Trust the Local Church, cont.
by Dennis Wiles
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Church, Arlington TX
Delivered at the Unreached and Least Evangelized Peoples Forum
November 2007
Irving Bible Church
Irving, Texas
What’s happened to our church is that we’ve grown, we’ve mobilized our body, and we’ve developed some brand new entities that our church has never had. Our church has been there since 1871, and we abolished about 35 committees. We just decided that we needed to reorganize ourselves, so we ditched most of our committees and went to a ministry team approach, a council approach. We now have a Direct Missionary Sending Council, an assessment team, and we’ve enlisted a group of volunteers.
We’ve gone to doctors, dentists, lawyers, and all kinds of professionals in our church, and we’ve said to them, ‘If you can’t go, then we’re going to ask you to volunteer your services and take care of all our missionaries that we train and send.’ So far, 100% of the people we have asked have said ‘yes.’ Not one lay person has said ‘no.’ So we’re doing assessment. We’re doing missionary care. We’re doing pastoral care. We’re doing psychological assessment. We’re doing medical and dental treatment for our missionaries through our church, and through our people networking with other churches. See GCPN website.
Our lay people are saying to us, ‘We were just waiting for you to ask. We’ve been waiting for some way to get involved, and no one has ever asked us to do anything significant.’ Most of the professionals that I’ve met are just waiting for someone to tap into the resources made available to them. We have hundreds, even thousands, of people in our church who have been involved in this missionary task. They’re going to the field. They’re giving their money.
Our budget and our offerings to missions has more than doubled in the last 6 years since we’ve been there. This past year, we gave over a $1,000,000 to mission causes throughout the world. And here’s what I would say to any pastor struggling with this: The whole time that we’ve done this, we’ve increased our budget. In fact, we’ve met our budget for the last five years consecutively—which has never happened at our church in modern times.
We have spent more money outside the walls of our church than we have ever spent in the entire history of our church. But we have increased our budget every year for the last 6 years, and we’ve met it 5 years consecutively. We’re still paying the light bill. We’re still paying staff salaries. We’re still carpeting the sanctuary. We’re still taking care of the ministry that’s got to be taken care of at home—as well as sending missionaries to the field, and blessing them, and encouraging them, and partnering with other churches in making sure that they’re trained. See GCPN website.
One of the other things that I’ve noticed about sending missionaries to be on the field is that some of them have been ill-equipped to do what they’ve been asked to do. And that’s our fault. We should never send anyone unless they’re prepared. So we’ve taken that seriously.
We’re engaging an unreached people group. And it’s interesting…I can’t tell you what it’s done to me as a pastor to sit in a deacons’ meeting and have a 75-year-old deacon stand up and pray for a Fulani chief in West Africa to have a vision or a dream that the Lord Jesus would appear to him in person so that he’ll be open to the gospel. It has stretched our people – I promise you that! They could not even pronounce ‘Fulani’ at one time, but now they are praying regularly for people groups across the world.
Local churches can do this if we’ll just challenge them. I submit myself to you and am willing to talk to your pastor and try to encourage him if possible. Pastors are busy people. I know what their concerns are, but I can promise that almost every pastor that I have ever met is concerned with the unreached peoples of the world. They just don’t know what to do.
And can I be honest with you? We spent a sabbatical this summer at the US Center for World Missions (LINK to USCWM website). When asked to speak, I told them that missiologists and missionary types have at times posted a no trespassing sign for pastors and local church people. And it’s been offensive to a lot of my brothers because they look at it and think they’re the professionals. They are the ones who are supposed to do missions.
I want to help us bridge that gap and help us tear down those kinds of barriers. We need each other. You need pastors with a heart for missions. To me, that’s the only way we’re going to reach this world for Christ. And that’s the kind of churches that we need to be planting on the field—churches that are led by people who have a heart as big as God’s heart. We’ve got a huge task, but we’ve got an awesome God. And we’ve got a great strategist at the helm—the Spirit of God. Let’s commit ourselves to Him and His leadership, and I believe He can use us in this great task. God bless you.