Missions Monday

Missions Monday

Posted by Ashley Hoover

10 Ways to Avoid Becoming a Missionary

A tongue-in-cheek look at some sure-fire ways to avoid becoming a missionary

1. Ignore Jesus' request in John 4:35 that we take a long hard look at the fields. Seeing the needs of people can be depressing and very unsettling. It could lead to genuine missionary concern. (John 4:35 "Do you not say, `Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.")
2. Focus your energies on socially legitimate targets. Go after a bigger salary. Focus on getting a job promotion, a bigger home, a more luxurious car, or future financial security. Along the way, run up some big credit card debts.
3. Get married to somebody who thinks the "Great Commission" is what your employer gives you after you make a big sale. After marriage, embrace the socially accepted norms of settling down, establishing a respectable career trajectory and raising a picture-perfect family.
4. Stay away from missionaries. Their testimonies can be disturbing. The situations they describe will distract you from embracing whole-heartedly the materialistic lifestyle of your home country. 
5. If you happen to think about missions, restrict your attention to countries where it's impossible to openly do missionary work. Think only about North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China and other closed countries. Forget the vast areas of our globe open to missionaries. Never, never listen to talk about creative access countries.
6. Think how bad a missionary you would be based on your own past failures. It is unreasonable to expect you will ever be any better. Don't even think about Moses, David, Jonah, Peter or Mark, all of whom overcame failures.
7. Always imagine missionaries as talented, super-spiritual people who stand on lofty pedestals. Maintaining this image of missionaries will heighten your own sense of inadequacy. Convincing yourself that God does not use ordinary people as missionaries will smother any guilt you may feel about refusing to even listen for a call from God.
8. Agree with the people who tell you that you are indispensable where you are. Listen when they tell you that your local church or home country can't do without you.
9. Worry incessantly about money.
10. If you still feel you must go, go out right away without any preparation or training. You'll soon be home again and no one can ever blame you for not trying!

Taken from http://www.missionsmag.com/10avoid.htm Inspired by Stewart Dinnen's list in How are you doing? (Bromley: STL Books, 1984)

An Award

An Award

Posted by Ashley Hoover

So Ashlin awarded me the "Stylish Blogger Award." I've never gotten an award before so evidently there are rules that go with it. :) The rules for this one being:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award.

2. Write seven things about yourself.

3. Pass on to seven other bloggers.

4. Tell the seven awardees of their award! :)

Pretty sure I can manage this...

1. Thanks Ashlin! I don't know that I've ever considered my blog stylish but I'm glad you like it! You can visit Ashlin's blog here.

2. Seven things about myself...I'll try to think of seven things not covered in my profile. This might be hard.

• I'm not a big dessert eater. Things like chocolate and ice cream, cake, etc. (with the exception of cheesecake!) are pretty low on my list of things I'd choose to eat. My parents still don't know where they went wrong with me on this. ;)
• One of my favorite activities is playing ultimate frisbee with my family or friends.
• I love to read missionary biographies. My favorite missionary of all time is Hudson Taylor. (I don't know if that counts as one or two things)
• I've had stiches three times. Three times is enough...the soda after an ER trip really isn't worth the ER trip.
• I've broken one bone. Advice for you that like to go barefoot like me, basketball is not really a barefoot friendly sport. Wear shoes.
• I've been told I talk in my sleep in Spanish (and my grammer is better when I'm asleep than when I'm awake, go figure). Language school can do funny things to a person.
• I've wanted to be a missionary pretty much as far back as I can remember.

3. Seven other bloggers I award:
Tara
Flinck family
Chelsey
Britton
Amanda
Courtney
The Wissmann Family

So there ya have it. :) Good News Club posts to come this week. With pictures!!

Missions Monday

Missions Monday

Posted by Ashley Hoover

"Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that will propel them into bold evangelism. It will never happen. It is impossible to love “the lost”. You can’t feel deeply for an abstraction or a concept. You would find it impossible to love deeply an unfamiliar individual portrayed in a photograph, let alone a nation or a race or something as vague as “all lost people”. Don’t wait for a feeling or love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God."

— John Piper

Missions Monday

Missions Monday

Posted by Ashley Hoover

Since today is Valentine's Day I thought I'd focus on the idea of love. We know that God is love and if we love Him our response should be to love others as well. Out of that often comes a missionary's love for people in another country and the desire to reach them with the gospel.

"Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love" 

-Roland Allen

Missions Monday

Missions Monday

Posted by Ashley Hoover

This year I wanted to start something I call "Missions Monday." With my travels the beginning of the year, I decided to wait and start in Febuary. Each Monday I will post something related to missions. A quote, story, experience, etc. My desire is that you would think about missions, you, your family or friends and see how you can be involved as God has called every believer to be active in sharing thier faith. In keeping with my word for the year "pray" I thought I would begin by encouraging you to pray for not only missionaries (and yourself as you witness!) but for the lost as well.

"In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God's work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer."

-Dick Eastman, president of Every Home for Christ (formerly World Literature Crusade)

I am so thankful for each one of you that pray for me because truely that is how anything gets accomplished! Don't think that just because "all" you may be able to do is pray that you don't play an important part in what God is doing all around the world. Praying is the most important thing you can do, thank you for taking time to pray!