discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 136 136 Developing Tomorrow’s Missionaries Say “Yes” If He Calls The answer was NO. I was 16 and I didn’t want to be a missionary. I wanted my own will. That led to another no. It wasn’t long before I found myself very far from God. I began to make choices that were to my liking. It was fun for a while, but it didn’t last. My reputation was ruined, and I had lost many of my church friends. My heart was empty. I was lost, and I didn’t even know how to admit that I needed Christ to save me. It happened one Sunday morning when my closest friend stopped and said, “Claudia, I cannot agree with all you are doing, but I want you to know I still love you.” That touch of love was the turning point, for I had decided not to go to college. I soon found myself a student at what is now Point Loma Nazarene University, following a friend who hadn’t given up on me. It was at the close of the fall revival that I slipped into the dorm prayer room. I locked the door, and I knelt down and began to pray. I prayed most of the night. When I came out in the early morning, I was a “new creature” in Christ! That was the beginning of real joy! The Holy Spirit sanctified me a few months later, and He so graciously gave me back the call He had given me 2 years before. I look back now on 32 years of missionary service. They have been exciting and fulfilling. I continually find great inner peace in doing the Father’s will. Would I choose to go back to a life of my own will and sinful living? No! Never! I almost made a major wrong choice in my life. It would have taken me far from where I am today. I count it a great privilege in serving Christ as a missionary. Say yes if He calls you. You will never be sorry! 5 —Claudia Stevenson, missionary to Nigeria Paul’s Macedonian Call Sometimes people cite Paul’s Macedonian call (Acts 16:9) as an example of a missionary call. The purpose of that particular vision, however, was not to recruit Paul for missionary service. When Paul had that vision, he had already been commissioned as a missionary by the Antioch church (chap. 13). When the Macedonian vision came, Paul was in Troas in the middle of his second missionary trip. The man from Macedonia in that vision was used to direct Paul and his team westward toward peoples on the European continent. People testifying to a missionary call have sometimes felt that God was calling them to a specific place, somewhat like what happened in the Macedonian call. Indeed, for much of the Protestant era of mission, it has been expected that people testifying to a missionary call would also name the place to which God
245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 137 Developing Tomorrow’s Missionaries 137 was calling them. Today, with the exception of people feeling called to the 10/40 Window area, that does not seem to happen as much. One reason may be that 21st-century missionaries are much more mobile than they were when travel was slower and more arduous. It is not uncommon now for missionaries to fulfill their call by serving in multiple countries on more than one continent. Hearing the Call Young people sometimes struggle as they try to understand whether or not they have a call from God. Maybe it would be less complicated if God used a cell phone, e-mail, or text messaging. Alas, He does not. There are, however, some instructions in Psalm 25 on how to get divine direction. David begins that psalm by imploring the Lord to “show me . . . teach me . . . guide me” (vv. 4-5). Then David holds up humility and submissiveness as keys to receiving divine guidance, “[The Lord] guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way” (v. 9) and “The LORD confides in those who fear him” (v. 14). 6 Veteran missionary Joe Mattox helps educate future missionaries at the HEART Institute, a simulated Third World village near Lake Worth, Florida. While visiting a class on the campus of Southern Nazarene University, Mattox talked about what people could do to understand if God was calling them to missionary service: 1. Immerse yourself in the Word—all of it, not just a few favorite phrases. 2. Listen to the Holy Spirit. 3. Look to God as sovereign. He may lead by opening and closing doors. 4. Seek the counsel of mature Christians, such as an older believer, a pastor, or a trusted mentor. Sometimes, to make His call heard, the Lord speaks through Scripture passages. At other times He uses the stories of missionaries as the background for calling people to missionary service. Among the stories God has used is the one told on film in Through Gates of Splendor (1978) and End of the Spear (2006). That story is about five American missionaries who died in Ecuador on the banks of the Curaray River, killed by the very people to whom they were trying to take the gospel. Not long afterward, Elisabeth Elliot, widow of one of the slain missionaries, took her three-year-old daughter and went to live among those who had killed her husband, Jim. Many of the Waodani eventually became Christians, including those whose spears had killed the missionaries. Elliot’s writings about her missionary experiences have been used by the Holy Spirit to spark mission interest among succeeding generations of young people. In whatever way it comes, an authentic call from God invariably carries with it a firm conviction that cannot be shaken. God seems to find ways to let people know He is calling them even if, like Jonah, they choose to run the other way.
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discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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