Our June 2003 speaker was Neal Pirolo. Neal is the founder and director of Emmaus Road International. Neal jokingly indicated he would try to tell us "everything about missions in ˝ hour!" Neal discussed the mandate given by Jesus to evangelize. A mandate is a command we are to obey if we love and follow Jesus. The entire church is needed, not just a few congregations or impassioned missionaries. The mandate is to the entire church.
There is a desperate need in the world - Neal quoted one example where the missionary ratio is 1,000,000 to 1. That means there are one million lost souls to one Christian missionary who is witnessing to them. That is a staggering statistic! To put into context, in the U.S. that same ratio is 273 to 1.
People are desperately lost and yet are energetically seeking peace and forgiveness. This is evident by what occurs every single day, worldwide:
What great Christians these people would make serving Jesus with that type of passion!!
Neal encouraged us to fulfill one of two roles - either be the senders or those that go and do. The church must learn several things about sending. The six facets for a church to effectively take care of missionaries are Morale, Logistics, Financial, Prayer, Communication, and Re-entry Support. The least understood of these is the Re-entry Support - how to help a missionary get transitioned back into society - it is a very important issue.
To actually go and do missionary work, there are several creative options we can choose from, such as a short missionary trip or early retirement. People are needed in all sorts of roles that many of us could fulfill - deliver bibles, teach, cook, build, translate, disciple, advise and train new businesses, and many others.
Neal had several books and other material available to help educate our churches and us. His passion and knowledge were impressive.
The 10/40 global window is where most work needs to be done. What is the 10/40 window? Call a CEO Board member and ask them - have some fun while giving them a test!