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jdlashley
Member



Joined: 2012/1/5
Posts: 35
South Carolina

 Foreign Missionaries now evangelizing the U.S.?

Not too long ago, I read somewhere on the web that developing countries we had sent missionaries to, were now reciprocating the favor. That America had become the third largest mission field.

Does anyone know if this is true?

Has America descended to the point that Christians from less-than-priviledged nations have taken it upon themselves to engage in the Great Commission in our backyard? If this is true, what does it say about the state of the Church in America?


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James D. Lashley

 2012/3/21 17:01Profile









 Re: Foreign Missionaries now evangelizing the U.S.?


I have heard this several times from different sources as well.

I've visited a very many churches and found most to be merely social clubs that we called 'Bless Me Clubs' because they never went outside their own four walls to reach out to the unsaved community and only came to church to get a blessing for themselves.
Even just leaving tracts or gospel of John copies in the local Laundramat would be more than these places ever thought to do.
I guess that's why Jesus said we should pray for laborers.






 2012/3/21 19:33
sermonindex
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 Re: Foreign Missionaries now evangelizing the U.S.?

I believe this has been happening for awhile now in the fact of most church planting is happening amongst indengenious groups in North america from those that have come from those countries.

Also men like Paris Reidhead who God called to africa and the re-called him back to the churches of America as a mission field. I have felt the same burden and even calling in my own life. I have told people that I am a missionary. And they say to where and I say to "north america".

But I believe in a larger way this will be happening, brother you are definitely on to something with this topic.


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2012/3/21 19:33Profile
jimp
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Joined: 2005/6/18
Posts: 1481


 Re: Foreign Missionaries now evangelizing the U.S.?

hi, this has happened for the time we have been a nation.it is a good thing to have people from all over obeying Gods call.jimp

 2012/3/21 19:36Profile
KingJimmy
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Joined: 2003/5/8
Posts: 4419
Charlotte, NC

 Re:

The United States has over 300 million people. Only about a third claim to be born-again evangelical Christians. Meaning, at absolute best, we have 100 million people who are saved in the nation. And that would be a very "high" estimate. It would be my contention that the idea we have over 200 million people in our nation that are destined for hell, we should begin to look at the United States as a great mission field.

I live in North Carolina, which is part of the so-called "Bible belt." At work, there are about 40 people in my department that I work with. There are a few who claim to be Christians, but, clearly are not. I don't know for sure, but, I may just be the person who is saved in the entire department. There is perhaps one or two other people who might be. But, because of the nature of my work, I don't get a lot of opportunity to mingle with my co-workers, except for those who sit immediately around me.

And having worked at several places in the last decade, this has been very typical. If I work at a place with 100 people, there might be 3 or 4 truly saved Christians. And then, they are usually pretty spiritually immature. If things are like this in North Carolina, I can only imagine what it is like in the rest of the country.

Instead of churches sending people overseas for mission trips, we need to start looking at our own back yard as a mission trip. But, many Christians who are willing to go overseas and share their faith are paralyzed with fear with sharing their faith in their own backyard.

I believe God has one day called me to be a "missionary" to Greensboro, NC. Me going forward to do that work is still years away. But notice I said the word "missionary." And that's the word God used when he called me for that task. When he finally sends me, I will operate out of that understanding.

*edited*


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Jimmy H

 2012/3/21 21:50Profile
KingJimmy
Member



Joined: 2003/5/8
Posts: 4419
Charlotte, NC

 Re:

To further illustrate: One year around Christmas, I went door knocking with a former church I was a part of. I walked down the street from my church, and less than a mile away I knocked on the door of one man. He invited me and my door knocking buddy into his house. As we sat there and talked, I noticed the Christmas tree he had. I asked him what that tree represented to him, and if he knew the gospel story.

Amazingly enough, here I sat with a man in his late 40's or early 50's, who lived less than a mile from my church, and had lived for dozens of years. Here this man had a Christmas tree in his very house. Yet for all these things, he was still unable to tell me the basic Christmas story. All again, in North Carolina.

And if it is this way in the greater Charlotte, North Carolina region, where we have a major highway named after the evangelist Billy Graham, what is it like in the rest of this country?


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Jimmy H

 2012/3/21 22:10Profile









 Re:


Exactly, Brother Jimmy. That's where I lived for 10 yrs - just over that city's line and the sorrow over what you are saying hits home. Took yrs of church hopping down there before I found a body of believers that cared about the unsaved around them.
I was told when I got there in '99 that not only was I in the Bible belt but the 'belt buckle of the Bible belt'.
Charlotte needs missionaries too.

GOD Bless you!

 2012/3/21 22:30
KingJimmy
Member



Joined: 2003/5/8
Posts: 4419
Charlotte, NC

 Re:

I spent several hours each of the last 3 days at UNC Charlotte preaching the gospel message in the heart of the campus. And while it was great to run into Christians on campus who stopped to encourage me, tell me how they were blessed, and even pray for me, I still couldn't help but see the darkness that hung over the masses. And Charlotte is home to no shortage of very large churches. In the northern part of the county where I live, I know of at least half a dozen churches with thousands of members. The church I am a part of runs over 3,000 people every weekend. It's amazing, for all the churches in the area, some of who are doing a very good work, there still remains such a great darkness over this part of the world.

I blame it on everybody that moved here from New York. And of course, the devil...


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Jimmy H

 2012/3/21 22:47Profile
jdlashley
Member



Joined: 2012/1/5
Posts: 35
South Carolina

 Re:

Good points Jesus-is-God and KingJimmy.

Would it be feasible to say we need to consider the "Church" as a part of that mission field?

KingJimmy, I too live in the south (Bible Belt). Actually not too far from your location. (Chester, South Carolina) There are churches on every street corner.

However, I can always depend on the Jehovah's Witnesses to ring my doorbell every few months but I have yet for an evangelical to do the same.


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James D. Lashley

 2012/3/21 23:08Profile









 Re:


Brother, I was just about to say that - it's those Northerners that filled up N.C. - especially Charlotte - the second largest Banking city of the States ... but, the people that I worked with down yonder, born and raised there, all claimed to be saved but partied-hearty on Saturday nights. I have no idea how they got up for 'church' the next morning.

I've been to a few of those big churches in Charlotte.
I remember yrs back, when the Charlotte Rescue Mission couldn't get enough donations - when I had heard that Charlotte had 1000 churches. Are there really 1000?
I've wondered how things are going there now, since this economic decline has caused more homeless folks.


My thinking is that an area can become Gospel-hardened after a while. Easy believism, etc., I believe, kills the burden for the lost.


I'll be praying for your home-missions work and burden, Brother Jimmy.
I left my heart down there and just a shell of me lives up here now.
GOD Bless you and N.C.!

 2012/3/21 23:14





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