DALLAS, Texas – Four new ministry relationships with Texas Baptist Men, the Korean Baptist Fellowship and East Texas Baptist Family Ministries were approved by the Executive Board of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention in their April 3-4 meeting. The board also approved a new cooperative agreement with North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, affirming NAMB’s requirement that personnel conform to the Baptist Faith and Message, making it the only state convention in Texas to do so.
The TBM and KBF agreements came after each entity approved language affirming a high view of scripture in keeping with Southern Baptist doctrinal convictions. The new cooperative agreement defines the relationships and responsibilities of both SBTC and NAMB to jointly develop, administer and evaluate a strategic mission plan on a cooperative basis. The agreement will be reviewed annually.
NAMB will assist with funding and benefits for jointly supported personnel and will provide a coordinated processing service for endorsing prospective chaplaincy and national missionary personnel.
After an hour of discussion, the board also approved the affiliation request of East Texas Baptist Family Ministries (ETBFM), a non-profit ministry currently being started in East Texas Baptist Area. Gerald Edwards, president of the new ministry, said it will include a children’s home, a home for unwed mothers and a retirement community. The ministry will be designated under the human care and family division of the SBTC.
Edwards recently purchased a 4,000-square-foot home south of Garrison, Texas, which will function as the administrative headquarters for the ministry and also house Mission Service Corp volunteers who will staff the ministry. In total, Edwards has accumulated about 476 acres of land for future expansion of East Texas Baptist Ministries.
On Jan. 8, 2003, Edwards and his son Todd, who is a member of First Baptist Dallas and will serve as vice president and treasurer of the ministry, met with three others interested in beginning the ministry.
“We formulated our mission statement which is clearly stated – to be evangelistic and missionary in its intent to win people for Christ,” Edwards said. Although services are not yet being offered, Edwards said the ministry’s goal is to be on the property by the end of this year pending state approval with the first children’s home. In 2003, ETBFM will begin fundraising for $250,000 and in 2004 fundraising for a maternity home. By 2004, Edwards hopes to begin building a retirement village.
Board member Bill Sutton expressed concern over financial obligations the affiliation request would generate in the future although the motion presented to the board did not include a financial request. Edwards spoke to the concern detailing administrative infrastructure would include 35 board members of which the five would come from the executive board of the SBTC.
Committee Chairman Steve Cochran reminded board members that the request is in principle only and the human care task force created by the board last year would later submit the specifics of the agreement in regard to monetary support.
SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards stated that preliminary discussion with Edwards included an operating request of $37,000 from ETBM, which would be taken from the human care line item of $125,000 which has already been designated for such ministries by the board. Because a director has not been hired to facilitate this area of ministry and manage these funds, Richards said “not a dime” has been distributed from the line item.
“Our human care is under a director and we haven’t hired a director, so I’m administrating that until we have one,” Richards said. “These funds would not classify as institutional support unless East Texas Baptist Family Ministries becomes a part of the 15 percent restricted operating funds.”
Richards explained that it is necessary to partner with such ministries in order to remain true to the convention’s founding principle of not owning institutions which could later create financial burdens for the convention.
“We want to be good partners like we are to Criswell College in supplying them with a reasonable amount of money. Our desire is to build a network,” he said.
“I can envision having partnership ministries in southern Texas, west Texas and the metroplex,” Richards said. “From the desires of the convention and the board, we don’t want to own these ministries. We want to help them develop ministries so that the SBTC can have a place to confidently send children, unwed mothers and spouses in times of need.”
SBTC President George Harris shared his church’s philosophy of helping ministries after they have already started.
“If you feel like you need to minister to people who are down and out, then you get something started and then our church will come and put money in it and we’ll stand behind it,” Harris said, former pastor of Castle Hills First Baptist Church in San Antonio.
Mac Brunson, new board member and pastor of First Baptist Dallas, countered by reiterating the necessity of the SBTC involving itself in the beginnings of ministries.
“There was time when The Criswell College was not. There was a time when Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was only a vision of B.H. Carroll on a train,” Brunson said. “This brother [Gerald Edwards] is asking for us to help him and not wait for him to start it and then us take the glory and credit for that. He has asked to partner with us. Any church that’s ever built somet
IRVING, Texas ? For Baptist women excluded from the senior pastorate, why spend time and energy training for ministry in the local church at a Southern Baptist seminary? This question, often asked by critics of the Southern Baptist Convention, is being addressed by all six seminaries supported by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program.
The backlash against the article on the church in the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 engendered a feeling that Southern Baptists believe women do not play an important role in the church, said Heather King, one of two females that served on the committee to revise the historic confessional statement.
“In authoring the statement on women serving in the local church, the committee fully realized that both Scripture and the testimony of Jesus designates women as integral ministry initiators and coworkers,” said King, who was recently named women’s program coordinator at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville. “That is why it is so important for women to be present in seminary classrooms, so they can be equipped for ministry.”
Critics of the confessional statement expected female attendance in Southern Baptist seminaries to drop in the post-convention meeting media blitz that labeled the SBC as misogynist. However, statistics from all six schools indicate female enrollment has remained the same or is growing. For example, in 1991 Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary reported 85 female students on its main campus. In 2002, the number jumped to 506, a 495 percent increase in total female student population at the Wake Forest, N.C., school.
The irony of this situation is not lost on Terri Stovall, women’s program director for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth as female enrollment at SWBTS has remained steady, up from 670 females enrolled last spring.
“I have seen local churches opening the doors to women for all types of ministry opportunities. The BF&M 2000 affirms and empowers women to discover the gifts, talents and passion that God has given her and then seeking out where best to use those gifts in the local church,” said Stovall, who also serves as assistant professor of adult education and aging in Southwestern’s school of educational ministries. “I know of women and have friends who serve as church administrators, music worship leaders, educational ministers, student ministers, children and preschool ministers and yes . . . even women’s ministers.”
In the fall of 2002, 692 women were enrolled in classes on Southwestern’s main campus, 178 of which were pursuing the Master of Arts in Christian Education degree. This degree, which offers a concentration in Women’s Ministry, is comprised of 70 hours and has been in place at the seminary since 2000. The degree includes 14 hours of seminary core classes, 12 hours of theology classes and 32 hours of courses within the school of educational ministries. The concentration in women’s ministry includes courses such as women’s issues, adult development psychology, counseling with Scripture, and speech and oral interpretation.
Stovall, who helped design the curriculum for the women’s program at SWBTS, stated that the degree equips women to fulfill “a myriad of leadership roles” as a lay leader, church staff, denominational employee, or missionary.
“My vision is that the women’s ministry programs at SWBTS equips women to make a difference for the kingdom of God in whatever context they are placed,” Stovall said. “My dream is to begin to take this training to other states and even other countries. A number of my students are international women who want to impact the families from their home country and often the best way to do that is woman to woman.”
The seminary also offers a certificate program to train women currently ministering in the local church, but who are unable to attend classes full time. SWBTS also seeks to equip the wives of students to be partners in ministry with their husbands. This year, the Texas seminary established a leadership certificate in women’s ministry with new courses being added each year in the area of women’s ministry, teaching and counseling for women.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., is also creating new programs for women. In 2002, the seminary hired King as its first full-time women’s program director.
“The growing trend is toward large churches hiring both part-time and full-time women’s directors. Even more important, the next five to seven years will be pivotal in Sou
IRVING, Texas ? The story of Southern Baptist missions would not be complete without acknowledging the tireless work of Baptist women, particularly through the efforts of the Woman’s Missionary Union.
For over 150 years, Baptist women have helped define the Southern Baptist distinctive of carrying out the Great Commission task, shaping it into the cornerstone of the modern-day Southern Baptist Convention. Women like Mrs. W.B. Bagby, Miss Fannie Breedlove Davis of San Antonio and Mrs. T.P. Crawford stand beside B.H. Carroll and L. R. Scarborough as giants in the pages of Southern Baptist history.
The Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) was founded at a 1888 meeting of 32 women in Richmond, Va. The organization was formed for the purposes of collecting funds for the Foreign Mission Board and the Home Mission Board and promoting a “missionary spirit” within the convention. Its impact on the SBC is seen in many ways, including providing for a corporate means of tithing with the introduction of tithe envelopes in Baptist churches. WMU is also responsible for much of the convention’s missions education efforts through such programs as Mission Friends, Girls in Action, Acteens, and Youth on Mission.
Despite a rich history in missions and missions education, WMU enrollment has experienced a slow drop in numbers. In her book, A Century to Celebrate, former WMU President Catherine Allen states that WMU recorded peak enrollment of about 1.5 million members in 1964. In 2001, ACP reports indicate that WMU recorded 857,680 members nation-wide.
Overall circulation for the primary WMU magazines and periodicals have also dropped with 27,101 subscriptions to Dimension magazine reported in 1995 to 13,910 reported in 2002. Missions Mosaic dropped from 227,365 in 1995 to 202,657 in 2002. And an even bigger loss can be seen in the circulation for Discovery, which dropped from 179,721 in 1995 to 73,943 in 2002. Newer publications such as Nuestra Tarea and Missions MatchFile have seen an increase, demonstrating an attempt by WMU to adapt to societal changes.
WMU’s courtship with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), an alternative missions-sending organization, coincided with a drop in membership and circulation in the 1990s’.
In 1990, Larry Lewis of the Home Mission Board asked the WMU and other SBC agencies to refrain “from giving support, approval, promotion of and encouragement to alternate funding plans,” such as the giving plan of the CBF in order to save Southern Baptists’ historic Cooperative Program giving method. In James Hefley’s book The Conservative Resurgence, he records the response of the WMU board to the proposed giving plan of the CBF. The board issued a statement affirming the traditional giving method for missions through the Cooperative Program, yet also affirmed “the right of individuals, churches and state conventions to choose other plans for cooperative missions giving.” The action was endorsed by Helen Fling, Christine Gregory and Dorothy Sample (former WMU presidents) and Alma Hunt and Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler (both former WMU executive directors).
In an Oct. 6, 1992 article in the Indiana Baptist, Executive Director Dellanna O’Brien recognized that supporting the CBF by providing tailored missions education materials to the fellowship could alienate churches that relate to WMU. However, O’Brien emphasized that the WMU was committed to providing missions education support in every Southern Baptist church.
“Through the years we’ve been able to support missions in every Southern Baptist church the same way. Now we’re looking at how ? and if ? we can continue to serve all Southern Baptist churches,” said O’Brien at a missions festival at Ridgecrest in the summer of 1992.
Coping with losses in membership and readership, WMU launched a campaign to change its image seen in its 1997 annual report under the leadership of WMU Executive Director Dellanna O’ Brien. A pair of cat-eye glasses appeared on the cover of the report with the quote “If this is how you still see WMU try looking a little closer.” Currently, the WMU does not print CBF materials; however, a link to the CBF website is posted on WMU’s webpage.
In December 2001, SBC critics and WMU leadership of the 1990’s such as O’Brien helped found a new missions-sending organization called Global Women. The first annual meeting of the Mainstream Baptist Network in Feb. 2002, functioned as the debut for the group in which it identified itself as pro-feminist and anti-SBC. At the same meeting a booth for the Baptist Women in Ministry organization distributed information on “Mother God” worship. Working with other missions organization, the group currently supports one international missionary or “global associate.” According to the organization’s website, the group seeks “to unite women for action around common needs,” such as “malnutrition, illiteracy and polluted drinking water.”
Catherine Allen, former WMU president, serves as Global Women treasurer. Other WMU figures in attendance at the meeting were past WMU executive directors Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler and Alma Hunt. According to an article by Michael Clingenpeel posted on the website of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, other WMU leaders involved in Global Women include Dellana O’Brien, WMU executive director for 10 years, and Dorothy Sample, former national WMU president.
In December 2001 Wanda Lee issued a statement to distance WMU from the anti-SBC Global Women and past WMU leadership.
“Global Women has no affiliation with Woman’s Missionary Union, Auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention. While many of our former leaders are involved in the new organization, their participation is a personal decision and not one connected to national WMU,” Lee said. “While I was informed of their plans to launch Global Women two weeks prior to their formal announcement, the current leadership of Woman’s Missionary Union has not been involved in the planning nor the incorporation of this agency.”
Lee also noted that WMU would not be distracted by Global Women in pursuing its ministries and facilitating mission education.
Euless, Texas ? The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention recently named Rita Kirkland, director of media services at First Baptist Church, Euless, as state church library consultant. Kirkland will help SBTC churches with current library needs or help in starting new library ministries.
Kirkland has been a librarian since 1966, serving as the director of the church library at First Baptist Euless since 1979. Although this is a new consulting position for the SBTC, Kirkland is no stranger to helping churches with library ministry problems. When she isn’t enforcing the Dewey Decimal System at her home church, she’s takes her expertise on the road as one of only four media consultants for Lifeway Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. Kirkland also speaks at conferences across the country in this capacity.
Before taking the position with the SBTC, Kirkland served the Baptist General Convention of Texas in library resources, a position she occupied since 1985.
Kirkland said she hopes to rid SBTC churches of the negative stigma attached to church libraries being musty-smelling converted closets containing a hodgepodge of unwanted books. The idea of an unused church library filled with books that nobody wants to read is a sore topic for Kirkland.
“We represent the Lord Jesus Christ,” she said. “We are not a ministry of castoffs and hand-me-downs.”
She believes that the church library should be considered a vital part of the ministry of the church. The books and resources in the library should show “that we reflect him in all that we do,” according to Kirkland.
Kirkland will seek to demonstrate to churches the vital ministry role the library can and should play in the local church.
“The library is an excellent form of evangelistic outreach to the church body and the community,” she said, adding that the library is the only organization that is capable of ministering to the entire church. From the preschoolers, who first learn about Jonah and the giant fish through popup books, to moms and dads who get advice on how to raise a child, the church library can touch the lives of all its members.
Kirkland has seen this impact the lives of many, including the unsaved. She tells the story of a woman ? a non-Christian ? who began attending First Euless. The woman wanted to find some Christian fiction to replace her Harlequin Romance novels. A transformation took place after Kirkland introduced her to wholesome books. The Holy Spirit used the words on the pages to introduce the woman to the Savior.
The Christian message can be found in almost every genre of Christian literature from inspiration, to books on parenting, to the growing field of Christian fiction, she said. There are books for almost any literary appetite on the Christian bookshelves today.
As an SBTC consultant, Kirkland will travel throughout the state helping churches establish library ministries and training those who will assist those ministries. She will work with individual churches as well as conducting conferences where other media ministers can network and attend specialized training.
Kirkland will immediately begin working toward her two main objectives for the church library ministries around the state: 1) For Texas to be the number one church library state, and 2) Helping church libraries become an evangelistic outreach tool to the local church and the community.
What can a local church do to help their library ministry succeed? Kirkland believes there are three key elements in creating a successful library ministry.
First, as with any organization, good communication is vital. Kirkland suggests the church staff communicate to the congregation what types of resources the local church library has to offer. Another suggestion is for a pastor to let the library staff know what topic he’ll be preaching about on Sunday mornings, so the library staff can display books and other resources pertaining to that topic.
Second, a church library must have a budget that reflects the size and people of the church. A church library must have the funds to keep the ministry current and relevant.
Third, a successful library must have a dedicated staff that sees the vision and understands how the library can benefit the church. There is no age requirement ? or restriction ? when it comes to who can serve in the church library. All it takes is individuals who care and want to make this ministry truly that?a ministry, she said.
What about the smaller church that can’t afford a large library?
“There’s no such thing as a small church,” Mrs. Kirkland said. She said every local church is in the business of serving God.
According to Kirkland, even if a church has just a few books that fit into a basket that are brought to the church each weekend, the library ministry can flourish.
Kirkland also believes a good library should be stocked with plenty of good books and other resources for the members. “The church library should be a place where a child can finish his homework,” she said. “We’re not in competition with the public libraries, but we would prefer to keep them out of the them
DALLAS?During services on March 23, the congregation of First Baptist Dallas celebrated God’s faithfulness in their Rising Together capital campaign to raise $48 million for the Criswell Center, a new multi-use facility.
Since October 2002, the church has collected cash gifts totaling over $8.3 million, and received pledges for $21.8 million over the next three years, for a total of $30.2 million to-date for the campaign. An anonymous donor pledged $4.8 million (10% of the goal), which will be released in cash when the pledge and cash total reaches $43.2 million.
“All of this has been accomplished in less than one year?only through the power and blessing of God being poured out on our church family, and to His glory!” said Lori Swarner, communications coordinator.
The new Criswell Center will occupy the site of the current Criswell Building plus replace an adjacent parking lot at the intersection of St. Paul and Ervay streets in downtown Dallas. The eight-story facility will house underground parking, an atrium entrance and fellowship mall, the Legacy/Heritage Center, two chapels, a media room, a bookstore and coffeehouse, educational space for 1000 people, a new dining facility, office space, a prayer tower, and room for expansion, among other benefits.
Pastor Mac Brunson began communicating the vision God laid on his heart for First Baptist Dallas back in April 2002. Beginning with a call to prayer, Brunson urged his congregation to not rest in the great history of the church, but to once again become burdened and broken for the lost.
The capital campaign was officially kicked off on May 5 at the Dallas Convention Center. According to Jim Ward, the church’s executive administrator, the message was further communicated through a series of townhall meetings and meetings in 78 individual homes to answer questions.
The first giving phase of fund raising took place from October through December in which 3 special offerings were collected. The commitment phase took place from January through March 2003. Church-wide education and inspiration lead to the commitment Sunday on Feb. 23. The Rising Together Celebration on March 23 was the first big reporting day, and an opportunity to begin giving toward the three-year commitments.
The emphasis, which changed slightly due to the Iraqi conflict, still included celebrative music and a video presentation that “rolled in the totals in reverse,” stated Swarner.
Brunson’s sermon focused on the war, and he led his congregation in a time of prayer for our nation, its leaders, and the people of Iraq. “It’s hard for us to do much celebration. As a church we are to bear the burdens of our country,” he said.
The next step in the campaign is to follow up with families who haven’t yet pledged. “Our goal is for 100% participation from our families,” stated Ward. “Once we have the $48 million in cash and pledges then the construction date will be determined,” he said.
The 50-year-old Criswell Building will be removed. According to the campaign web site, www.risingtogether.org , “As much woodwork and stained glass as possible [from the Criswell Building] will be placed in the new building. Most furnishings and paintings from Dr. Criswell’s office will be placed in the Legacy/Heritage Center. ” W. A. Criswell, who passed away in January 2002, served as the church’s pastor from 1944 until 1993, and as pastor-emeritus and chancellor of the Criswell College until his death.
In Brunson’s Rising Together message, he reminded the congregation that Criswell “longed for the next generation to know the inerrant word of God.”
In order to take the message to future generations, Brunson believes the church must think differently than it has ever thought before.
“You’ve got to understand church not in your terms, but in their terms [the terms of the next generation],” he stated at the new building presentation.
“People come through a front door, and that will speak volumes. Then they’re looking for a place where they can get to know you intimately. If they get there, then they’re accepted. That’s what that building’s going to help us do.”
LEWISVILLE, Texas ? Combining medicine and ministry, Ray Bandy, M.D., sees his calling as both physician and preacher as interrelated as Matthew 4:23 described Jesus’ ministry. “And Jesus went about…preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.” Bandy serves full-time as senior pastor-teacher at Trinity Southern Baptist Church in Lewisville, as well as medical director for the Lewisville-based Christian Community Action Adult Health Center.
“Medicine and ministry are tremendously interrelated because the illustrations and applications in healing the body and healing the soul are inseparable,” Bandy said, adding that the patients he treats at the health center are “walking, talking sermon material.”
In addition to medical healing, Bandy has been used to cause some spiritual healing by helping resurrect a church seven years ago; a church that had failed in three prior attempts of starting. Two years later, the church increased in size forcing it to double its education space. In 2001, the church completed a new auditorium.
“We started with only six cars in the parking lot and maybe 15 to 16 folks coming. Both the Denton Baptist Association and the Baptist General Convention of Texas were thinking about selling it, but the church wanted to keep going.”
Now the church has a clean bill of health, humming along about 225 in worship and an average of 180 in Sunday School.
A heavenly call
At age 45, Bandy admits that his calling into a dual career wasn’t always so clear. Growing up on a farm in southwest Missouri, Bandy was saved at a revival at age seven and was raised in a Christian family.
He describes his mother as a dedicated Christian and a strong Bible student who raised five children who all now serve in Southern Baptist churches today.
But a call into the ministry? “I never even had a thought about becoming a preacher.” Instead, he wanted to play baseball. He earned a full scholarship to Crowder College. During those years, Bandy said he realized he “wasn’t going to be the next Mickey Mantle,” and began praying about what God wanted him to do. Since he had a talent and love for science, he studied medicine. Leaving behind his baseball scholarship, Bandy transferred to Southwest Baptist University Bolivar, Mo., where he received an academic as well as spiritual education from dedicated Christians.
It was on a Sunday evening during the middle of the worship service that Bandy had an experience never to be repeated but also never to be forgotten. To this day, he can explain it no other way than God sent him his undeniable calling. “During the service, a spiritual being, maybe an angel or messenger from God, appeared to me above and in front of me and said ‘You are going to preach.’ I heard a literal voice and it shocked me. I looked around because I thought surely others saw it and heard it but no one else did.”
Being a man of science, Bandy states it is ironic that God would use such a supernatural way to call him into something he’d never even considered. “I can’t explain it, other than as a result of that experience, I know I cannot ever give up on my call. The force of the command was so strong that it has never been a question of whether or not God has called me to preach.”
For eleven years, Bandy assumed God was calling him into medical missions. He finished his medical studies at the University of Missouri Medical School, did his residency and taught at the University of Oklahoma specializing in infectious diseases and tropical medicine. He then attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and while in Fort Worth, he met his future wife, Jan.
The vision clarified
While he was in a private practice in Medical City, Dallas, Denton Baptist Association contacted Bandy to serve as pastor. It was then God began to unveil the medicine and ministry vision. For 15 years, Christian Community Action Founder Tom Duffy and others had been praying for a doctor to begin a medical clinic for the poor. With the donation of a 2,500-square-foot building, he and a nurse and a physician’s assistant began seeing patients one afternoon a week.
It’s easy now for the Bandy’s to see the call of the Lord, but seven years ago it was a major decision the couple made to go to a church that had, in baseball terms, already struck out three times previously.
Without regret, Bandy honestly admits both ministries have been at various times personal struggles. “We’ve sacrificed time, talent, money, everything to see these go successfully. Jan has had to do double duty,” he said. “I believe I am a better man as a pastor of a small church and providing medical help for free, than I was as a private physician…and I think Jan would agree with that,” Bandy said,
EL PASO?Paul Harvie considers herself blessed to have grown up in a Christian home where she was taught to pray from an early age. “As I grew older and studied the Bible myself, I came to realize God’s amazing promises.” She believes prayer is powerful and effective because God promised to answer prayer. “God cannot lie. We can count on Him!”
A lifetime of personally experiencing the power of prayer strengthened her belief in the immeasurable potential of prayer. So when the prayer coordinator of El Paso’s Exciting Immanual Baptist Church learned that her son would be deployed to Iraq, her natural response was to recruit scores of people to pray for him.
“Almost daily, I pray Psalm 91 for David, inserting his name in the text and reminding God of His wonderful promises to those who love Him,” Harvie said. “Many times a day I claim God’s promise that ‘no weapon formed against David shall prosper,” she added, drawing from Isa. 54:17
As the mother of an Army captain stationed with the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, Paula Harvie knows the comfort of having fellow believers committed to keeping a prayer shield of protection over American troops. “I’ve seen profound gratitude in the eyes of young soldiers in our congregation. They find it very reassuring to know that their home church will cover them with prayer.” The anxieties of loved ones are replaced by the peace that passes all understanding, she said.
Months before the war broke out, the church began interceding for troops, families, the nation and the Iraqi people. A special prayer board lists the names and pictures of family members and friends who have been deployed. Members are encouraged to participate in an hour of prayer on Sunday afternoons or stop by on their way to work during weekday mornings. “These special times are wholly devoted to the war with Iraq, the welfare of our troops and their loved ones, wisdom for our leaders and revival in our nation.”
Harvie recognizes that America is an imperfect land. “We have much need for humbling ourselves before God and asking for forgiveness for our national sins.” Still, she views the current conflict as a just war, adding, “t1:country-region>America is the instrument of God’s judgment on an evil leader and his wicked cronies.” She believes God has given the nation “resources, manpower and opportunity to carry out his judgment on a diabolical regime.”
The sacrifice her son is expected to make to liberate people that don’t always seem to appreciate those efforts caused Harvie anguish during the darkness of a long night just after the war had begun. “In fact, these people hate our sons so much that they take every chance they get to insult them, attack them and kill them,” she determined.
“As I was reflecting on the unfairness of it all, the Lord reminded me that he, too, sent his Son to liberate hateful, mean-spirited people who didn’t want to be liberated from the tyrant who was holding them in bondage, either.” Those ungrateful people treated God’s Son unfairly, too, she added, ultimately killing him.
“Suddenly I understood a deeper dimension of Romans 8:8,” she said, quoting, “‘But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while were still sinners.’ The human race treated the Son of God no better than the Iraqi death squads have treated our troops. But God loves them as much as he loves us. He wants people everywhere to know his love and to experience his liberation from the worst tyrant of all, Satan.”
As soon as the conflict is over, Harvie said, “The Church needs to flood Iraq with Christian businessmen, construction workers, engineers, teachers and medical personnel who will demonstrate through their professional skills the compassion of God to a broken nation desperately in need of his love.”
Harvie is aware that the intensifying hatred of the Muslim peoples toward America could make it difficult for American missionaries to share their faith in those lands. That calls for prayer to change the hateful atmosphere. “When our church prays for Iraq, we always pray that God will open that land to the gospel and that from Iraq the good news of Jesus Christ will spread to the other nations of the Middle East. We’re asking God for a spiritual breakthrough and a harvest of souls unparalleled in the history of missions.”
Before her son left for Kuwait and Iraq, she encouraged him and his Christian friends to prayer walk those nations as they served their country. “I said they should consider themselves God’s missionaries on special assignment and to claim for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the very lands their feet would tread!”
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