GFM Director’s Blog

One of the best ways to show what has been on my heart and mind lately is to show what I have been sharing with others.  Here is an excerpt from an email conversing with a high school graduate asking about the benefits of going to college first versus going through a program like our missionary training school.  We usually advise young people to do a program similar to ours on the field before going to college so that they can get more direction as to what would be beneficial to study that will actually help people on the mission field.  That seems like a better option than spending four years in school getting trained to do something that may not even be meeting a felt need.  There is a little bit of repitition as this comes from a few different back and forth emails, but here is a part of the dialogue:  

Prospective Student: Also, as we’ve spoken about, there are a lot of advantages to doing MTS straight out of high school, (lack of debt, opportunity to get direction on what to study in college if desired, etc.).  I was wondering if you could see any disadvantages to doing MTS so early, though. Are there reasons why one might get more out of the experience at a greater age?  

Grant: I was thinking about this the other day and I’m starting to get convinced that the one of the devil’s greatest strategies in this world is to keep people off of the mission field.  We know that he knows the Bible backwards and forwards because he used it to tempt Jesus in the wilderness.  So, he must know versus like Mt. 24:14; Mt 28:19,20; and definitely knows his ultimate destination spelled out in Revelation.  If I were him, I would make every attempt to keep the gospel from going into all nations knowing that once that happened, the end comes.  I have an urgency on my heart for the nations right now and passages like Jesus saying “you say four more months and then the harvest….I say open your eyes, the harvest is now”.  I think the people of Tlaxiaco need representatives of Christ right now.  How will they hear unless someone goes to them….?

Grant: Aside from that, I think that Christian discipleship is best done sooner than later.  I can only see positive things about learning those lessons sooner than later and would want to have those tools in the tool box before going to college.  I guess my case in point would be to look at all of the lessons and spiritual truth that you learned this summer and ask “do you wish that you would have waited four more years to learn and grow the way that you did this summer?”  Think about what you learned with regards to sin, prayer, death to self, worship, God’s glory, evangelism, warm/cold climate, the body of Christ, God’s heart for the nations, etc.  Are you sitting there right now thinking, “man I’m really young…I wish I would have waited until I was done with college or had more life experience before going down to Oaxaca to learn the things I did.  I would have gotten so much more out of it if I would have waited four more years.”

Grant: I’m trying not to be one sided in this argument and look at it from all angles like a parent would, but I’m honestly having a hard time coming up with any disadvantages of going through a fairly painless 7 month school (which offers an associate’s Bible degree) and learning some great spiritual lessons that can be put into practice both at home and abroad.  I’m trying to give as real an answer as possible and not dance around the question…..I can’t think of any reason that a 22 year old would get more out of this training than an 18 year old as I have seen my share of both come through this program.  

Prospective Student: One concern I’ve had is that if I do MTS this year, feel called to study something in college, go to college, and then am ready to ship out to missions, will I still be fresh on the things I learned at MTS or will I be stale and disadvantaged because of the spam of time in between my missions-specific training and actually going?

Grant: I think that people should go to college to DO ministry even more so than to prepare for ministry.  I think that it is just as much a calling as the mission field is and would want training before going there.  I would want people to put into practice everything that they learned at MTS on their college campus as practice before heading to the mission field.  We are basically teaching a lot of Christian life and church principles that are just as applicable in a U.S. college environment as in the 10/40 window.  I think going to MTS first also helps you stay focused while you are in college.  I’ve seen too many people do it the other way around and have lost the vision along the way because of the lure of the American dream, a significant other, a new calling to US ministry, and a million other distractions.  I’ve been doing this for ten years now and am beginning to get a little pessimistic as I have seen so few people make it to the mission field that felt such a strong calling from the Lord.  Everyone swears that they are in the category of solid Christian who is not going to get distracted, but I’ve seen very few survivors.

Grant: All of the principles that you learn at missionary training school will be immediately applicable in a college context, so you should never grow “stale” because you could implement everything learned at MTS in a university.  Most of our training is Christian life oriented rather than missions specific because missions is basically living out Christianity in a cross-cultural setting.  So, you will learn more about prayer, worship, spiritual warfare, evangelism, discipleship, church planting, learning languages, etc.  At least 90% of what you learn at MTS should be able to immediately be put into practice there at school and you would be more equipped to hang out with the international crowd there as well which is a mission field in and of itself.  So, everything will actually still be very relevant and fresh if you do missions after college and you may be even more prepared by having lived out the principles that you learned during a four year stay at college.  I truly believe that the span of time between doing our school and going to the mission field is irrelevant because we’re are basically trying to teach people to be good, reproducible Christ followers.  Everything should be applied immediately just as we encouraged all of you summer staffers to go home and put into practice everything that you learned down here. 

Prospective Student: I appreciate all the ways you’re supporting me, and in advance, the time it’s gonna take you to formulate answers for my stinkin’ difficult questions…so, thank you.

Grant: Feel free to pushback on any of my points or arguments.  I find that most of the questions that you are asking on behalf of others are like you said in your email (good questions from people that are looking through a worldly lens rather than a faith lens).  I’ve enjoyed reading your updates and really do see a lot of maturity in the way that you are going about this whole decision.  Let us know as you have more questions or concerns.  We just ultimately want you to be in the place where you can bring most glory to the Father.  Run all of life’s decisions through that filter and you’ll do just fine.    

I’m going to post an email that I sent out to a bunch of people that we met at Urbana as it best shows what has been on my heart lately.

We got your name from Urbana and may have contacted you before concerning our short-term trips, summer internships, and missionary training school.  Now, we are writing because the Lord has given us an URGENT vision for the least-reached peoples in the 10/40 Window–one that is going to require many new laborers to go to the frontlines.  2000 years ago, Christ told us to make disciples of all nations (ta ethne – people groups).  Starting in 1974 at the Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelization, Christians worldwide rallied around a vision to see a church planted among every people group on earth by the year 2000.  Yet, here we are in 2007, with 6425 unreached people groups remaining in our midst, 9 out of 10 foreign missionaries still going to the parts of the world that are reached with the Gospel, and only 12,000 pioneer missionaries (those going to people groups that have never heard the name of Jesus) serving overseas.  That’s not very many ambassadors to represent Christ and bring the Father glory!  “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”  Mt. 24:14

We at Global Frontier Missions have just launched our THUMBs Up Expansion Vision focused on getting bases started among each of the world’s major religious groups (Tribals, Hindus, Unreligious/Chinese, Muslims, Buddhists).  These “frontier centers” will focus on mobilizing, training, and sending long-term workers to the 6425 unreached people groups.  All of our laborers will work towards seeing a Church Planting Movement (CPM), which is a rapid and multiplicative increase of indigenous churches planting other churches within a given people group or population segment.  We want our missions organization, GFM, to be a model for the indigenous churches that we are planting by being very organic (simple and focused on obedience to Christ), holistic (ministering to the whole person), and quickly reproducing/multiplying (a kingdom principle found throughout Scripture).  Want to be a part of this grassroots revolution and see God exalted among the nations? 

In the next several years we will be deploying teams to start new GFM bases, so we need short-term mission trip leaders, missionary training school teachers, English teachers/community development workers, and church planters, as well as administrative staff for each base to pull off the vision.  We are looking for people that would be willing to die to self and the dreams they have, follow Christ fully and chase His dreams, be broken for the lost, learn language/culture while living like the people to whom they minister, and who are willing to work hard and suffer for our Lord.  We need people to come get trained at our missionary training school in Oaxaca, Mexico and then form a team that will go start a new base in the 10/40 window.  We hope to be in India/Nepal (Hindu world), SE Asia (Buddhist world), and the Muslim world in the next few years, but we need a huge influx of laborers in our training program to make that happen.  One of the perks of our school is an associate’s degree in Biblical studies, which could come in handy if you were to end up serving in an organization other than ours.  It’s time to get off the bench and start truly seeking first the Kingdom! Maybe you are thinking that you are “called” to something else, but can I ask you to step back for just a moment and look at the big picture of God’s plan throughout history?  

From Genesis to Revelation, God has always been focused on blessing a special people (Israel in the OT, the Church in the NT) in order for those people to be a blessing to all nations, and this still hasn’t fully happened yet.  Do you think the 1.6 billion people who have never heard the name of Jesus feel “called” to spend eternity outside of God’s presence?  “Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  But how can they call on the one of whom they have not believed.  And how can they believe unless someone goes to them” (Rom. 10:13,14).  We all got “called” to frontier missions 2000 years ago when Christ said “go!”  I think that sometimes we put our own personal call (which seems to get strongly influenced by our own desires) above God’s big picture of seeing every tribe, tongue, people, and nation redeemed by the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 5:9).  Keith Green said, “If you stay home from going into all nations, you’d better be able to say, ‘You called me to stay home, God, I know that for a fact.’”  

Please know that my heart is not to come across as harsh, judgmental, or to undermine work that people are doing for the Lord as much as I am trying to express an URGENCY that I feel is from God.  I have a hard time trusting that we as individuals and the Church as a whole is truly discerning the Lord’s voice when it comes to His will.  I look at the Scriptures and see that it is the Lord’s will that none should perish, and yet there are still 6425 groups of people without access to Christ and no one going to them.  Something is missing in this picture, and I feel like it is our obedience.  Ezekiel 33 seems to hint that we are God’s watchmen and responsible for sounding the trumpet to this generation of souls all over the earth.  Let’s be about the Father’s business of seeking and saving lost souls until Christ comes to take us home.  God deserves the glory of all peoples being satisfied in Him! 

Until all have heard,

Grant Haynes
www.globalfrontiermissions.com

Did you know that 6425 out of the 15874 people groups on the earth have no access to the gospel?  639 of those groups have more than 100,000 people and are completely unengaged (have not a single Christian bringing the gospel to them).  What are you going to do about it?    

Okay, so I have finally given in and joined myspace, facebook, and now starting a blog.  I don’t have a ton of free time to be constantly on the internet writing about my life, but I will try to regularly post my thoughts, strategies, and ideas concerning missions on the frontlines.  The internet is one of the best tools that Global Frontier Missions has found for vision casting and getting the word out concerning the needs of the world.  Maybe the Lord will use this blog along with postings on other community sites to see more people go into long-term missions among unreached people groups.  Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send more laborers into the field…