Students follow God’s calling to mission fields_61404

Posted: 6/11/04

Students follow God's calling to mission fields

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

RICHARDSON–Record numbers of Baptist General Convention of Texas student missionaries are following God's will onto the mission field, where lives are sure to change, a speaker told mission volunteers during their commissioning service.

The BGCT is sponsoring 445 student missionaries who will serve summer, short-term and semester terms in sites around the world–nearly double the number who served last year. Students represent more than 50 campuses and will serve in more than 100 locations worldwide.

David Chan, chairman of the student missions committee, praised the students during a commissioning service at The Heights Baptist Church in Richardson for reflecting the heart of a “missionary God” who wants people to know him.

God sent Jesus, Chan noted. Jesus sent his disciples. The early church sent missionaries. Commissioning workers for the mission field enables “senders” and “goers” to be “intimately involved” in God's work.

“We are simply continuing the pattern of history,” Chan said. “God is a sending God.”

Students filled the choir loft and a significant portion of the altar. The sight emotionally moved Joyce Ashcraft, program coordinator of the BGCT Center for Collegiate Ministry, who called the volunteers an answer to prayer.

“I just stood there and kept thinking, 'Lord, look what you have done,'” Ashcraft said. “It was amazing what he had done. It wasn't anything we did.”

Center staff have emphasized praying for 500 student missionaries since their back-to-school Focus conference last fall. Students prayed for student missions during that time. Texas Baptist Student Ministry held its first week of prayer for student missions in the fall.

Baptist student ministry leaders and church staff members picked up on the goal of 500 volunteers and worked hard in helping students discern whether they are called to be short-term missionaries, said Bruce McGowan, director of the Center for Collegiate Ministries. Texas Baptists have supported the student missions program well.

BGCT student missions staff members also worked to make the mission experiences part of each student's spiritual growth, McGowan noted. Workers try to connect the mission work with the rest of a student's spiritual journey.

The student mission staff members began noticing the impact of prayer and hard work when the number of student missionaries during the Christmas holiday jumped upward, said Brenda Sanders, mission consultant for the Center for Collegiate Ministry. Since then, the number of volunteers has spiked across the board–spring, summer, short-term and semester terms, Sanders said.

“We have just been blown away,” she said. “They have been coming out of the woodwork.”

The impact the students will have is immeasurable, Sanders continued. Not only will hundreds, if not thousands, of people come to know Christ, students' lives will be changed as well, she predicted.

This experience will alter the way many of them serve as church members or church staff, she said. It will change the way they view mission work. Some will be called to be career missionaries.

“It is obvious God is working among college students to call them out,” McGowan said.

Chan urged the students to serve others with the grace and strength of God, bringing glory to his name through all of their actions. These principles will empower the missionaries to impact others, he said.

In many cases, students will minister in unfamiliar circumstances, Chan said. But they should not worry, because God is “going before and after them,” protecting and guiding their lives.

However, God can use these mission experiences to alter one's perspective of the world, Chan continued. When Christ-ians are following God's will, viewpoints can change quickly.

“It (God's will) is the best place,” Chan said. “It is just the most dangerous. It is the most dangerous because it may change things.”

The missionaries accepted the challenge of their appointments by each taking a 50-cent piece, a symbol of their commitment to serve, and moving on to the altar.