It was on the Wednesday, remember the afternoon that 1881, a young reverend named Albert Benjamin Simpson had just resigned from what was a pretty prestigious post, a pastor that he had in New York City, a few weeks before. He had decided what he was going to do is he was going to call a meeting and in New York City, he was going to invite everybody, all Christians in New York City who supported an aggressive spiritual movement to reach New York City's overlooked non-believers. Sounds like a great idea. Here's the problem.
Seven people showed up for the meeting. That was it. But there's a song I like. It was a springsteen fan out there called from small things, mama, big days, big things, one day come.
Today, just this morning, here in online, just at our church, about 700 of you just in the next two, three hours, will gather under the banner that Simpson started. But it gets bigger and better this morning, over the next couple of hours on a Sunday morning, about a half a million members of the Christian missionary alliance churches will gather here in the United States. They're going to gather in about 2,000 churches, speaking in 38 languages just in the United States. But it gets bigger and it gets better.
Simpson's vision is heart and passion. It extends well beyond the United States, right? The Christian missionary alliance is in 80 countries where 24,500 churches will gather this morning with 6.3 million people. That's what you're part of this morning.
You're part of one of the 6.3. And all of these churches, while they're very distinct, a lot of folks think that we're a non-denominational church, we're not. But we are usually distinct one from another. But we all share this what they call CMA DNA.
What is that? Well, it started with Simpson, right? This 30-something year old pastor who had spent long hours on the city docks evangelizing immigrants that were pouring into New York City by the boatload. The scores of them, this guy was a pretty good preacher.
Scores of them were putting their faith in Christ. However, when he was inviting them back to his fancy church, many of the wealthy parishioners didn't want the unrefined new believers amongst them. And so he was pretty upset about this, grieved. He was a father of five.
He sensed God calling him to leave this high-paying position. It's to start this world mission society to make Jesus known to what he called the neglected masses. Within just a couple of years, starting with those seven folks, he and his small man of followers planted what was called the Gospel Tappernacle in the heart of New York City. It was a church home for people of all ethnicities and social classes who were coming to Christ through all of these campaigns.
The Gospel Tappernacle, which if you're going to New York City for any of the Christmas stuff, it is in Times Square. It is now called John's Pizza. You go to John's Pizza in Times Square. If you go and eat in the back, you'll see it's a church.
This was the Gospel Tappernacle. It reached out to the ostracized and had soup kitchens, orphanages, rescue missions, language classes, all ignited by this passion of A.B. Simpson. He had this message where he wanted to send Christians to distant lands where Christ's name had not been heard yet.
He never intended to start a denomination. But he did. He also ignited, more importantly, ignited this missional movement, one that you and I are still a part of. Every November, year after year, here at Manateb we set aside one Sunday to remember this.
This is our shared story, who we are and why it matters. Paul wrote to the church in Rome. He wrote them a question I think we think is rhetorical, but it's not rhetorical. He was speaking about how faith in Christ is what saves people.
Here's what he wrote to the church. He said, how can they people that don't know Christ, how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in them? How can they believe in them if they've never heard about them? And how can they hear about them unless somebody tells them?
And how is anybody going to go and tell them without being sent? This morning we are going to hear stories from two of our own songs to that are being sent. This is a personal message for me. This church, I just love being a part of this church.
Every Christian missionary alliance church needs to set aside a Sunday for what they call a mission Sunday and you bring in missionaries from overseas. And years ago, several decades ago when I was here at Mendem, we would bring in people that I, frankly, never heard of. I never met. And usually they were pretty boring.
And then they would leave. No pressure on being boring. But I don't know. Some 15 years ago or so, the Lord just started moving amongst us.
And so suddenly it's like we never have to bring in a missionary. We don't know because so many folks have left here to be common missionaries. I could give you the list, but I'm not going to go into it right now. But today we are bringing back my friend Dan Hutton who has been serving the Lord overseas in Lebanon and my friend Sean McLean who is about to leave and serve the Lord overseas in Germany.
Now, these boys are not strangers. They all grew up here. There are a couple of pictures of them. There's various stages of things going on here.
They've been best buddies since they were little kids. Look at that. That was your only wrestling trophy that you ever got. So here's the breakdown of the morning.
Each of them is going to come up and talk a little bit about the kind of what they're doing, right? We're going to start with Sean because he is a newbie. He's not even left yet, but he's leaving soon. And then Dan's going to come up and he's going to talk about the what?
Because he's home from his first term in Beirut, Lebanon. And then I'm going to come up and talk to them together because I want you to hear and I want to hear it for myself. The why? Why would you do this?
We're going to be the most energetic, supportive people ever because these are our sons that are leaving us to go serve the Lord in our name and sense. We are the one sending. So let's start by welcoming Sean McLean. Wow.
I'm going to move things because I'm going to fall down if I trip on stuff. Okay. Wow. It is incredible to be here.
I mean, we've had opportunity to speak at a bunch of different churches in the season as we get ready to go overseas. But this one is really special because this is family. And we were talking before, the services. It feels different.
There are a lot of things on the surface, the look of things that maybe have changed, but this still really feels like home. And so thank you for having me. Thank you for having my family here this morning. We're just excited to be able to share with you.
And yeah, I want to show you a picture of my family first. Hopefully they'll come up on the screen maybe. There they are. So my wife Susie and I have been married for a little over eight years and then we have our six-year-old son, Ian.
Ian loves puzzles and legos and building things and figuring things out. He's kind of our little engineer. And then Maisie is three and she likes princesses and unicorns and painting and music and is definitely more of our little artist. I'm going to ignore that.
Who doesn't love a unicorn? Anyway, so that's us. And I just want to tell you a little bit of our story, kind of how we got to this place what we're going to be doing. Before Susie and I even got married eight and a half years ago or so, we were talking about global missions.
It was something that God had put on our hearts in different ways in our lives before we met each other. And I'll share I think even a little bit more of that and even how men do play a part in that later on. But because of that background, even when we first met, it was something that we started talking about and having conversation even as we got engaged of, you know, as we looked towards the future, would we ever consider serving overseas. All throughout our time in church ministry this past eight years, which is what we've been doing here in New Jersey, serving in a couple of different roles in a couple of different churches.
But missions has continued to be at the forefront. We've gotten to be a part of it from the sending side. We've had the opportunity to go on short term trips and it's just been something that has continued to come up for us every so often, a conversation that we would have. And all those conversations, we would come to the same question.
Are we willing? Are we willing? If God calls, are we willing to go? And the answer was yes, we felt willing, but we just never had that kind of lightning bolt moment that we expected that God would give us, if he was going to call us.
I think a lot of the missionary stories that I heard when I was younger, there was always some really dramatic, or I knew ever since I was four years old that God was calling me to do this. And we didn't have that. But things kind of began to shift early this year. I think somewhat because of the craziness of this, you know, past season just had more time to reflect and the question came up for us again.
And in that season, two mentors, independently of each other, gave us the same advice. So one of those mentors is actually another MHCC alum, Tim Meyer, who, who, for those of you who don't know Tim, he was the youth pastor and worship leader here when Dan and I were in high school. And the advice that he gave was basically this. If this is something that God has put on your heart, you've got to explore it.
And God can speak and reveal himself and give you maybe that lightning bolt moment as much in the process as he could if you are just sitting back and waiting. And I think that God was really challenging us, not necessarily to wait until it was certain, but to take a step of faith. To begin having some conversations about what serving overseas might look like, where are the places that we could go, where is their need. And so we started to have those conversations.
And we started to pray that if God was leading us to do this, that he would put a specific place and a specific people group on our hearts and that he would confirm the call. As we felt willing, but we did not want to go unless we were sure that he was leading us to go. And as we engaged in the process, I don't have enough time to tell you all of the incredible stories of how God has spoken loudly and clearly again and again and again to say yes, this is the step that I want you to take. As we engaged in the process, that led us to have a conversation with a team serving in Varan, Germany, which is a city in northeastern Germany, two hours north of Berlin.
And by the end of that first conversation we had with the team, we knew. This is where we're going. And so I want to share with you over the next couple minutes what it was, what it is, about eastern Germany that has gripped our hearts. There's a little map to show you where it is way up there in the corner.
So first, we've discovered that eastern Germany is a beautiful place. And I've got a couple pictures that will show you that. Really incredibly beautiful. But it's also a place that is blanketed in spiritual darkness.
There was an article that was written a few years back that called this area of the world the most godless place on earth. Because a study that they did discovered that it was by far the most atheist region in the entire world. Less than 8% of people in this part of the world believe in any kind of personal god, let alone the Christian god, and even far fewer than that would say they have a relationship with Jesus. Now this is incredible because you might be thinking, wait a second, isn't this where Martin Luther came from?
Yeah, he came from three hours away from where we're going to be. It's the land of the Reformation, right? I sparked this incredible historical movement of god. But in the last 100 years, two world wars and nearly 50 years of Soviet occupation and living under a communist regime where basically any religion was almost completely illegal has erased all of that.
And it's transformed the spiritual landscape to one where there isn't one. Instead, there's just pure humanism and really a broken sense of identity as East Germans in particular wrestle with who they are after 100 years of really dark broken history. On top of that, there are so few people going. We discovered that in a lot of ways, this is kind of a hidden mission field.
There's not much activity there in terms of missions or sending or there's hardly any church presence whatsoever. The reality is that even if an Easterman person was curious about faith or about Jesus, about the Bible, the chances that they would meet a Christ follower, an actual flesh and blood follower of Jesus are almost zero. Someone who could live out in front of them, what it means to have a relationship with the god who created them and who loves them. Without the good news that there's a greater kingdom to be a part of, to belong to you, people are left to scratch out hope from just the immediate world around them.
And they're left in this part of the world with a sense of hopelessness. One of our future teammates, Kenny, told us that he could feel the weight of the spiritual darkness the first time he stepped off the plane in East Germany. And yet, this is a place where light is beginning to come to life. We're going to be joining a team of two other families.
I mentioned Kenny, his wife, Carissa Young and Ben and Sarah Carey and their family, and they're beginning to see the atmosphere change in this part of the world. I want to show you a picture of the Schmederling's house. This is a community center. It literally means butterfly house.
It's named for the shape of the building. And this is the site of a new church plant that really got off the ground only a couple of months ago. And already, there are 20 to 30 people meeting together each week to sing songs, to engage in community, to read and discuss the Bible. But the thing is, nearly every one of those 20 to 30 people are not yet believers.
There are people who, because of the relationships that the team has cultivated with them, are coming and seeking and wanting to know what it is that these people have. Each week, people who have absolutely no framework of Christianity or faith are being exposed to authentic Christian community into God's word. So we're launching early next year, hopefully January, maybe February, to join in this effort. To see at first this church plant become established rooted.
We want to see people come to faith in Jesus, be raised up and discipled to become the future leaders of this church. And then the long term vision is to hopefully see a network of churches spring up in this part of the world, bringing light into the darkness. We want to see all of Jesus transforming all of northeastern Germany. Some of the other ways that we're going to do this are through creative outreach.
Things like ESL and other community classes that are offered by our team give us the opportunity to bless people, to meet and felt needs in that place, to cultivate relationships. Missional presence is really the key. What I mean by that is, missional presence is kind of the part of our ministry that exists outside the program. Our kids are going to be attending German school.
German public school. I actually want to show you where we're going to be letting me back up a second. This is an answer to prayer. This is the apartment we're going to be living in the top two floors of this building where it's right in the center of the city of Varen, right in the middle of sort of the social where people go shopping and get coffee and where people live.
And we envision this being the site of ministry as much as any other place that we go, the community center, the church, because it's all about missional presence. We want to engage, as I was saying, with our kids, school friends and their families. Invite them over for a meal. We want to connect with our neighbors from these surrounding buildings and businesses showing hospitality and love, inviting people in to relationship and bringing Jesus with us wherever we go.
I want to finish with this scripture that was prayed over us recently. I feel like it really captures perfectly what we hope to do, what we believe God is calling us to do in East Germany. Comes from Acts 26 and it's Paul, the apostle, relating the story of his call and what Jesus said to him. And here's what it is.
He said, this is what Jesus said. I'm sending you off to open the eyes of the outsiders so they can see the difference between dark and light and choose light. They can see the difference between Satan and God and choose God. I'm sending you off to present my offer of sins forgiven and a place in the family, inviting them into the company of those who begin real living by believing in me.
Amen? Okay. I get to do the next introduction. And this is really cool.
A really special part of this is being able to do this with Dan, who is literally my longest friend. I think we've been friends since before we were live. And it's been amazing to run on a lot of parallel tracks to be able to share in this experience together. Dan's kind of gone before us onto the field and has been, you and Miriam have been incredible and supportive and helpful as we navigate the process.
And so it's my great pleasure to introduce someone you know well. Dan. Thank you, Sean. It's a blessing to be here today.
As Pastor John mentioned, my family has been serving in Belvenon for about the past four and a half years. I know if you were here four and a half years ago and we got sent out. And so we wanted to come back and share a little bit about what God has done in our family and what he will continue to do through the work of the Alliance in Beirut. So first let me show you my family.
I think I have a pretty picture. If you've got to look at me, you better look at them first because they're better looking than me. So we got Miriam and Abigail and Emily and new baby Margaret. She's so sweet.
She's the one to keep here and crying. They're all here today so make sure you say hi to them. And now we get to do something that I wanted to do with you for the past six weeks and or seven weeks or so and haven't been around. Stand up with me.
And I don't have a screen behind me but we're going to say the creed together. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate. He descended into hell.
And on the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body and the life of the last thing.
Amen. You may be seated. The first week John gave that sermon from the series. He said the difference between Christian faith is not belief like we believe in George Washington but a belief that transforms not just our heart or our head but our heart and even our lives.
I put the Arabic up there because there are people all over the world that profess that belief. But for many people, many Christians around the world, that belief is not just a thought process. It's not even just an internal process but it impacts their lives greatly. I remember that theology school where I teach two girls that came and professed that creed that said I believe.
By saying I believe that means I can never go back to my home because I will be put to death. I remember when we were evangelizing and sharing the gospel with members of our community in Beirut and the members of the community that were coming to say I want to believe but I have to give up so much. I have to give up everything for this. Is it worth it?
My family and I haven't had to suffer to the point of death. We haven't had to give up everything, everything that we own. We've got to give up most of it. Amen.
We believe. And our ministry is the process of walking people at different stages of their life through the journey of believing in Jesus. We're helping start a church point in Beirut where we communicate the gospel to people that maybe who have never heard the name of Jesus or never understood and conceptualized. We've seen great work amongst the church point.
We've seen new families coming to faith. We work with refugees in Beirut. In Lebanon there are more refugees per capita than any other country in the world. One in four people is a refugee.
It's incredible. The level of suffering and hardship that these people have faced. And to move them towards Jesus. It often means sharing in a compassionate way the love of Christ similar to what we see in the scriptures where we are able to say you can believe because you see it acted out in us.
And then we train up people at the theology school. We teach them the tenets of their faith. The strong belief system so that they can go back to the places where I can never go. So that they can go back to Egypt and Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia and Iran and Iraq and Syria and Jordan and Palestine and they can bring the gospel to the end of the earth.
People ask me sometimes why we go to Beirut. And I say it's because I like to conceptualize the world like an hourglass. In the top of the hourglass we have the Western world where we have these Bibles, where we have these beautiful churches. We have buildings.
We have places and so many people disregard it and they ignore it. But at least they're sand at the top of the hourglass. There's a chance. But if you go down to the bottom half of the hourglass, if you go to the 1040 window, the Arab world, the North African world, most of the Asian world, there aren't churches.
There aren't Bibles. There are not opportunities for people to hear the gospel. Beirut is the center of that hourglass. We have a Sunni population that comes from most of the Arab world.
We have a Shia population that comes from Iran. We have a global economy that comes from North Africa and the Arab speaking world. We have Europeans that come for business. We have this confluence of people that creates this beautiful chaos.
And in it, if the alliance gets this right, we will see the sands of the gospel move down through Beirut into the unreached world. And we will see the Arab lands won for Jesus Christ. I want that to happen. I have a video real quick I'd love to show of our work since the big explosion that happened last summer.
August the 4th at 6.07 PM explosion took place at Port Beirut. Around 200 people died because of the explosion and around 6.6,000 were injured. Our church in Carantina and the Bible school were affected by the explosion. Because of the corona, the church did not meet on Tuesday for prayer meeting.
Praise God that he protected the church people and the staff. Let me know economically it's bad. People who weren't working now, they are concerned how they're going to fix their houses. Many NGOs came by, took pictures, interviewed, information, but they never did anything.
So when we came in, we just saw the need, we took the measurement of the glasses and we came again the same day and we fixed it. The good news spread among people, evangelical churches helping, they are honest, so people start calling us and we fixed it right away. After fixing the house, they still have needs. For some people asking for milk, for medicine, I said, my God's grace will do something.
When we show the love of Christ, it's not only my words but my deeds to show them that we are with you and next to you, you are not left alone and the Lord sent us to help you out. When we go to the house, I share my story with Jesus and they listen. I think some of the houses will be open for the Bible study and maybe plant churches among those houses. We thank the Alliance family all around the world who stood with us.
Even if it's finished fixing the houses and even if we start to do Bible study and churches, the work will continue until the return of this Christ. We will not stop. We can have built for him all this to cover the windows of God. We don't want to be from the Middle East, we believe this one.
We believe that God, the Lord wants us to come back. See, every home day, the story. I remember my family was in the States last year when that explosion took place. The Lord had brought us out for another reason and I prayed to look, I prayed God that he did, or home was destroyed, theology school was destroyed.
And after that, a lot of people asked, why are you going back? Wouldn't it be easier to stay here? Wouldn't it be safer just to stay here? That video was made in November, four decisions for Christ.
Since that time, we have seen over 86 people come to Jesus. God is moving in miraculous ways. He's moving in healings. He's giving dreams and visions.
He's working through our family and through our ministries. And we're seeing Beirut one for the Gospel. And it's because churches like you have chosen to partner with us and chosen to send and chosen to make an impact well beyond what we can just do here in N New Jersey. So thank you.
I'm going to buy John up and show him back up and I think we're going to do a little question time. This is the first time I've interviewed two missionaries and I've changed both of their divers. It's a completely true story too. A couple more years we'll change in years.
We'll be muting that mic. I'll give him a minute. And Sean was the largest baby I've ever seen in my life and I was like 20 years old and I was in nursery and they're like, oh he needs to be changed and I'm going, oh Jesus. That was my first missionary experience actually was in the nursery here at Benton Hills.
So I want to ask you guys the questions that I think people, normal people like us would ask. So the first is Sean was actually the associate pastor of a local church, 10, 15 minutes down the road here. He had a good thing going. I live here and I feel like I'm a missionary here.
So many people around us have no concept of who the real Jesus is. Why wasn't that enough for you? Why Germany and not here? Help me understand what the thought process was.
Yeah, that's a good question. It's probably hard to answer in a couple of minutes but I think a couple of the factors were one, I think just the way that God has wired us and as I said before, we felt uniquely able in some ways to go, not because we're amazing but because of the circumstances of our lives that God put us in. And then I think the other thing that has just been on our hearts is the need. There's actually, I mean, there's lots of open, you know, ministry roles here in the States but there's about 75 different sites around the world that are looking for teammates.
Some of those sites have been waiting for people for years and there's just a desperate need for workers. And I think as we were leading in praying, that's what God put on our hearts. There's a need. You guys are willing, those things seem to match up.
So that I think simply was a big part of it. And for you, are you crazy? Some of you know me for a long time. That's true actually.
I probably could have answered that around fourth grade for you. So seriously, how do you as a dad, like I've watched your mother cry over this here on Sundays because you have chosen to put yourself and your family in a significantly dangerous position. How do you balance that as a dad and as a husband, right? What you perceive as your call from Christ with your responsibility, I probably should have given you a heads up on this question, but with your responsibilities, that's good.
He'll be quitting the mission field. Tell me about that because obviously you're thinking about it. First, people always say it's dangerous where we are and physically I suppose that's true. But I remember Jesus says right in the Gospel of Mark, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit a soul?
How many people in Mendum, New Jersey, have gained the whole world? At what risk? At what cost? Have you seen what your kids learn here, the values they're taught, the things that they're told to cherish?
This is a dangerous place. It's different in a different way, maybe not physical danger, maybe you don't see people walking in the street with assault rifles and rocket launchers, but man, my kids are being taught not to forfeit their soul. And that means a lot to me. And the other thing is true is, and we're trying to teach it to our girls, but I don't fear death.
Miriam doesn't either. What does Paul say in Romans? In view of God's mercy, because what if he has done for us? What do we do?
All for our bodies is a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to the Lord. This is how we worship. It's not an easy place to raise kids. But other people are doing it, families are doing it, the refugees are doing it, and man, I remember you're serving a few weeks ago, right?
You spoke about... The end remembers my servants, always better than I do, because we talk once a month or so, right? In Lebanon. But you spoke about the little girl, Jarrus' daughter, who was sick.
She died. She was 12 years old. And that old woman had been sick with her bleeding for 12 years. And Jesus, he calls that old woman my daughter when he heals her.
And then what does he do? He still goes to Jarrus' father's house, or goes to Jarrus' house, and he still goes to the little girl, and he still says, tell him a little girl, rise. My daughters will rise. They will rise in this life.
They will rise in Christ and have life in him. And they will rise in the next. But until then, there are sons and daughters all around this globe that desperately need to be told they are children of God. I will bear any cost to bring that message.
When, Sean, when you look back over, I mean, these guys literally grew up here, right? Their whole lives, from the time they were basically born until they were in college. Were there moments that you can look back on each of you along the way that you can go? Yeah, these were the milestones.
These were the reasons that I feel like I have this calling. Yeah, it's been really fun to look back, I think, on that question, as we've been going through this process. And I think seeing things that maybe I didn't even know initially, but that I'm looking back, realize, man, God has been kind of planting seeds for this along the way. I would boil my answer down to two things.
I think the two factors that have kind of helped cultivate this are exposure and experience. The exposure to global missions and experience in participating in various ways. And this place played a huge role, I think, for both of us in a lot of different ways, being a part of a missionally engaged church that kept this in front of us. Actually, one of the first things I remember is, I don't know how it was, maybe third grade or so, missionaries that this church supported, the Morins, some of you might remember them.
They did a special mission Sunday school class, who also were part of this church and left the conventioners. Yeah, and they did this class for young people about, about Michigan, it was kind of a thing you could sign up to be a part of. And that was my first exposure to the idea, particularly they talked a lot about Hudson Taylor in China. And the reality that there are just people out there who don't have access, that just, I mean, I think we take it for granted, but there are so many in the world who just don't have access.
And the power that there is, I love Hudson Taylor's story, of someone who went and became one of the people, giving of himself, even transforming himself like Paul talks about, right? Like a Jew to win the Jews, it became like a Gentile to win the Gentiles. Becoming like the people, going and engaging incarnationally in order to love people and show them value and represent Christ to them. We've had a lot of other opportunities since then.
I, in high school, both then, and I got to go to Taiwan. I probably, I get to go first, I'm stealing all of your answers. But we got to go to Taiwan on a short-term trip. That impacted me so much.
I went back the next summer for a month. Engaging in those experiences, I think, has been so eye-opening to be in parts of the world where people live very differently, people have very different values, and you, it's hard to describe, but you can feel the lack of light. You can sense it physically, and to see also the incredible ways that God works in those places because there's so much access here. There's a lot of need here, too.
There's a lot of access here, though. And there are parts of the world where, because there isn't, God tends to move in these really incredible ways because that's what's needed to show the reality of his presence. And so, being exposed to those things over the years, I think, slowly over time, I feel like God has gently shepherded me and my wife to this point of saying, we're kind of lining up our hearts with this. Do you have a tipping point moment where you go, yeah, I can kind of see that's really impacting me.
Yeah, well, I mean, there's two aspects, maybe, for missions. One is going to Guatemala. That's the first time I experienced real levels of poverty, like, dirt poor poverty, and it bothered my soul, the people that Jesus loves it like that. And when I went to Taiwan, it was the first time I'd been to an entire country where there were no churches, and that bothered me.
And so when you put those two things together, there are people that are just desperate, physically desperate and spiritually desperate, somebody's got to go. So why not just like, put up a good website? I don't have your marketing budget. You know what I mean?
Like, look, the world is changed, right? Like, it's not, missionaries used to pack their coffins, right, when they went overseas, because they weren't coming home. They were getting on the boat, they would pack their coffins with their stuff and head overseas. We don't live in that world anymore.
Why are we still sending young men like you? Yeah, listen, we do engage in online things. I'm part of an online ministry that does evangelism online to countries that we can't get access to. Our theology school has hybrid online course offerings so that we can reach students and Sudan and other countries that it's difficult.
But realistically, right? I mean, how many people come to Jesus through seeing online ministries versus experiencing the tangible physical presence of the love of Christ? I experienced it in my family growing up, right? That's how I knew that Jesus' love is true because I saw it represented to me and to my friends in my household, in this church.
I watch your sermons online, but it's very different from being here with you. I think there's power in presence. And I think, I mean, I know that the scripture has called people to go. And so that means that there's a physical reality to that, that people must actually go and bring the gospel.
I mean, we bring with us the very spirit and power of God. I don't know that we would be able to do that fully through an online opportunity. Two last things. Missions, and this is a controversial question, but I think we need to deal with the controversy, right?
Like a lot of people are like, well, faith is private and you shouldn't be over trying to convert people, right? How do you as a missionary, like, understand that that is the ethos in which we kind of exist? At the same time, you balance your calling for reaching people with the good news of Christ. I don't know who wants that.
Do you want to take that first? Sure, my answer is kind of me. I'll take a long time. So if you can't go.
Just kidding. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that ties in even to your last question that I'm struck by is that tying into the internet and why we go and all this stuff, I think it's instructive that God gave Israel his word and for a long time that's all they had, but he came himself to live out the word in front of them, to demonstrate it, to teach it, and I feel like that's a big part of the reason that we go. And that presence, that message is challenging.
It is controversial. There's a statistic that says in Germany it takes eight years for a German person of intentional investment to go from a place of not believing to believing. And that doesn't happen through just their own curiosity. I mean, God can work in a lot of ways, so I don't want to make absolute statements.
But generally, it's that long-term investment. And the message of Jesus conflicts with the worldview that they have in places like East Germany, in places like Lebanon, in a lot of places, it conflicts with here, the values and the things that people worship and the message of culture in the world. And without being confronted with that, we can't repent. We can't, repentance means to turn away, right?
To turn from something to something new. And you can't turn away from one thing to another thing, fully embrace Jesus, unless you're confronted with the reality that he's the only way, that following him is a sacrifice. It costs something. Jesus says to count the cost, right?
He tells people, no, don't follow me, because I recognize that you're not willing to give up everything that comes with me. I mean, that's a challenging, confrontational type of message. And not that we beat people over the heads with that. Jesus went with love and service and care.
He ate with people that no one else would eat with. He showed value to people, but he didn't leave them where they were. He called them out of the lifestyle that they were in, the sin that they were in, the hopelessness that they were in, to a new way of living. And I think that that takes some healthy confrontation at times.
Yeah. My answer to that would be, if you've been told that your faith is a personal faith that is just for you, that is a life on the pit of hell. There's nothing in scripture that says your salvation is just for you. Everything in the scripture will tell you this is for you and for your family and for your children and for your community and for the world.
It is not just for you. And so if you are holding on to your faith, thinking that it is personal, thinking that it is meant to be quiet, you have been deceived. This is a message for all people and it is good news. And like you said in the beginning, what's it going to take to evangelize the world?
It's going to take aggressive Christianity. Aggressive means moving forward powerfully, not necessarily confrontationally, but disruptively yes. And with all aggressive movements, there will be counteractions. But this is not just a message for you or for your church.
This is a message for the world. And so please don't buy into that lie. Tell this good news and make it good news. Well that's the key, right?
To everyone that you communicate. And I think a little of the answer to that question too is Jesus is who he said he is the way the truth in life and nobody comes to the Father except through him, right? Then the reality is what we are doing by trying to reach the lost people is actually giving them their only shot at life. Yeah and it's a holistic right, life right.
It's not just an ethereal eternal. Like this good news is good news and peace and love and forgiveness now here in the body, in the fellowship of the church. So I don't have enough time for my one other question I want to ask which is any time you do something like that and there's a decent sized audience. The Holy Spirit is working on people's lives and some of you go and I could sense that God might be calling me to do something like that.
These guys are going to be out in the foyer and so they will be out there to answer that question. If you're like you know if I was interested in sticking my toe in the water of this how would I do that right? So they'll be outside to answer that. Let me close with this.
How do we as a church that loves you right that rears you and raised you how do we actually support you like be like nuts and bolts what's it look like for us to care with more than just words. Two things. First we are leaving so you are responsible for Morris County. That's not a joke right.
This church is over 30 years old and it has not planted a church. Elders begin praying. Where are you going to plant a church in the next five years? How are you going to start saving money to do it?
What community are you going to reach? It's going to be Hackett's town, Randolph, Basking Ridge. Where are you going to multiply? Do it.
The second thing is you need to take your phones out right now. Take them out. Come on. No joke.
And go to mndmhills.org and click on the give button. And you're going to make a weekly repeating gift to missions. There's a little thing that says where you can give to you can give general fund you can give to missions. You're going to put a weekly repeating gift to missions and it's going to support Sean and Susie as they go out on the field.
I think right now is giving them $500 a month. That's not enough. It won't cover their support. Honestly.
What you're going to give every week so they can go to Germany. Those are the two ways you can support us. I'll add that. I think for us, partnership is relational.
The finances is a huge part of it. It really is. I think we've been impacted by the relationship of international workers coming back over the years and connecting and seeing what God is doing in the parts of the world. We want to have a two-way relationship where I think there's opportunity to share ideas.
There are things that you're going to be doing in ministry here that may inform and benefit what we're going to be doing in the places that God has called us to serve. We're hopeful that we'll learn lessons that we can pass back. We'd love to, again, I think the opportunity to go is before you. Long-term potentially but certainly short-term.
We'd love for you to come to engage with us as it's possible to work complicated for you. But possible, I think in some ways you can talk to that work. But short-term, you know, being able to come and be, there's a lot of leg work of ministry that we can't do on our own. That in the summer, especially there's opportunities to come and engage to do short-term trips to help lead ESL camps and sports camps and different things that create the platform for relationship that then can be carried on by us and our team on term.
So that's, I think, another way. And prayer is so important. Maybe that sounds cliche. But for us to know that there are people here in the States who believe in us, who are supporting us and who are praying for the practical things that we're doing means the world.
Because we're going to have less of an immediate network and connection in relationship. So today's world gives us the opportunity to be connected in ways that we couldn't be previously. We would love to do Zoom calls and updates. And we're going to be sending out a prayer newsletter kind of thing you can sign up for if you meet me on the hall.
I'll help you sign up for that. And we'd love to keep in front of you what God is doing in the world. And we want to also see what God is doing here and be praying for you and engaging with what you're doing. There's such a rich opportunity to have this mutual relationship as we move forward and ministry together.
Yeah. As this is our annual reminder that you should give towards missions. There should be a portion of your giving that supports what we do. This is who the Christian Mission Airlines is.
This is our DNA. We send people to be the gospel presence of Christ in lost communities around the world. And we need your prayers and we need your financial support. And so to Dan's point, there is a give button and under a give button there is a missions button.
And you can make a repeating gift that literally the CMA is changing its model. So our money directly supports these two guys. So and others. People like Tim Berry who's in England right now planting a church to your point.
So I'm going to ask the band to come up and we're going to pray. Can I ask you to stand? And maybe extend if you're comfortable. It's stand ahead of blessing over these two guys.
And I'm going to put my hands, con on their shoulders and we're going to pray over them as a family that are sending out our sons. First we're going to hand these mics to the band as they come up so that we're ready to go. And so Lord these are our voice and you have we have seen I've seen your hand on their lives from the time they were children. Lord God growing up they were able to see in this place they were able to taste and see that you are indeed good.
And so Lord we pray that that you would just cover them with your spirit, with your power that you would anoint them Lord God for ministry in Germany and to be root rather than that you would bless their families or that you would give them peace in their homes so that they'd be able to minister effectively on the streets. I pray over each of their spouses for Susie and Mary and Lord God that they would share in this calling. Our husbands are up here getting all the glory and they are at home with those kids and they are sharing the burden of ministry. Lord I pray over each of those ladies that they would sense the call that you have on their lives also.
So Lord these are our sons when you protect them but Lord God as Dan said this isn't just about protection. This is about the gospel of Jesus Christ the whole of the world. Father I pray for great fruit. That someday when I'm an old man and dance change my diapers that we would look back and go look at what Jesus did in Germany in the Middle East because of the sons of Men and Mills Community Church.
We love you. We honor you. We pray. We pray.
We pray. We pray. We pray. Everybody have men have said amen.
Would you thank you to these guys?