20
February
2015

February's Memory Verse
Palms 119:1, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart,
that I might not sin against thee.”


Lessons Learned
On Our Mission Trip To New Zealand
 
My wife and I returned this week from another mission trip and, once again, God blessed in wonderful ways. This trip was to New Zealand to preach a "Soul Winning Revival" for Brother Lewis Howell and the Sonshine Baptist Church of Whakatane, NZ.

The meeting was a tremendous success with 15 churches from throughout the North Island and a few from the South Island. The spirit was enthusiastic with these pastors, missionaries, and precious church folks hungry for God to work in a mighty way. God's people were very responsive to the preaching of His Word and many decisions were made with hearts encouraged in the work. Folks came out of this meeting with a renewed burden to reach the lost with the Gospel. 

The meeting was so successful an extended meeting was immediately scheduled for the following week in the capitol city of Auckland. Once again, God blessed mightily in this second meeting with 6 other churches from the Auckland area in attendance with a filled building.

Pastor Lewis Howell and the good folks of Sonshine Baptist Church gave extremely generously and worked very hard to make this meeting possible. They are to be commended for their vision and sacrifice for the cause of the Gospel.

The following are a few of the lessons learned and/or reinforced in my heart and mind on this trip:
  • In every nation, God has people who have great faith and love Him dearly. (Revelation 5:9)
    Though, obviously, the numbers of believers fluctuates from country to country, nevertheless, God has people throughout this world who love Him dearly and serve Him faithfully.
  • Churches throughout the world are taking the Great Commission seriously and obeying God's instructions to go into all the world with the Gospel. 
    There are many national pastors and Christians in NZ who are greatly burdened for reaching the world for Christ and are active in world missions. The presence of missionaries in New Zealand is not limited to American missionaries, there is a strong representation of missionaries from the Philippines throughout this spiritually needy country. God does not NEED America to advance the Gospel, He is using His people from a variety of nations throughout the world to carry out the great commission. We, as American Christians, must understand that it is a tremendous privilege to serve our God, not some inherent right.
  • Some nations and societies throughout the world are more receptive to the Gospel than others. (Matthew 13:3-23) 
    The people of New Zealand, for the most part, seem to be very unreceptive to the Word of God. This was expressed to me by the Pastors and Christians living there and, in my short encounters with the people of this beautiful land, I found this to be true. The response to our soul winning efforts was very cold and very different than in other countries that we have ministered.
  • Those serving in New Zealand (and other nations like it) are most likely working to "break up the fallow ground, plant and water the seed of the Gospel" so that future generations can reap the harvest.
    My impression is that the works in New Zealand must be long term efforts to aggressively saturate this nation with the Gospel. The harvest of many souls may not be experienced until a future generation. In the mean time, much prayer, fasting, and thorough evangelism must be carried out.
    It is important that supporting Pastors and churches understand that not all fields are going to see the "numbers" that other fields experience. Many missionaries need long term prayer and financial support. It is a grave mistake to make the number of professions of faith a missionary has to be a criterea for continued support.
  • Mission trips by supporting Pastors and church members is vitally important. (Lamentations 3:51a)
    Missionary prayer letters and reports to home churches by missionaries while on furlough are very important, yet they can never convey the need, the burden, and the vision the missionary has for the field that seeing the work first hand does. I urge all Pastors to take the time, spend the money and make the effort to get out to the fields, visit your missionaries, and see the need and see what God is doing first hand - it will change your life and ministry. Also, take your church folk with you, it will set their hearts on fire for missions.
  • Kathy and I returned home stirred up and encouraged by this trip. (Romans 14:22)
    We learned much on this trip. The faith, vision, burden, generosity, and hospitality of Pastor Howell, the Byers family and all the Christians and Pastors we were with, renewed our confidence in the power of the Word of God and His people throughout the world.
Now that we are back home, we are committed to getting the Gospel to every person in our community and communities around the world. The commission our Lord has given us truly is "Great" - in it's magnitude, it's importance, in it's glory!

Our next big event is our Sportmen's Wild Game Dinner - 5:00 p.m. Saturday, March 7 at the Pleasant Valley Community Center South of Oakland. We have some outstanding door prizes, great food, and Dr. Norris Belcher will bring the message. Please join us! There is no charge (we will pass some buckets around for a free will offering). Sometimes it gets a little crowded, so come early and be sure to bring your favorite "Wild Game" dish. Contact the church for more information.

Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to keep up with what is happening around here and, please check out our website at www.mlibc.org.
 
Bring your Bible and a friend and I'll be looking for you Sunday!
 
Sincerely, your friend,
                                                          

                     

 

 

 Dr. Dennis Leatherman - Pastor


Mountain Lake Independent Baptist Church
1005 Broadford Road, Oakland, MD, 21550