Pray For A NEW OUTLOOK on Mission

 

                Eugene and Annie Jenkins Sallee heard the “Go” of Jesus and the “Come” of China. God used them to renew missions in their generation. Their call began as students.  A recent graduate, Mr. Sallee gave a talk on his call to missions and, “That whole community was given a new outlook on the missionary enterprise…” That happened in 1903. It is 2013 and the needs of the hour again require a new outlook.

                Missional and educational are two of our root values. Our heritage affirms that we are at our best when these roots intertwine. In 1933 J.M. Dawson wrote of Mrs. Sallee, “That Mrs. Sallee should have such sympathy for missions may possibly be understood more readily when it is recalled…that she received her degree from Baylor University, which has supplied the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board with one out of nine of all its missionaries to the foreign fields; that she grew up in the First Baptist Church, Waco, under the ministry of B.H. Carroll and other pastors, which undoubtedly sent forth more preachers and missionaries than any other church in the South…” We have a “sending forth” legacy. New paradigms in missions are pressing us to reclaim it!

                We have much dreaming and planning to do. Our church has and I believe will make a vital contribution to the movement of God in the world. We have in our midst bright and godly men and women called to the nations. We must pray fervently. I ask you to join with me in praying three things as it relates to a new outlook on missions:

1.       Pray for a vision as big as the world. Acts 1:6-11

2.       Pray for a bold strategy that rises to the opportunities of the hour. Acts 16:6-10 It was said of Eugene Sallee, “He was a worldwide missionary but his place of labor was Interior China. Vision is for the nations and strategy for people and place.

3.       Pray for the called. Acts 13:1-3