Get Ready for Missions Sunday!

This coming Sunday we are going to have a very special and full day. We are having a Missions Emphasis Sunday and will turn the SS hour into a service, thus having three services for the day. The children will go to SS as usual, but the teenagers will join the adults for the service in the main room. The schedule is as follows.

AM 1 - Speaker: David Hosaflook. Many of you saw the moving "Dispatches from the Front" about the ministry of this man in Albania. I know that you will find his speaking to be very powerful.

AM 2 - Speaker: Bob Bixby

PM - Speaker: Jason Rice - Slovakia. Jason returns to us after being on the deputation trail. We were his first meeting. He and his wife have three boys.

School Prayer and New Members

As a new school year is now upon us, during this evening's service Pastor Bixby gave a special prayer for our students. He asked all those heading back to school to come up to the platform and had their parents circle around them as the congregation corporately prayed on their behalf.

At the conclusions of the service, we were blessed to welcome four of our teenagers as new members of our church!

RCCS Missions Team Visits Our Spanish Service

Back in July, The missions team from Rock County Christian School in Beloit visited our Saturday evening Spanish service. The team told of their recent trip to Costa Rica and the ministry they were able to help down there. Kevin Thompson gave a short devotional from Romans 8 following the presentation.

Discussing Missions with Hosaflook and Hesselgrave

On Monday, August 30 from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM we will be having a discussion on missions with some exceptional people. Some area pastors are planning on joining us to participate in a conversation around the broader themes of missions as discussed in the must-read book edited by Ed Stetzer and David Hesselgrave on missions: MissionShift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium. We are opening the door to any pastors or chu...rch leaders that may be interested.

Dr. David Hesselgrave is a dear friend of our church and we are quite familiar with him. His contributions to missions has not decreased with his increasing age, but rather at 84 he has just completed editing another major work on global missions, the work we will be discussing this month. He continues to write articles and debate leading missiologists, taking a strong stand for the fundamentals of biblical missions. I have been privileged to read some private correspondence between him and the late Dr. Ralph Winter.

David Hosaflook is a widely respected missionary to Albania who has been featured in the excellent DVD series Dispatches from the Front. His blog, MissioMishmash, is also a must-read blog, always contributing helpful, Christ-exalting thought to the discussion of missions.
The discussion will focus on the tension between prioritism and holism in contemporary missions. The late Dr. Ralph Winter began to propose missiological ideas that had shifted from the prioritism of early missionaries and his ideas have been widely received by many, particularly those who are embracing the ideology of the emerging church. His friend, Dr. David Hesselgrave, has valiantly championed a “historic fundamentalist” perspective in the dialogue.

Originally, we were planning on having a small and private time of discussion and fellowship, but we decided to let people know about it. The topic is so important that we feel it should be shared. Some area pastors are planning on joining us and we are encouraging any who come to read several essays in MissionShift prior to coming. I recommend reading Essay #3, The Future of Evangelicals in Mission by Ralph Winter and chapter 16, In Response to “The Future of Evangelicals in Mission” by Christopher R. Little. I agree with editor Ed Stetzer that this chapter by Little is worth the price of the entire book.

If you have time to read a little more, read Stetzer’s opening chapter and Hesselgrave’s closing chapter. Of course, all the essays are enlightening and there is lively discussion and disagreement among the authors. There is nothing fancy about the fellowship, but it will be a moderated discussion and organized for maximum profitability. A luncheon will be provided and the cost is a free-will offering. In order to plan well, we would be most appreciative of prior notification! Please respond to me directly at pastor [at] wordcentered.org