We are doing so for the sake of increasing numbers among us who are largely unaware of their inheritance as Covenanters in both life and thought.The complete Glad Hearts volume is available for purchase under the Resources Link on the Home Page of the rootedwings.com website. Comments or questions regarding any of the readings here are always welcome.
The central priority of mission remains the driving force of the Covenant Church from our earliest days. We exist for the benefit of those who do not yet know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. In the late 1880s the infant denomination sent missionaries to Alaska and China. In 1994 we officially support missionaries in twelve countries around the world: Zaire, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Laos, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, Germany, Russia, Canada, and the United States. We also work cooperatively with scores of other agencies. Covenant missions in the ten fields outside the United States and Canada include well over 115,000 believers--surpassing our membership at home. Each Covenant missionary represents a thousand believers around the world. The Covenant continues to explore new fields as God calls men and women to serve him around the world.
A Family Matter: An Exploration in Believing and Belonging (Inquirer’s Class Manual of the Evangelical Covenant Church, 1994), p. 34.
Missions, in its roundest meaning, is not a department of the work of the church. It was the very life of the early church. In proportion as it is not the life of the church today--in Africa or America--just in that proportion the church is dead. Beside the spread of the Gospel, beside the lifting up of him who draws all men and women unto himself, nothing is important.
Sigurd F.Westberg (1910-1999), “The Attractiveness of the Cross”
From The Covenant Pulpit G. F. Hedstrand, ed. (1954), p. 121.
Covenant Women [Ministries] has always been interested [as an organization] in missions and given strong support to Covenant mission fields. Early in my tenure [1980-1989], however, the board and I sensed that women across the United States and Canada had a new vision for mission-a vision that focused on the mission fields that surrounded their homes and churches. That vision in no way detracted from the traditional, important emphasis on world mission, but served to expand it.
Recognizing that the Master instructed his children to be light and leaven in the world, and building upon materials previously published by Covenant Women, I encouraged Covenant Women to reach out to women and children in need. If we were going to be God's hands in the mission fields around our homes and churches, we could begin by ministering to hurting women and children. Society had ills and problems that could use our influence, perspective and hope.
To facilitate this heightened emphasis, Covenant Women made some administrative changes. The Board of Covenant Women formed commissions that worked with the board to guide these new ministries. The concept was to allow interested groups of skilled people to direct Covenant Women into areas of ministry that put us on the cutting edge of outreach.
These additional emphases for ministry and concurrent administrative shifts resulted in intensive research into Covenant Women's programs and structure. Three years of research resulted in a re-writing of the Covenant Women constitution... [which] was ratified in 1990....
Doris R. Johnson (1924- ), The Eighties: A Time of Transition (InSpirit Magazine,1991), pp. vi-vii.
There is security and hope and a way of escape from many of this world's troubles in fellowship with Christ. And the Christ-led life has a goal beyond this present existence. But, by and large, the gospel is not an escape formula either from life or temporal responsibility. It is a challenge to a full and meaningful life with values that do not fluctuate with materialistic instability. We are called to live now, and then to be with the Lord, not merely to endure the present until he comes. We are here not to endure but to witness. And that is a more reasonable challenge to the worldling than a mere means of escape from the consequences of his frustrating and useless existence.
C. Milton Strom (1911-1972), Holy Curiosity (Board of Publications of the California Conference,1966), p. 8.
The missionary enterprise is not optional, to be accepted or rejected at will by the believers. It is a mandate from the Lord. Our own spiritual life demands this expression, as does the hopeless condition of a Christless world. A church without a missionary vision is a dying church. An individual Christian devoid of missionary zeal is living a dwindling spiritual life. No other quotation from the Master's lips occurs so often on the pages of the New Testament as the paradoxical statement that he who would save his life shall lose it and he who would lose his life for Christ's sake shall find it. This is not commercial arithmetic but celestial mathematics. He who has forgotten or evaded his God-given obligations to his fellow human beings is living on a diminishing spiritual capital. His inner life inevitably becomes stunted and impoverished. Use or lose is the law in the Christian life.
Theodore W. Anderson (1889-1972), “Covenant Principles,” in Covenant Church Membership (Late 1930s).
There is no possibility of fulfilling Christ’s mission apart from human media. But human beings will be inadequate in proclaiming the Gospel without sufficient motivation. It is when people are moved profoundly within that they act. It was Jesus who said, “How shall they preach except they be sent?” We must recapture the dynamism of this sense of being sent. ...Jesus said, “As the Father sent me into the world, so send I you.” Of a committed missionary it was said by a friend, “He was another confirmation for me of how one is free from the tyranny of the many in life only by committing oneself totally to the service of one.”
Russell A. Cervin (1913- ), Mission in Ferment (1977), p. 118.
The Covenant is a missionary movement. That is the meaning of the name: Mission Covenant. Mission means expansion. Growth expresses a fundamental principle of life; it is necessary in order to fulfill its mission. It includes those things which give stability, strength, self-dependence, or developed selfhood through which one's identity can be maintained. Otherwise the whole existence would evaporate and lose itself.
There is an opposite element also which means giving oneself, self-emptying, sharing with others; and the one principle completes the other. Where there is no growth, there is nothing to give or share; on the other hand, if there is no giving of oneself, there is no rejuvenation, renewal, no power, but only old age and death.
These principles have their roots in nature, but are applicable even to the spiritual life.
Mission is sharing one's experience with others. As long as truth is not appropriated but remains objective, there is no demand to share it with others; when it becomes personal, then it grows, develops, and demands expansion. Missionary activity and true Christian life are two aspects of the same thing. To be a Christian and lack missionary interest is a contradiction.
Nils Heiner (1868-1958), “Covenant Characteristics,” from Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations, Glenn P. Anderson, ed. (1980), p. 230.
Another mission journey, now through Nebraska to Colorado [May 13, 1902]. It is a long and tiresome trip but we hide the rough edges and look at it lightly because in the light there is life and health. We are called out of the light of this world to take our light from the Lord and spread light in the darkness. For this reason, away with all dark misgivings and let us await only good from God, our dear heavenly father. He does us no ill.
In this way I placed myself and mine and everything else in God's care, took my suitcase in hand and went my way to the West. Immediately upon getting on the train in Wausa I met and talked with a potato inspector from Minnesota. We were immediately immersed in his work. He was a specialist in potatoes, that is, selling potatoes. We live in a time of specialists in which a person devotes himself to one matter and tries to become better at it than anyone else.
There are specialists in almost everything. If you lose your hair you go to a specialist. When your teeth ache you go to a specialist. If sinuses are clogged, you go to a specialist. Yes,
for every part of the human body there are specialists and when the body is ill you go to a specialist for that problem and when finished there you go to another for treatment for another ill.
For a lung specialist must take into account what the stomach has to say about the medicine. Finally the patient comforts himself hat he has had the best treatment by a specialist. If one dies without the care of specialists, in the eyes of these persons one has committed suicide. But otherwise it was perfectly natural to die because each had done his best as a specialist. But if a machine breaks down, isn't it more intelligent to be fixed by one who understands the whole machine and not just one part of it? Here as elsewhere it is mostly trial and error.
But we all ought to be specialists in one matter: to be friends and lovers of Christ's mission. As believers in the Lord Jesus we should above all else devote ourselves to learning all
we can about the fruits of Christ's death. And what is mission but the fulfillment of prophecy:"He shall reign from shore to shore." When our beloved Savior rose from the grave, he began his
glorious triumphal march, which will not cease until all his enemies are laid at his feet. There is nothing more certain in the whole world than that Christ's work will have success. It is only a matter of time until the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of Christ. We can speed up the coming of that glorious time. Just think if the powers that be gave half of
the monies now spent in defense to support missions. What waves of blessings would flow over the people of the world. Yes, how the face of the earth could be renewed if the monies used by Christians for tobacco and liquor were given instead to missions.
G. D. Hall (1870-1927), G. D. Hall, Pastor-Journalist: Reports Mission Meetings, 1895-1911, George F. Hall tr. (Typed Script, 1991), p. 70.
How thankful I am that the North Pacific and California Conferences of our Covenant Church decided that the little town of Klamath Falls in southern Oregon was a part of the world in which they were to share the good news that Jesus was talking about. They came, they worked hard, they told the good news to all who would listen- especially those of the Scandinavian community. My parents listened and they believed. They had so much joy in what they had received; and they so delighted in sharing it daily with us children that I soon realized I must receive this good news, too; and what I received I felt a responsibility to share.
The day eventually came when God revealed to me that this sharing of good news was to take me beyond the confines of the United States, and he led step by step until my family and I stepped down the gang plank onto [the] small island of Taiwan.... This is where we were to share our mission, our message, as long as God wanted us to be here.
Martha Dwight (1923- ), “To Share the Mission.” From Bound to Be Free: essays on being a Christian and a Covenanter, James R. Hawkinson, ed. (1975), pp. 39,40.
If I had a thousand lives I would offer them for this new China, which during this new century shall rise over the ruins of the greatest of heathen bulwarks. What this new China shall become, if it is only to be polished by western civilization with the old heathenism remaining in its heart, or if it shall be thoroughly infused by the transformation of Christianity, ennobling its principles, that depends to a great extent on how awake the Church will be to its responsibilities and the use it will make of its opportunities. Have faith, pray, and work--then we shall see victories out here, such as shall rejoice our hearts and which will send a surge of blessings to the Church in the homeland.
Peter Matson (1868-1943), January 7, 1901
From Edla C. Matson, Peter Matson, Covenant Pathfinder in China (1951), pp. 93,94.
Training and Approach
Such talk [as that it was far more advantageous to send out missionaries individually than under the Covenant board] shows what slight knowledge [some] have of the situation on the mission field.... If there are to be lasting results...there must be a continual established work carried on. Sporadic attempts are practically no more than wasted efforts.... I will not express myself about conditions on other mission fields but as far as China is concerned it is depressing to think about all the disasters that has been the outcome of such free-lance missionaries who have the great gift of advertising themselves but who have done very little in evangelizing the country....
Peter Matson (1868-1943), 1912
From Edla C. Matson, Peter Matson, Covenant Pathfinder in China (1951), pp. 145,146.
Are you troubled ...that we are comparatively so small? Do you long to be a member of a church of 32,000,000? Would it make you happy to have everybody quite clear that we are not the Convent Church, but the Covenant Church? You see, the genius of the discovery of the grace of God is that it is entirely suited to the person to whom it is given--and to that person alone. That is how we have our names with each other. And out of the work we do with each other, we have the habits of the heart by which we become truly, to use the Swed ish, förbundet (Covenant), meaning bound together. Or to take that secular word and give it its permanent Judeo-Christian weight, this is how we became covenanted together in mission and, to use the language of my boyhood, became Mission Friends.
Do you remember when we were Mission Friends? Not just friends in mission, but members of the mission who were, as members of the mission, friends. And friends because we were of the mission. And the mission--not simply separated congregations--but the mission wherever there were Mission Friends who had God's glory and neighbor's good to see to. No barriers between the congregations, no artificial sense that I belong to this and I belong to that. Mission Friends. So that, whether I visit here with you in Salem or am in my church at North Park in Chicago, I can, as a Mission Friend, help to plant trees with the Carlson Foundation in Zaire. I can help with Covenant Pines Bible Camp in MacGregor, Minnesota. I can help at Unalakleet. I can help at Swedish Covenant Hospital.
Zenos E. Hawkinson (1925-1997), “The Covenant: Being” (1985)
From Anatomy of the Pilgrim Experience: Reflections on Being a Covenanter, Edited by Philip J. Anderson and David E. Hawkinson (2000), p. 102.
I am this evening full of ambition. I would fain make this school a college, yea, a university. I would have its fame go all over the world and last through all the ages. I would make this dear community of ours a center of thought and art to the whole civilized world. I would make this school a monument of unfading glory to our ancestors, whose name ye bear and whose history we write. . . . And yet there is a greater ambition still in my heart. To see this our beloved school the university of the world, to hear in these halls the echo of applauds from every quarter of the globe for thoughts nobly thought, for words nobly spoken, and for arts nobly executed, and this would be very small satisfaction to my great ambition, in comparison with this exceedingly great success, to plant here and here see growing and developed to full strength and power an institution which may deserve to bear the name of a mission school, a school where the gospel of Christ is the acknowledged standard of culture, fostering a school life whose very pulse is the love of Christ and of all those whom he loves, making this school a center from which radiates to all ends of the world the light of Christ's truth, and the warmth of Christ's love, and the beauty of Christ's character. This, my friends, would be, in my estimation, a school not only up-to-date but up to eternity, a school with a schedule [for] becoming a Christian university.
David Nyvall (1863-1946), “The Poetry of Missions,” Speech reprinted in Linnea, 1901.
Quoted in Scott E. Erickson, David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church (Acta Universitatis Upsallensis, Uppsala, 1996), p. 267.
Looked at closely, most Covenant churches have been rather unresponsive to an overly zealous outreach in whatever area or form. They have felt in their bones that the Christian fellowship should be attractive enough in itself to commend the Savior to the sinner without too much urging. While their doors were unmistakably open, they preferred to wait for the spontaneous decision and intention to a new life. Even in the early twenties, when some of us began our ministry, it was not unusual to hear when we presented a name for membership in the church, “Did you ask him or did he ask you?”
... The fact remains that we need to face what is almost an obsession on the part of many about our smallness and insignificance. The records indicate that something more definitive is possible. It is found in the meeting of Rosenian and Reformed piety, the former inward and reflective, the later objective and aggressive. This is not to say that Reformed piety forsook the beloved doctrines of Rosenian piety. But it did take a more doctrinaire and intellectual stance and became aggressive in its preaching, evangelistic outreach, and institutional drive. These traditions have lived side by side in the Covenant to the present time. Their relationships have often been tense and yet have been creative and maturing within the church itself. But they have not been and are not now united enough in spirit, thought, and mutual confidence to generate an enthusiastic move forward.
At this point it is high time for thoughtful and prayerful waiting before God until the signals are individually and collectively clear that another spring is approaching like that in which our early forebears found a new life.
Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), pp. 41,42.
Cultural Challenges
Missionaries can never shed their cultural markings. We are set off like zebras at the Kentucky Derby.... Oh, yes, we would dearly love to be able to present a culture-free Gospel with no additives, no drugs, no artificial flavoring. Let the Gospel wine pour freely–but from what? Stone jars? Wineskins? Aluminum cans, cardboard cartons, or crystal decanters? Jesus was a Jew and spoke as a Jew. I am an American and the Gospel tastes American. [As Lesslie Newbigen has written in Foolishness to the Greeks], “The idea that one can or could at anytime separate out by some process of distillation a pure Gospel, unadulterated by any cultural accretions, is an illusion. It is in fact, an abandonment of the Gospel, for the Gospel is about the Word made Flesh.”
So as we confess our strange ways our offenses are forgiven and our offerings made acceptable. It is a wonder that the Word of God is heard through missionaries at all, given their outlandish ways and barbarous language. But it is.
Brad Hill (1950- ), Slivers from the Cross: A Missionary Odyssey (1990), p. 41.
...Ours is a day of great opportunity for the proclamation of the Gospel of the love of God in Jesus Christ. While we sometimes look with fear and trembling on the great cultural changes represented by...technological society, by urbanization, and by secularization, we also see in these changes great opportunities for the Church of Jesus Christ. ...The impact of these tensions and changes on the countries of the Third World, where our missionary engagement is so vitally important, cannot be overstated. This is the time most urgently calling us to bring the Christian Gospel where men and women are living and struggling so that they can become new persons in Christ, expressing his concern for all peoples of all conditions everywhere. The challenge to our integrity, perseverance, and commitment has never been greater.
Russell A. Cervin (1913- ), Mission in Ferment (1977), p. 44.
...Our advocacy of change produces only resistance if narrowly aimed at particularly “evil” sins, whether it be begging, drinking, or drugs. Rather, ours is the task of bearing witness as best we can to another worldview, without the accouterments of Western Christianity.
The Gospel is perceived in any culture through its advocate. An attitude and a presence that bespeak Christ become powerful intercessors for change. We are only earthen vessels, often cracked, leaky, and ugly–rarely the beautiful vessel destined for glory. It is the mystery and power of God that the Gospel is nevertheless channeled through us.
Brad Hill (1950- ), Soul Graft (1988), p.56.
Martyrs Among Us
Does not all that has happened in the Congo of late [1965] awaken us to the fact that God is wanting to communicate with us but that we are too busy to give him our attention and obedience? This seems too great a price. It is if we do not hear, repent, and respond. But what if God is heard? The fact of Paul Carlson's martyrdom [November 24, 1964], and that of others, has been carried by all the modern media of communication-radio, television, newspapers, magazines around the world. People everywhere have heard of it, even where news still travels only by word of mouth. All this telling is about something infinitely more than that a man was shot at Stanleyville. Such brutal acts happen time and again even in our own cities. But there was a difference at Stanleyville: a witness became a martyr and a martyr became a silenced, yet eloquent, witness. That difference is great enough to change countless people. It can make young people choose a life of service rather than one of selfishness. Middle-aged people can shift from egotistic determination to endless dedication. The aged can greet this event not as a tragic waste of life and talent but as a triumphant victory for Christ and his unshakable kingdom. This will happen, but it must happen deeply and permanently. Paul Carlson's commitment to the lordship of Christ should awaken in us the dedication that fits us for the same household of faith.
I am writing these lines on a day that ought to be sacred to everyone who has any knowledge about the history of the Covenant Church. It is easy for us to observe the anniversary of most exceptional days, but how does one observe the anniversary of January 7, 1948, in a fitting manner? That was the day when three of our missionaries to China were riding on a bus from Siangyang to Kingchow for a meeting of the China Council. Conditions were restless in the land of Sinim in those days, as they are in the Congo today. As the bus was about sixty miles south of Siangyang at two o'clock in the afternoon, a company of some sixty bandits brought it to a stop and ordered all the passengers to leave the vehicle. They were all searched and robbed and ordered to remove their coats and shoes. When Dr. Alexis Berg requested that he might keep his passport, he was cursed and slapped by the bandit and the passport was taken. The bandit gang started off with their loot, but shortly four of them returned. The leader of the quartet suggested that “these foreigners” be put to death. He addressed Dr. Berg: “Are you Americans?” To this question he received no answer, simply because Dr. Berg would not jeopardize the two women, Martha Anderson and Esther Nordlund. The bandit said, “Americans are the worst of all; they have done China much harm.” Then he shot Dr. Berg, Martha Anderson, and Esther Nordlund. That was seventeen years ago this very day [1965], and yet it disturbs us to this hour. Our fellowship has not been only in green pastures by still waters. We have also known these moments when our colleagues, despite our intercessions, have passed through the gorge of gloom and did not return to walk with us because they had come to the end of their earthly errand.
Clarence A. Nelson (1900-1971), “Paul Carlson...Witness” in There Was a Man, Carl Philip Anderson, ed. (1965), pp. 88,89.
The Lord stood by me and lent me strength, so that I might be his instrument in making the full proclamation of the Gospel for the whole pagan world to hear; and thus I was rescued out of the lion's jaws. And the Lord will rescue me from every attempt to do me harm, and keep me safe until his heavenly reign begins. Glory to him for ever and ever!" (2 Timothy 4:17, 18, NEB)
(Quoted by [Covenant Missionary Martyr] Paul Carlson in speaking to his fellow prisoners at Stanleyville on November 23, 1964, the night before his death.)
That Paul Carlson's death had a tragic dimension is an inescapable fact. Having endured many weeks of imprisonment and having lived under the threat of death much of that time, he was only moments away from safety when a bullet ended his life on a Stanleyville street even as Belgian paratroopers, engaged in a giant rescue operation, filled the sky overhead.
Recognizing that his death was a tragedy, a seemingly senseless waste of human life, should not, however, prevent us from seeing that it was also a triumph. Here, truly, death was swallowed up in victory. Whether the church is ever worthy of its martyrs is open to question. Perhaps there have been times in its long history when it has been. When confronted by the kind of devotion, courage, and faith of which Paul Carlson's life was such a moving example, however, we can feel only a sense of unworthiness.
Carl Philip Anderson (1917- ), There Was a Man: His Name, Paul Carlson (1965), p. iii.
With the death of Dr. Paul Carlson at a wall in Stanleyville [November 24, 1964], thirty years of missionary work in Africa under the direction of the Evangelical Covenant Church has been crowned with martyrdom. He was not the first of the church's Congo missionaries to die in service. Marion Nelson had been the victim of violence of another sort when a German submarine sank the ship on which she was returning for furlough in December of 1942. Evelyn Noren, a year to the day of her arrival at Karawa in May of 1952, died at her desk in the Ubangi Academy from a bolt of lightning. And Clyde Carlson, succumbing to disease at 37 years of age in July, 1957, directly preceded Paul in the burial ground at Karawa, where their bodies now lie side by side.
But there was a different dimension to Paul Carlson's death. Marion Nelson was on the high seas, on the way home, a victim of the power struggles of her own race. Evelyn Noren's main labor, indispensable as it was to the ministry of the missionary staff, was largely with the children of missionaries. Clyde, at the time of his passing, was close to his missionary comrades met together in annual conference and to Congolese co-workers solicitous about his health.
Paul Carlson died of bullets fired from a gun held by African hands. It was to the Congolese he had come, to save and prolong Congolese lives and to relieve Congolese suffering, and it was by Congolese hands he died.
The President of the Church of Christ in the Ubangi recognized the full import of this in a letter following Paul's death: “Truly we have great sorrow because of the death of our brother because we know his humility, kindness, and desire to help us Congolese, both in our bodies and in our souls.... Although his desire was only to help us, the people of Congo, yet he was killed here. Therefore, we give testimony to the fact that unless we give ourselves completely to God, his blood will be on us.”
As one reviews the history of Covenant work in Congo, one marvels that it had not happened before. Nearly ninety adults have been involved in that effort over a period of three decades. There was occasion enough for martyrdom during that time, but until this event, which focused the whole world's attention on a Covenant missionary doctor, we were spared....
There was a sense in which Paul Carlson was completing "what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body ... the church" (Colossians 1:24). The Apostle Paul is not saying that Jesus' sacrifice was in any sense incomplete or insufficient for our salvation. He is simply admitting that Christ's sufferings must be relived in his disciples in each generation for the sins of us all if the cross on which he was lifted up is truly to draw everyone unto himself.
L. Arden Almquist (1921- ), ”Paul Carlson...Martyr,” in There Was a Man, Compiled by Carl Philip Anderson (1965), pp. 95,96,101.
Comfort and Exhortation
Now be of good cheer and trust always in the Lord. You know he will never forsake you. And he certainly has a work for you...great or small.... You know that a small coin might be genuine while a big coin might be false! It is far better to be a small and genuine coin in the Master’s service than [one] big and false. ...And don’t forget to pray. We are much taller before the Lord while on our knees than on our feet often! ...Let us then in our relationship to God be meek and humble. Such he will sooner or later give grace and honor.
David Nyvall (1863-1946), Letter to an Alaskan Missionary, July 2, 1898.
Quoted in Scott E. Erickson, David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church (Acta Universitatis Upsallensis, Uppsala, 1996), p. 81.
We still believe in revivals and in missions,...and they are so closely related that they are basically one and the same interest. But what we need is the superior court that binds these interests into one. It breaks the heart of [Peter] Matson, our veteran missionary, to find what he calls indifference in foreign missions. But he may console himself. This royal inheritance can never be banished from the hearts of the Mission Friends. But it is striving to find a broader foundation. . . . And we may thank God that the leadership of the Covenant has the ability to see with both eyes, in perspective. It is that sign in which all our missions shall conquer: in a Covenant interest which inseparably links together the local work, home missions, and foreign missions into one single interest in the hearts of the people. Even the best interests may become discordant and inharmonious. But they may also be in concord and tuned to a harmonious hymn [of] praise [to] the Lord.
David Nyvall (1863-1946), “A Royal Heritage,” Lecture from November 1, 1932.
Quoted in Scott E. Erickson, David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church (Acta Universitatis Upsallensis, Uppsala, 1996) p. 227.
The very word missionary implies that one is sent, even as the word mission implies a sending. Derived from the Latin mitto, “I send,” both words indicate the response of the believing Christian and a faithful church to Jesus Christ, the Lord, the One who sends. Ultimately it is beside the point whether the missionary receives...orders from the mission or the church, or from an older or younger church, or from a Western or Eastern one, a European, American, Asian, Latin, or African one. It is Jesus Christ who commands, and under whose orders (the missionary] serves. [He or she] may indeed sometimes have to oppose the orders of both the church at home and the church abroad to be faithful to the command of Christ.
L. Arden Almquist (1921- ), Missionary, Come Back! (The World Publishing Company,1970), p. 84.
In this poetry of missions, there are stanzas yet to be composed, there are heroic lines yet to be inserted, there are lyrics yet to be sung, there are acts yet to be played. And you, young people, convened here tonight ... are called upon to give your noblest and best selves for the continuation of this magnificent poem, this epic of epics, this lyric of lyrics, this drama of all the dramas. To turn your ambition in that direction, to warm your heart and awaken your will for such a noble lifework, is the aim of this little speech of mine.
David Nyvall (1863-1946), “The Poetry of Missions”
Quoted in Scott E. Erickson, David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church (Acta Universitatis Upsallensis, Uppsala, 1996), p. 172.
The total population [of the world] is actually younger today than at any time in history. Forty percent of the world's people are fifteen years of age or younger. Half the population in Asia and Latin America is under twenty years of age. Studies show that most people accept Christ as Savior and Lord when they are young. We must recognize, therefore, that at this time in world history we have an unusual opportunity for presenting the Gospel to young people. We must reach them now with the good news of Jesus Christ!
What can you do? If you are young and have your whole life before you, you can follow Jesus and give yourself, as Jesus did, to ministry for God's glory. We need young people who will obediently commit their fives to Jesus for the redemption of the whole world. Jesus provided the atonement. We must provide the people to tell the good news everywhere.
Parents, you can love the world redemptively as God the Father did by giving your sons and daughters for the sake of the world he loves. You must be willing to affirm and support your children when they feel God is calling them to take the Gospel to foreign lands even when that means you may not see them or your grandchildren as often as you would like. Brothers and sisters also need to let members of their family fulfill God's will in missionary service if that is the direction in which they are being led.
All of you can pray. Through prayer you can accompany any missionary to the farthest reaches of this earth. Through prayer you can walk with them through crowded bazaars, minister in steaming jungles, and feed the millions of men, women, and children who are hungry for both daily bread and for “the bread of life.” To ordinary people like you and me, God has granted this privilege of being mighty in prayer. God, who is everywhere present, wants his children to pray for the world he loves. Don't miss this great privilege. You and I have the opportunity of conversing with the creator of the universe about the world he loves and the world for which his Son died.
You can help, too, by giving your money to support the ministries that are at the very heart of God's desire. Canadian and U.S. dollars can become the gold of heaven when they are given sacrificially for the redemption of the world. Don't miss the opportunity of investing funds in a kingdom that has no end, where the moths of devaluation and inflation will not shrink its value. Invest in God's favorite ministry--the ministry of spreading the good news of salvation to lost people everywhere. Do it now!
Raymond L. Dahlberg (1930- ), “Our Mission in the World God Loves”, Covenant Tract (1987).
Lessons Learned
...A road to mission...is indeed a two-way street. What I learned about life from Africans is at least as important as what I contributed to them....Being is more important than doing....
Presence is more important than talk....
Community is more important than individualism... [and]
Relationships are more important than possessions....
...Beside the deep sense that I am under obligation to people before whom I stand in shame, I am also a debtor unashamed....
...When I recall the Gospel and the difference it has made in the lives of Babese, Louise and Elise, Kama, and the villagers of the Ubangi through the multifaceted ministry of Loko–as well as a host of fascinating sisters and brothers through whom I have learned what God chose to teach me in Zaire–I know I am a debtor, and a debtor unashamed. Jesus Christ has accomplished my salvation and the salvation of many to whom I went with the Gospel. They, for their part, rewarded me far beyond my expectation or deserving, and our risen Lord is preparing a place for them and me which will make our small improvements look small indeed.
All praise and honor to his name!
L. Arden Almquist (1921- ), Debtor Unashamed (1993), pp. 17,21,29,37,45,121,131.
