Association of Baptists for World Evangelism

It was the Summer of 1984. I was fifteen years old and so ready to turn age sixteen. The August before I had accepted Christ’s salvation for my sin. Things were still new in Christ even though I had been raised in the Baptist church I and my family attended. That June or July was Missions week at church. I and my family had always decorated the Japan table. As my father had been stationed at Misawa Air Force Base in time my mother joined him with me arriving soon after, most of the items on the table were original from Japan.

That week the Almighty God pressed onto my heart via the Holy Spirit of the need to evangelize the lost no matter where they were. Whether in my Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, or the Uttermost. The night before the last I fully surrendered to the call to missions. Unknowing of the where, I knew from my parents that Kokomo, my Jerusalem, was the place to start. I had already participated in the church’s soulwinning events, but now it was with more fervor. This translated into joining the bus ministry as it was an avenue to reach more people for Jesus. Even while in college I was involved in the soulwinning, bus ministry, and even street preaching ministries.

The downside to this story is my then church’s view of ministry. It was their viewpoint that a single man was ineligible for ministry. They believed he should be married as to have better resistance to the wiles of women by seeking solace in his wife. Odd as most preachers that succumb to those wiles are married. I digress. Anywho, even though I asked three women to marry me, not all at once but over a period of years, none complied and said yes. One of them was even cheating on me with another man! Yet this doesn’t even hold a candle to those in the Bible who were never married and yet God used them for his glory.

Praise God that serving him depends solely on him and not the leadership of the local body of Christ. It is that local body of Christ that one serves in serving him. God has chosen to use me despite my previous church’s skewed belief. And he still does to this day. In the almost forty years since my surrender, I had yet delved into finding and searching out a mission board to serve under. Though I believe it is the local church that sends.

With that back story, June 7th and 8th I traveled to the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE) world headquarters in Harrisburg, PA for their 24-Hour DEMO they hold three times a year. To say the least it was eye-opening is an understatement. I went with only a couple questions and left with more. Though being there and listening to the speakers and the various evangelistic ministries they are involved with only spurred me on to be more of a witness for Jesus. To say like Jude, “And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.”

This verse has always stuck with me. I am unsure if it was the one used by the one preaching that night I surrendered to the field. Yet I know that since God has used others to pull me out of homosexuality, that I too must go back to pull others from the fire. God’s mercy is a catalyst to see others come to him. Their only hope is not in the flag or identity. Both are deceptions from the Adversary used to stupor them into a false sense of security. No, Christ is the only human who can and will satisfy their longing for completion. He can only truly love them the way they wish to be loved spiritually fulfilling their deepest desires of the spirit. A true body, soul, and spirit completion made in Heaven yet fulfilled here on Earth.

Grace and peace, James

*Scripture from ESV, Crossway Publishers, 2001

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