The Mission Field

I tell people everywhere I go that I serve on a mission field. Last night as Pallie Sue and I attended a community meeting to elect a community developmental board to have the authority to get public water and a fire station out here. We sat there two and half hour listening to the biggest argument you ever heard. It was so very poorly organized that it was almost funny. There were fifty people there and it was kind of like listening to children fussing. Some of the old people thought that we wanted to take over their jobs as caretaker of the old building. Others thought that the ones who had called the meeting together was trying to railroad things like they wanted it. Nearly the whole time they set there fussing at one another. Yes, a board was finally elected, but boy what a mess.

This morning at five a.m., I got to thinking about all that had gone on the night before. I was thinking about all the people there, and then it hit me that very few of those people knew the Lord! Very few of them ever went to church! That I was right about being on a mission field! Brother Easley and I have been preaching to this community for over thirty years. We have had very little impact on these people. The church has grown some, but we are seeing very few converts. This really bothers me.

Why aren't people wanting to seek the Lord? Why isn't there conviction like there used to be? Why doesn't the Spirit of God move like He did when I was a child? Is it a lack of vision? For the scripture says, "Where there is no vision the people perish." Are we in the great falling away time? Is the Spirit of God moving away from enlightening people? All these question have a "yes" answer.

The scripture also says, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much!" The Lord is helping me see a new vision of prayer for this mission field.

God has given us some good people over the years and they are very important to the work. But these are only a few compared to the population of the community. Most of the people out here will help others when there is a death, or a fire, or sickness, or whatever. They have more fund raisers than any place I know, but don't ask them to attend church, or to seek the Lord. I have come to the conclusion that these people are self-righteous people serving the god of good works, hoping that he will get them to heaven. They seem to have the idea that if they have their pie suppers and garage sales and their chili suppers, that it will go toward their salvation. Yes, these are good people but very few know God.

Having made little impact on this community I ask myself the question, have I failed them in some way or the other? How can I make them see their need of God when they won't come to church? I believe that all we can do is keep preaching the word as straight as we can for those who come and then live a life before them all that is pleasing to God and do lots of praying for them.

As write this, the thought just hit me anew, this isn't the only place that the Spirit isn't moving. I talk to other pastors and they have the same problem. It seems like the Spirit of God is moving on foreign fields more then here because this nation has rejected the light of the gospel so long. I believe we need a revival that will move people in these last days. I am asking for your help! Would you please pray that God would move here like we have never seen before? That God would give the people a desire to come to the services? But above all would you please pray for converts? Please help us pray for this mission field!

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