Crawfordsville Community Church Pastor told members of congregations from around the community Friday night at Sweet Home Assembly of God about his family’s plans to go to work in Indonesia.
Pastor Kern delivered the message for a special World Day of Prayer service. Kern and his family are planning to travel to Indonesia, but they cannot do it as missionaries.
“(We’re) a couple of months from going over on an adventure, of being Christ’s ambassador to a people who’ve never heard the Gospel of Christ,” Pastor Kern said. Only one in 100 missionaries gets to take the Gospel to an unreached people. Nine of those hundred go to established churches, and 90 don’t even leave the United States.
“About five years ago, I started noticing the nature of missions are changing,” Pastor Kern said. The events of Sept. 11 are proof of it. Mission work must be more covert. Missionaries cannot travel into some fields as missionaries but as workers of some sort.
In one case, a woman needed to get a prayer request out of one country to the United States, Pastor Kern said. She had to find a place where she could find a phone that wasn’t bugged so she could call back to the United States. The person in her prayer request could have been harmed had the person’s name been heard through the bug.
Working in Indonesia will be similar. Pastor Kern and his family cannot be up front about who they are.
He related stories from the Bible where Jesus told a newly healed leper not to speak about him. That leper spread God’s Word freely though, and Jesus was forced to sit outside town and stay in the lonely places. Still people came. He often tried to keep his miracles quiet, but those he helped talked even more.
That made it difficult for Jesus to preach openly, Pastor Kern said. An important part of reaching people is “realizing when to speak and when not to speak.”
This applies to workers who go overseas, Pastor Kern said. “They are cautious about how they speak about (God), how they present themselves.”
In Indonesia, “for people to become a Christian is to put themselves directly in the line of persecution and death,” Pastor Kern said. He quoted from Matthew 10:16: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves, therefore be shrewd like snakes and innocent like doves.”
“You’re never sure who might be listening to a conversation,” Pastor Kern said, whether by telephone or email. “We have to temper our excitement about what God is doing.”
Communication must be guarded because others are not quite so excited about what God is doing or what missionaries like Pastor Kern may be doing. If their Christianity is found out, it will hamper their efforts in Indonesia and for those who remain in the country.
“We realize the significance of this work because the Gospel is for everybody,” Pastor Kern said. “We will be creative in getting the message to them. It’s the focus of the Great Mission. Everybody, no matter who they are, deserves to hear the Gospel. It is the heart of God that compels us to do this.”
News about God’s work from home will be important, Pastor Kern said. His family will be expected to have Christian friends at home and news from them “will encourage us.”
The special service opened with the presentation of His Majesty’s Court, seven banners and flags representing God’s sovereignty, the number seven standing for perfection. Twelve banners and flags representing countries and regions followed, 12 representing God’s number symbolizing government and a message that “the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of God.”
Among the banners was one representing Afghanistan carried by a woman wearing a veil. At the conclusion of the processional, she drew back her veil, drawing claps from the congregation.
“Tonight, we are gathered here for a time of worship and prayer,” Holley Christian Church Pastor Kevin Hill said. “Our focus is to pray for the good news of Jesus Christ to be demonstrated by the church to a world that desperately needs the truth of this message.
“Whether we humble ourselves and acknowledge the poverty of our own soul or we give material possessions to those in need, God has come to minister to the poor, both spiritually and physically. This evening, we thank Him for His love and provision for us.”
Special music was provided by Donna Short and her daughter Megan Foucht of St. Helen’s Catholic Church and Roger Gilman of Sweet Home United Methodist Church.
United Methodist Pastor and Sweet Home Emergency Ministries Director Karen Little presented a report on SHEM’s activity over the last year. SHEM provided food to about 235 families per month, up by almost 100 per month from last year. Each month, 17,000 pounds of food was distributed.
“We do it only because we have been blessed by so much,” Pastor Little said. “We’re giving out of a bounty.”
A special offering taken during the service went toward SHEM’s work in providing food to needy families.
With the recent storm, eight families lost everything, and SHEM is seeking basic household items, including pots and pans and cleaning supplies, Pastor Little said. She also said SHEM needs volunteers.
“Lord, may we be as generous to others as you have been to us,” Pastor Little led off in group prayer. “May we see the need where the need is, in the homeless, in the hungry, in the victims of violence, in the hearts of the violent, the lonely, those without love, the unemployed…. Help us to enlarge our hearts so that we can see your children wherever we look.”