A.W. Tozer said: The great of the kingdom have been those who loved God more than others did. |
What will keep us from fulfilling Christ's Great Commission for our generation?
In a telephone interview done for an online class in World Evangelization at Nazarene Bible College, student Angela Wetmore posed this question to Nina Gunter: "From your perspective, what will be the single greatest challenge to world evangelization in the coming decade?"
Nina Gunter's response was:
"Dealing with believers' lack of passion for the lost. People are so focused on themselves that they lack passion for the lost.
"The single greatest challenge is reviving that passion for the lost. Historically, the church has grown most when it ignited in people a desire to reach the lost."
Dr. Nina Gunter, General Superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene and former General Director of Nazarene Missions International (NMI), the denomination's global outreach promotion and mobilization arm
"The church will soon die"
"The day the Church of the Nazarene loses her interest in foreign missions and rescue work (compassionate ministries), she may run awhile on her reputation, but she will soon die as dead as any formal, ecclesiastical church in the world. May God keep this vision before us"
-- A. J. Vallery, superintendent of Bethany Training Home, Memphis, TN, June 16, 1920Becoming a Global Christian
If I truly seek to have the heart of Jesus, I will seek to think the way He thinks, not just about myself and my ministry, but about the world. I will seek to feel what He feels, to cry over what He cries over, to laugh about what He laughs about, to see what He sees, every day I live. I will not just sing songs in worship services about honoring Him in all I do. I will seek to prove my faith and commitment to the vision of Jesus with action (Jam 2:18).
It is the vision of Jesus that calls me to wake up every day and think about the world. All too often the world is out of our vision as Christians; we do not regularly think about it. God sees the world, He thinks about the world, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As global Christians, we should too.
-- church planter Larry McKain in Falling in love with the Church, p. 245
 | Is there enough passion in the soul of the church? [ read more ] |
| ||||||||||||||
Howard Culbertson, Southern Nazarene University, 6729 NW 39th, Bethany, OK 73008 | Phone: 405-491-6693 - Fax: 405-491-6658
Copyright © 2002 - Last Updated: October 2, 2007 | URL: http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/21stcen.htm
You have permission to reprint what you just read. Use it in your ezine, at your web site or in your newsletter. Please include the following footer:
Article by Howard Culbertson. For more original content like this, visit: http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert