discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 188 188 Mobilizing the Local Church loan from a local bank so that he could put a significant amount into that offering. That same church, which now has over 3,000 members, recently committed more than $1 million in its annual faith promise event. The groundwork for what that church is doing today was laid when a young pastor took the audacious step of taking out a loan so he could be a pacesetter in a missionary offering. Such stories should not give the impression that pastors need to embrace mission in order to produce gains in other areas of ministry. The stories of Ockenga and Cunningham are told to illustrate how congregations can be profoundly influenced by mission-minded pastors. The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity. 10 —Mike Stachura, past president Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment Raising Up a Mission-Minded You As a small girl riding around a Quebec lumber camp with her father in the late 1800s, Susan Norris saw a fight among some Indian workers. When she got home, Susan asked her mother why the men had been so mean to each other. When her mother explained that liquor made people behave like that, Susan asked, “If it makes them mean, why do they drink it?” “I guess they don’t know Jesus,” her mother replied. “Someone should tell them about Him!” said young Susan. That incident sparked in Susan Norris a lifelong passion to reach people who did not know about Jesus. In her early years she took that ever-present burden as a sign that she would someday go overseas as a missionary. Then, tragedy struck. At 14 years of age, Susan became very ill and was confined to her bed for almost two years. One day she had a dream about Christ’s second coming. In the dream she was happy until she saw that not all people were going to heaven. She woke up wondering why she had had such a sad dream, but then she seemed to hear a voice quoting Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” 11 Because Susan thought that meant God was calling her to be a missionary, she was excited! However, when she eventually applied to be a missionary, she was turned down over health issues. In the midst of her discouragement over
245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 189 being rejected, she was reading the Bible when Ezekiel 3:5 caught her attention, “You are not being sent to a people of obscure speech and strange language.” That day, Susan felt the Lord was saying to her that she was not to be a missionary. However, because she did feel she was supposed to be in some kind of ministry, she went off to a Bible college. Marrying another young preacher, she became Susan Norris Fitkin. Not long after their marriage, her husband left the active ministry for a business career and Susan became the master pulpiteer of the family. Wherever Susan N. Fitkin spoke in churches as an evangelist and world mission promoter, she encouraged people to take care of their missionaries and to provide financial resources for world evangelism outreach. Elected founding president of a denominational mission society, she became the most visible missions promotion leader in her church, holding that position for almost three decades. S. N. Fitkin, the name by which she often went in print, was a woman of prayer as well as a great organizer. Using those two gifts, she enabled global outreach efforts to survive the Great Depression. Before e-mail was even dreamed of, Susan Fitkin carried on an extensive correspondence with missionaries and fed information to local churches from those exchanges. Long before short-term mission trips came into vogue, Susan Fitkin went overseas several times at her own expense and infused excitement and information from those mission field visits into her messages to missionary conventions across the U.S.A. She encouraged local churches to organize missions mobilization committees and inspired families in the U.S. to give to missions even in the midst of economic struggles. One of Susan Fitkin’s oft-repeated sayings was, “We never test the resources of God until we attempt the impossible for Him.” 12 Communication support Financial support Logistics support Moral support Prayer support Reentry support Ways to Assist Missionaries Mobilizing the Local Church 189 Individuals can be involved in supporting missions in many different ways. The Church needs some very visible people like Susan Fitkin. Others are needed who will work behind the scenes. This can be in seemingly little things like sending cards for birthdays and other special occasions. Notes of support and encouragement from a local church can lessen the danger of missionary
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