Vision Greater Than Our Memories
Dr. Michael G. Loftis, President, ABWE International
Clockwise from top left: Lucy Peabody, Harold Commons,
Michael Loftis, and Wendell Kempton
In Haggai chapter two, the people of Israel were asked, “Who is left among you who saw the former temple in its glory? And how do you see it now? In comparison, is this not in your eyes as nothing?”
The chronic problem of ancient Israel was that their view of the past was bigger than their view of the future. They were constantly dwelling on the glory days of Moses and Joshua, and so they were discouraged when looking at the present. Such a perspective guaranteed a diminished and marginalized future. In spite of this, God spoke through His prophet Haggai to tell the people that “the glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former.” God knew that His people always need to look forward.
ABWE now stands on the threshold of eight decades of God’s faithfulness. From this vantage point, our faith is strengthened as we review our memories—the amazing stories of answered prayer, miraculously provided resources, physical protection of missionary families, many rescued from certain death, and others taken to glory at seemingly premature times. We must reflect on the lessons God has taught us and celebrate our past victories. Yet, in perspective, we must never seek to glorify the past or make idols of the achievements.
As we celebrate the past, it is imperative that we remember this lesson:
Unless our vision for the future exceeds our memories of the past, we risk diminishing the faith of the next generation to be used of God beyond our past experience. Such an ever-diminishing faith would eventually extinguish faith for future generations.
Each of the four presidents of ABWE took leadership while facing numerous challenges and unknowns, and yet they had big dreams for the future of ABWE. Mrs. Lucy Peabody became the founding president in 1927, just two years before the market crash of 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression. Yet due to her foresight and faith, the mission never borrowed money (a principle we follow to this day). She launched a missions prayer movement that eventually became today’s World Day of Prayer, and she launched the Message magazine to tell the stories of God at work in the Philippines.
Dr. Harold Commons began in 1935 as the clouds of World War II were forming over Europe. Despite continuing political and economic uncertainties, he recognized that the future of the mission rested in local churches and built a solid support base among churches throughout the Northeast and Midwest that continues to this day.
At the height of the Cold War, the mission was facing severe financial cutbacks when Dr. Wendell Kempton took the helm. The future looked bleak for missions in the expanding communist world. Yet during his leadership, the mission more than quadrupled in size. By faith, Dr. Kempton restructured the administration to enable the ministry to grow and developed specific initiatives into “closed countries.”
When I was inaugurated in early 2001, no one anticipated the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, which caused fear, economic loss, and greater conflict in the Middle East. Yet this event created many new opportunities to reach the world of Islam with the gospel of Jesus Christ. In addition, the mission leadership has a new sense of urgency to facilitate and empower missions movements from every nation to every nation.
It has now been twenty years since I first heard the call of God to join ABWE and began my initial forays into the communist world of Eastern Europe. I am amazed at what God has done in that region since then. As president of ABWE, I am even more amazed that the mission leadership at that time allowed us to attempt things that had never before been attempted in our history. I have now been privileged to attend several thirtieth, fortieth, and fiftieth anniversaries of our ministries overseas. On each occasion, I have heard the following words: “We made our share of mistakes, but we were inventing as we went along, since there was no precedent. We prayed and set about the task as best as we knew how.”
In order for our vision to exceed our memories, as ABWE enters its ninth decade of ministry, we must ask ourselves some crucial questions. What things should we continue to hold on to? What must we be willing to change in order to give God the freedom to do amazing things in our future?
What must we never change?
- We must never change our commitment to trust in a sovereign God who called us to this ministry. We demonstrate this by our commitment to prayer and by taking new faith risks to confront the challenges of missions in the twenty-first century.
- We must never change our commitment to the truth of the Word of God and the sufficiency of the gospel to transform lives. We prove this by trusting the text of the Scriptures to be the central message we take to every people.
- We must never change our commitment to the Church of Jesus Christ. He promised to build the Church in such a way that not even the powers of hell could stop it. We demonstrate this by keeping church planting our first priority and by humbly serving both the sending and receiving churches worldwide.
- We must never change our commitment to sacrifice everything for the cause of Christ. We live this out by our willingness to let go of all that makes us comfortable if God is glorified and His work advances. This could include our buildings, our technology and communications, or even our sense of safety and security. God has always honored sacrifice.
What must we always be willing to change in order to complete the mission of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth?
- We must always be willing to change our role as missionaries from leaders to coaches and followers as we see disciples become leaders among the nations. As John the Baptist stated in John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” The Holy Spirit has the power to lead His disciples beyond our personal oversight. We demonstrate this by refusing to hold on to positions of leadership and control of churches and ministries overseas whenever gifted local believers rise to fill such roles.
- We must always be willing to change our structure, our posture, and our attitude in order to better serve the churches that send their missionaries with our global team, regardless of what nation they call home. Structure is not theological. A missionary maxim has been oft repeated: “The greatest ability is flexibility.” Well, now we have to live that out in order to make room for the incredible wave of creativity we are about to experience from our international partners in missions movements.
- We must always be willing to learn from our mistakes, humble ourselves, and develop new methods in order to better communicate and demonstrate the eternal gospel in new times and to new peoples. As we seek to foster missions movements from every nation to every nation, it would be a mistake to assume that we know everything after only eighty years. We must do “forensic missions.” Instead of burying failures overseas, we need to willingly dig up some of those failures and re-examine the evidence in order to understand why some ministries failed. We can then share honestly with our international brothers that not everything we have done has succeeded and come to understand what needs to be changed.
Eighty years of missionary work. Eighty years of miraculous financial provision. Eighty years of answered prayer. Eighty years of evangelism, disciple making, and church planting. To what end?
I believe that God has done all of this to allow us to build a platform for the final great thrust in world missions—to launch missions movements from every nation to every nation before His return. To that end, let us use this occasion to recommit ourselves to our global, God-given vision:
To carry out world evangelism resulting in national church-planting movements leading to international missions movements to the glory of God!
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