by John Bailes, USA Director

Twenty years have passed since BIMI accepted the challenge of a missions ministry to the USA. More than 600 churches have been started during that time. We presently have over 100 missionaries working in our homeland. It has been an uphill battle to get local churches and pastors to catch a vision for the great needs that exist here in America. We thank God for those who have accepted the challenge to promote, encourage, and support church-planting missions in America. It has been said, concerning the USA, that “90 percent of the world’s preachers are ministering to 5 percent of the world’s people.” I understand the reasoning behind this statement, but it is simply not a true assessment of missions. First, there are some good pastors and churches in other parts of the world other than the USA. Second, it is closer to the truth to say that 90 percent of the funda-mental preachers in America are minis-tering to only 30 percent of the American population.

To support that figure, let me ex-plain. Anyone who has traveled from the southwestern states up the Pacific coastline and then across the northern tier states to Minnesota and Wisconsin, would readily agree that there is a great shortage of fundamental, Bible-preaching churches. The same is true when you begin at Philadelphia and include New Jersey, New York, Con-necticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. These areas, combined, represent ap-proximately 55 percent of the population in America. Add to this the Asian, Hispanic and Black communi-ties in all of the other areas, and you find that this is a conservative estimate.

We thank God for those who have responded to the call of missions to other lands around the world. The need for laborers on the foreign fields still far exceeds the number who are going. However, today Black Africa is more evangelized than Black America. I have been told that there are more than 800 missionaries in Brazil (not including all of the national pastors) with 250 of those in the Amazon region working among 20,000 inhabi-tants. San Jose, Costa Rica, has over 40 Gospel-preaching churches with a million people to be reached. Compare that to Philadelphia, New York City, Hartford or Boston, just to name a few. These American cities have much greater populations, but none of them come near to having 40 Gospel-preaching churches.

The early colonies provided the seedbed for church planting

Pastor Jim Townsley, founder of Central Baptist Church in Southington, Connecticut, states:

“The spiritual history of New England is one of great acclaim. She boasts of the ‘Great Awakening,’ as well as of scores of spiritual heroes and great leaders of our nation, not to mention the missionaries sent out by those early churches. But most people are ignorant of the last 100 years. New England is no longer known for great preachers like Jonathan Edwards or for great Christian colleges, such as Yale and Harvard were at one time. Southern New England, consisting of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, has evolved over this century, primarily influenced by European immigration of French, Italian, and Polish. Now, every major city is also influenced by Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Islands. Unfortu-nately, these people have brought their own religion with them, usually Cathol-icism. Very few have tried to evangelize this area. When I came to Connecticut 20 years ago, I can only think of 5 independent, fundamental Baptist churches in the entire state of 3 million people. Now there must be at least 20 churches, although half of them are still in storefronts because of the lack of finances. Consider the reasons why more missionaries don’t come to New England. If you have a good answer, I would like to have it because I don’t know of a good one. You don’t have to learn a foreign lan-guage; you are still in the U.S.; you are in a ready and receptive area; and you can build an autonomous church. I pray that more people will consider a work in New England and that churches will support them financially.”

Many of the social issues in our headlines could be greatly diminished

America’s inner city has a culture all of its own. People who do not live there are totally unaware of the personal struggles of those who do. In most cases even local churches divorce themselves from any concern for the inner-city dwellers.

Life is cheap in the inner city. Young men and women, as well as children, are having their lives snuffed out daily by gangs or individual killers. Children and teenagers find themselves standing alone against great odds and are forced to join a gang to have some protection. They learn to kill or be killed. USA Today reported in the April 11, 1995, issue “that killers, like our population, are getting younger.” In 1993 there were 3,647 teenage killers. If the trend continues, by the year 2005 as many as 6000 young men and women between the ages of 14-17 will commit murders that year, says Northeastern Universi-ty’s James Fox, Dean of the College of Criminal Justice. So much crime is committed in the inner city that much of it is never investigated. If a charge is filed, it may take years before it is ever presented in court. The courts are literally clogged with cases.

The inner city is an expensive place to live, but most of the people who live there could not make it elsewhere. Many do not have a car or a driver’s license. Many fill jobs that require little training. Housing codes have been relaxed, and sometimes as many as three to five families may live in one apartment. Many children have never known their fathers. Many young girls are victims of incest or statutory rape before they are ten years old. Drugs are sold like candy on the streets while needles, usually infected by the AIDS virus, are passed from one drug addict to another. Women hooked on crack sell their bodies for as little as five dollars to get a fix and temporary relief from the gnawing desire for this drug. A single mother has a constant fear of some drug-crazed person breaking down her door and raping or killing her to get a few dollars for drugs. For this and other reasons, most of these women justify a live-in boyfriend.

Our inner cities represent a major portion of our population and yet it has been totally ignored by missionaries and local churches. These people are not “normal” Americans because of the effect that sin has had on them, but they are people for whom Jesus died. Many of the social ills that are cap-turing our headlines could be greatly diminished with a large scale missions thrust by our independent Baptist churches to the inner cities of America.

But this will not happen until pastors take up the cause and make it their own as David did with Goliath. We have a giant on our hands, but God will fight for us if we will get into the battle. What kind of man does it take to start a church in the inner cities of America? Harvey Sumner, missionary pastor in Thomaston, Connecticut, believes:

“The challenges of the inner cities of America can only be met by God-called men. It will take men who are enabled by the Holy Spirit to love the unlovely, the gang member, the menace to society, the one with no respect for the life of another human being, no regard for Heaven or Hell and no regard for a God Who loves them enough to re-quire the death of His Son for their sins. It will take a man who trusts his Lord explicitly and is not afraid to lay his life on the line. One who knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that the power of God is inherent in the Gospel and is not afraid to give it to everyone with the assurance that it is a life-changing Gospel. A man who is not afraid to preach when others are throwing down the torch, and will not succumb to peer pressure because he has no peer. This kind of man and only this kind of man can meet the chal-lenges of the inner city.”

USA missions can be the answer to sending more missionaries abroad

He continues:

“Having attended our USA Field Conference in Southington, Connecti-cut, my heart was thrilled to hear how many of our USA missions churches were already supporting many new missionaries that are being sent into all the world. Some of these are not yet supporting their own pastors; none-the-less, they are already being taught by our missionaries to have a heart for missions. You see, these new Christians know what it is like to have someone who is being supported by other churches come in with a heart of love for them. This is truly New Testament evangelism at its best. I am convinced the best way to multiply our missions giving and more quickly carry out the Great Commission, is to start more churches here in America where we still have one of the most affluent societies in the world. Our missionaries are teaching their people the grace of giving out of hearts filled with love for their Saviour. This is the only way we will be able to provide faster support for the missionaries on deputation who are spending on the average two years and five months to get to their field of service. HELP US START MORE CHURCHES HERE IN AMERICA AND SEND MORE MISSIONARIES TO THE REGIONS BEYOND.”

Over one million immigrants a year are coming to America

God brings more than a million people of different nationalities to our shores every year for us to evangelize. When will our local churches open their eyes to the vast mission fields here in America? We desperately need a crop of new missionaries to evangel-ize the millions of Hispanics, East Asians, and Europeans. Many of these are settling in the inner cities but others are joining colonies of their own kind scattered across the nation. Hispanic Central America has a total population of 28,029,000, and we are continuing to send missionaries to reach those mil-lions. However, according to the Cen-sus Bureau, there are 30 million His-panics (and as many as 10 million not counted) in the U.S., and local church-es are not supporting missionaries to reach these millions. By the year 2000, Latinos will comprise the largest single minority in the USA.

I would be the last to encourage missionaries to leave Mexico or Central America and come to the USA to reach the Hispanic population here. However, when they do, many of their supporting churches respond as if those mission-aries have resigned from missions and begin to drop their support. Are we guilty of reducing missions to only cer-tain geographical locations? Do we sing our songs about rescuing the perishing, and then turn our backs on the people nearest to us while the cults woo them with their false hope of religion?

In many cases, our missions policy has been dictated by tradition. The Bible teaches differently. The only re-corded missions offering in the Scripture was taken from churches that Paul had established to be used for the saints back in Jerusalem. This serves to illustrate that no distinction was made geo-graphically concerning missions. Instead of arguing over where the mission field begins, we should get back to the main business of winning souls and planting churches before we lose any more ground to the enemy here in America.

Friday, March 12, 2010

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

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