas, they are overwhelmed with the neon lights, good times and friendly people; but only God knows how many people's lives have been destroyed by the Las Vegas lifestyle. Likewise, Christians enjoy a feeling of euphoria from giving their money to support foreign missionaries, while their local neighborhood is going to Hell.
I've been in dozens of churches throughout my life, where the people felt compelled to support overseas missionaries, to give themselves a feeling of accomplishment for having partook of reaching the lost in the jungles of New Guinea, or the lost in the deserts of Africa, or the lost in the frozen nation of Russia. One church I visited was supporting one dozen foreign missionaries, sending each $50 a month. I asked the pastor if he wanted to go soulwinning together and he said, "No." You see, he pats himself on the back and feels good about himself because he's supporting one dozen foreign missionaries, but he has no interest in reaching his local community with the Gospel. Something is VERY wrong with that kind of attitude.
Please don't misunderstand me, I'm all for mission work, absolutely. Jesus said in Matthew 28:19,10, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." And again in Mark 16:15 Jesus commanded, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." There is a Biblical mandate to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. I am all for supporting mission work.
However, the Biblical mandate to "Go ye into all the world" has been ABUSED by many pastors and missionaries. I recently visited a church in my area. I enjoyed the pretty music and the atmosphere in general. However, they had a guest missionary speaker the Sunday night I visited and he was really pushing for donations. He announced that beginning in a couple weeks the church was going to sponsor a week-long “missions conference,” and said that the people of the church would have to “dig deep” and “give sacrificially” in order that the people of the Philippines might be reached for God. He laid a heavy financial burden upon the church members and said that despite their previous donations, now was the time to give sacrificially like never before for the work of the Lord.
As I sat listening to the preacher, I looked at their schedule for upcoming events and noticed a planned two-week “TRIP TO ISRAEL” that the pastor, his wife, friends and wealthy church members were going to take. At that point I pondered the woeful hypocrisy of what the missionary guest preacher was saying. If reaching the lost in the Philippines is so important, and it certainly is, then why is the church spending tens-of-thousands of dollars for a HOLY LAND TRIP?
Sad, but true, the average church nowadays is nothing more than a lucrative business, where the pastor and his staff enjoy new vehicles, routine vacations and live high-on-the-hog, at a lifestyle that few people in the congregation could enjoy. It's just plain wrong. I mean, if your church wants to take a trip to the Holy Land, fine, but don't turn around and hound your congregation for money, making them feel guilty for not “giving sacrificially” to missions. It's utter hypocrisy!
I have witnessed a euphoric effect amongst believers concerning missionary work, while at the same time they carry little or no burden for their local community. It is wrong. So many church congregations pride themselves in the fact that they are involved in worldwide missionary work, having a "bigger than life" sensation of what they are accomplishing; but in reality they are more interested in feeling good about themselves than they are about winning lost souls to Jesus Christ. I'll tell you, the United States of America needs more missionaries than any other nation on earth!!! We are a wicked and apostate nation. Heresy and lies are everywhere!
It's quite ridiculous and ironic that America sends their missionaries overseas, and the countries overseas send their missionaries to America! My intention is not to discourage Christians from supporting missionary work, God forbid! Rather, I'm simply saying that the biggest, greatest and most urgent need for missionary work is right here in our own backyard. I realize that 90,000,000 people in the Philippines need to hear the Gospel. The Philippine islands are a devil's playground, whose people desperately need to hear the Gospel, but there are 300,000,000 people in the United States who are in more desperate need than anyone to hear the truth of God's Word.
I'm simply saying that America's churches need to be just as adamant, just as concerned, just as prayerful, and just as financially supportive of reaching our local communities with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There's not much romance nor euphoria in reaching homeless Americans for Christ, but there's literally MILLIONS of homeless people scattered across the streets of every major city in America who need to hear the Gospel.
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