William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army in 1865
“The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred German pastor
When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages." To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."
“I have but one passion -- it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field, and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.”
Count Nikolus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf, German nobleman and leader of the Moravian Church
“That the Lamb who was slain would receive the reward of His suffering.”
The mission statement of the Moravian Church
“People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in
David Livingstone, pioneer missionary explorer to Africa, 1840-1873 (an appeal to the students of
"I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done in China... I don't know who it was... It must have been a man... a well-educated man. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn't willing... and God looked down... and saw Gladys Aylward... and God said, 'Well, she's willing.'"
Gladys Aylward, missionary to China from 1932 to 1949. One of the most remembered single woman missionaries even though a mission board had turned her down due to "poor academic showing."
"There are grave difficulties on every hand, and more are looming ahead -- therefore, we must go forward."
William Carey, missionary to India, 1761-1834
"It is always helpful to us to fix our attention on the God-ward aspect of Christian work; to realize that the work of God does not mean so much man's work for God, as God's own work through man.”
James Hudson Taylor, missionary to
“No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ. There will be no big world vision without a big God. There will be no passion to draw others into worship where there is no passion for worship.”
John Piper, author of Let the Nations be Glad!
“The plea of inability is the worst excuse. It slanders God so, charging Him with infinite tyranny in commanding men to do that which they have no power to do. All pleas and excuses for not submitting to God are acts of rebellion. It is not because they cannot do what God commands, but because they are unwilling.”
Charles Finney (1792-1875), an evangelistic preacher and revivalist during what came to be known as the Second Great Awakening in the United States
“Too many people want the fruit of Paul’s ministry without paying the price that Paul paid. He died. He died to everything. He died daily. He was crucified with Christ. I challenge you to pray this prayer: ‘Lord, be ruthless with me in revealing my selfish ambition and my lack of willingness to die to myself.’ I guarantee that He will answer your prayer – and quickly.”
Floyd McClung, author and missions spokesman
"The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become!"
Henry Martyn, a missionary to the Muslims of Persia and India, 1805-1812; he translated the New Testament into Urdu before dying at 31 years of age.
"To focus our attention outward, to grow as world Christians, is really not an option at all. Looking to the needs, concerns, and opportunities of our world in the same way that our Lord would is a basic part of identifying ourselves with Him."
Paul Borthwick, author of A Mind for Missions and speaker at Missionfest Manitoba 2009
“The history of missions is the history of answered prayer... It is the key to the whole mission problem. All human means are secondary.”
Samuel Zwemer, became known as the "Apostle to Islam"
George Verwer, speaker at Missionfest Manitoba 2009, and the founder and international director of Operation Mobilisation (OM), a mission agency in which over 5,400 OMers are working in over 110 countries to bring the Gospel to literally millions of people.
"There are three stages in the work of God: Impossible, Difficult, Done."
James Hudson Taylor, missionary to
“One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving.”
Amy Carmichael, missionary to India for 55 years, from 1895 until her death in 1951, and founder of Dohnavur Fellowship, a ministry that primarily reached out to children who were child widows, temple prostitutes or orphans.
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
Jim Elliot, honour student and all-star athlete, and on January 8, 1956, five Waorani tribesman of Ecuador killed Jim Elliot and his four missionary companions as they were trying to bring the Gospel to the Waoranis. Not long after, many in the tribe chose to follow Jesus, including some who were involved in the killing, and the tribe gave up their violent ways.
"God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will, a will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to."
Elisabeth Elliot, widow of Jim Elliot who was martyred as a missionary in 1956 (see last week's quote of Jim Elliot)
"Christians spend more money on dog food than missions."
Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994), author and evangelist
“There are too many over-fed, under-motivated Christians hiding behind the excuse that God has not spoken to them. They are waiting to hear voices or see dreams – all the while living to make money, to provide for their future, to dress well and have fun.”
Floyd McClung, author and missions spokesman
“There are no closed doors to the gospel - provided that, once you get inside, you don't care if you ever come out.”
Brother Andrew, author of God's Smuggler and founder of Open Doors, an agency devoted to serving persecuted Christians throughout the world
“As long as I see anything to be done for God, life is worth having; but O how vain and unworthy it is to live for any lower end!”
David Brainerd, missionary to the American Indians in New England from
C. T. Studd, an illustrious and wealthy college student and athlete who gave up a life of certain affluence and prestige to become a missionary to China, India, and Africa, 1885-1931
“It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions.”
John R. Mott, one of the most influential figures of the Student Volunteer Movement, which was a revival of missions involvement that saw at least 20,500 students volunteer sent out to foreign mission fields throughout a fifty year time period (beginning in 1886), which during that time, represented about half of the total Protestant overseas missions force. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for his efforts to mobilize students to better the world, and is known as "one of the most influential world religious leaders of the twentieth century." (as per historian, Ruth A. Tucker)
“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
William Carey, missionary to India, 1761-1834
"'Not called!' did you say? ‘Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face – whose mercy you have professed to obey – and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”
William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army in 1865
"We should not ask, 'What is wrong with the world?' for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather, we should ask, 'What has happened to the salt and light?'"
John R.W. Stott, author and theologian
"God only uses dead people."
Bishop George Gichana, church planter and pastor in western Kenya
"We talk of the second coming. Half the world has never heard of the first!"
Oswald J. Smith, a pastor, evangelist and missionary statesman who founded the People's Church in Toronto in 1928, a church that is currently supporting 153 nationals and over 300 missionaries around the world.
"To me, it has always been difficult to understand those evangelical Christians who insist upon living in the crisis as if no crisis existed. They say they serve the Lord, but they divide their days so as to leave plenty of time to play and loaf and enjoy the pleasures of this world as well. They are at ease while the world burns; and they can furnish many convincing reasons for their conduct, even quoting Scripture if you press them a bit. I wonder whether such Christians actually believe in the Fall of Man."
A.W. Tozer (1897-1963), pastor, preacher and author
"There really is no cost -- only the privilege of serving the King of Kings."
Dr. Helen Roseveare, missionary doctor to the Congo from 1953 to 1973, and who stayed there through Congo's civil war of the 1960's during which she was taken prisoner, beaten and raped, and frequently threatened with death. She was eventually rescued, but after the war, she returned to the Congo to help the nation rebuild.
"God will reveal the glory of His kingdom among all peoples. We are within range of finishing the task, with more momentum than ever before in history. Be a part of it – 'Declare His glory among the nations!'”
Menno Simons (1496-1561), an anabaptist leader whose followers became known as Mennonites
Ron Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger
David Livingstone, pioneer missionary explorer to Africa, 1840-1873
Amy Carmichael, missionary to India for 55 years, from 1895 until her death in 1951, and founder of Dohnavur Fellowship, a ministry that primarily reached out to children who were child widows, temple prostitutes or orphans.
"God is a missionary God. The Bible is a missionary book. The Gospel is a missionary message. The church is a missionary institution. And when the church ceases to be missionary minded, it has denied its faith and betrayed its trust.
J. Herbert Kane, author and mission historian
"The way I see it, we ought to be willing to die. In the military, we are taught that to obtain our objectives, we have to be willing to be expendable. Missionaries must face that same expendability."
Nate Saint, missionary pilot who was martyred on January 8, 1956 when five Waorani tribesman of Ecuador killed Nate Saint, Jim Elliot and three other missionary companions as they were trying to bring the Gospel to the Waoranis. Not long after, many in the tribe chose to follow Jesus, including some who were involved in the killing, and the tribe gave up their violent ways.
"God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life but a full one, like You, Lord Jesus."
Jim Elliot, honour student and all-star athlete, and on January 8, 1956, five Waorani tribesman of Ecuador killed Jim Elliot and his four missionary companions as they were trying to bring the Gospel to the Waoranis. Not long after, many in the tribe chose to follow Jesus, including some who were involved in the killing, and the tribe gave up their violent ways.
"Prayer is the greatest power God has put into our hands for service — praying is harder than doing, at least I find it so, but the dynamic lies that way to advance the Kingdom."
Mary Slessor, missionary pioneer to tribal peoples in the rain forests of present day Nigeria from 1876 to 1915. She brought the Gospel and addressed significant justice issues among previously unreached peoples.
"The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity."
Mike Stachura, pastor and former president of Operation Mobilization USA
"I never care for a crowd, only for one person. If I visualized a crowd I would never get started. The important thing is the individual. I believe in a person to person approach.... The greatest illness is not leprosy, but rather the feeling of not being accepted. The greatest scourge is indeed to forget the next person, above all when the next person is Christ Himself."
Mother Teresa (1910-1997), missionary to Kolkata, India and founder of the Missionaries of Charity
“Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself but because it contradicts them.”
Frank Mead, author
"Only if significant numbers of dedicated Christians will think small will anything come of the big plans that our missions, our churches, and our schools might have for the rest of the world. What would have come of God's plans to save the world if Jesus had succumbed to the temptation to think on such a grand scale as to have no time for the blind, the crippled, the little children, the gawking crowds?"
Jonathan Bonk, past missionary, missiologist and author
"We can either try to convince others in the arena of the mind or we can approach people in the arena of the heart. For the most part, traditional approaches to evangelism go head-to-head instead of heart-to-heart... [but] we truly enter the lives of others in evangelism when we touch their hearts."
Steve Sjogren, pastor, evangelist and author
"The whole history of the Church is one long story of this tendency to settle down on this earth and to become conformed to this world, to find acceptance and popularity here and to eliminate the element of conflict and of pilgrimage. That is the trend and the tendency of everything. Therefore outwardly, as well as inwardly, pioneering is a costly thing."
T. Austin-Sparks (1888-1971), evangelist and author
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20)
"As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you." (John 20:21)
Jesus Christ, Son of God, the same yesterday, today and forever!
No comments:
Post a Comment