(P) 048/04/2007 - Bedok Methodist Church

By Ashok Kumar
Missions 2007 is all about the proclamation of the
sovereignty of God and the redemptive work of
Christ on the cross for all people. Thus far, 120
people from BMC have gone out on mission with
God to six different countries in the last six months.
Twenty teams are ready to go out in the coming
months. (See reports of some returned teams on
pages 6 to 11.)
When I started my missions journey with Operation
Mobilisation as a short-term mission tripper, I
applied for a six-month commitment. That journey
of six months has lasted more than twenty years.
That short-term trip definitely made its impact on
my life and missionary career.
Short-term trips give a glimpse of what missions in
foreign fields is all about and have tremendous
influence in impacting people into going into
missions. A number of our own BMC missionaries
started their missionary journey as short-termers.
“Diving into the deep end of world missions without
putting at least a toe in the water is unthinkable to
most boomers…,” writes Stan Guthre, in his book,
Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for
the 21st Century.
Short-term work started about forty years ago with
the launch of Operation Mobilisation and Youth
With A Mission who employed short-termers. Scott
Olson, Director of Mobilisation, Wesleyan World
Missions expresses its impact in a very poignant
way:
I am convinced that if we want long-term
missionaries, we have to be totally committed
to a short-term program. That has been proven
by the fact that fields who have an aggressive
short-term program are the ones getting career
missionaries right now. We have to look at short-
term experience as part of the ‘funnel’ that
intentionally directs people to the needs of the
world and what they can do to make a
difference.
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vision nov 2006