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missionary |ˈmi sh əˌnerē| noun ( pl. -aries)
One who is sent on a mission; especially, one sent to propagate religion.
ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from modern Latin missionarius, from Latin missio, from mittere ‘send.’
The ultimate mission at the optimal time.
At just the right time, (Galatians 4:4), the Father sent the Son into the world, that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:17)
The first chapter of Hebrews contains a wonderful summary of this ultimate mission. How the One Who is the brightness of God's glory and express image of His person, by Whom and for Whom are all things, Who is worshiped by all the angels of God, agreed to become the One to take on flesh and blood. He did this in order to destroy the works of the devil, willingly taste death for every man, purge our sins, and bring many sons to glory.
The word, “missionary,” comes from a Latin word meaning, simply, “sent.” And whenever Jesus talks about His mission, it’s to say that the Father has sent Him. He also says, "as the Father has sent Me, so send I you." (John 20:21)
This ultimate mission continues by proxy today. “In Christ’s stead,” (2 Corinthians 5:20), we urge others to be reconciled to God through Him.
We believe we are in the right place at the right time for what we’ve been called to do. Global Media Outreach’s theme verse is Isaiah 52:15: “Those who have never been told about Him will see, and those who have never heard of Him will understand,” which is quoted by the Apostle Paul in Romans 15:21 in connection with his pledge to be strategic in how he invests himself in ministry.
God has allowed us to be strategic in a way that has never before been possible. In terms of raw numbers, we are praising God that we recorded over 2.6 million indicated decisions for Christ this year, more than doubling last year’s total and once again surpassing our goal of two million. We’re excited about these numbers, because numbers represent people, and Jesus’ mission is to people. But we’re also excited about some of the other things a more detailed look at the numbers tell us. - They tell us that in addition to being able to be more cost-efficient, in lowering the expense of reaching an individual for Christ to unprecedented levels, we’re also learning to become more effective, since the percentage of individuals initiating follow-up by means of e-mail is also going up. We passed our goal of 400,000 for this indicator in August, and today it stands at 560,000.
We’re also reaching more countries than ever before. Our statistics tell us that our sites are visited by computers from 230 countries in the world. An increasing portion of these are from countries with a majority of people who are classified as “unreached.” When a friend challenged me last year to see what kind of impact our ministry has on 10/40 Window countries (59 nations falling in the least-evangelized, most-populated, resistant and impoverished area of the world), I determined that nearly 25% of visits to our sites were from these countries. Today, it’s more like 27.8%. And they are reaching out for help. I have personally counseled individuals from 26 of those countries. Here are a few responses:
“Without Baptism (in water) is any will be a christian?” (G, Bangladesh)
“Well to be honest I know about Christ and I believe he’s the son of [the] allmighty God. The trick is that most Christians believe Christ is himself God ,and I believe he is son and a way for us to communicate with God, and, could u help on am I wrong or…?” (Y., Eritrea)
“Why do we need religion?” (D., Ethiopia)
“I love Christ.” (R., Iran)
“Please help me to discover the love of God for me as there are times when I feel abandoned and all alone in my sufferings.” (S., Kuwait)
“show me some proof that Christ really exist???” (S., Mauritius)
“I do not have in my heart, what should I do?” (R., United Arab Emirates)
We have a new way you can participate in prayer for our ministry. Just go to our http://www.gmoearth.com website and click on one of the live maps there. It’s updated every few seconds with a new visitor to our Jesus2020.com website, and we encourage you to pray for each person as they encounter the life-changing message of Jesus.
Another great way you can help us is by continuing to give. In light of what the economy has been doing, Cindy and I are especially thankful for the participation of each one of you, and we prayed specifically for each of our financial partners in November. The Lord provided for the shortfall in advance this year by moving some of our partners to increase their giving without being asked.
I have debated over whether to share this information with you, but have decided that keeping it to myself robs Him of the praise He deserves and the encouragement you need to hear. By my reckoning, we lost 16 ministry partners this year, which would also have caused us to come up $863 short each month if it weren’t for His sovereign hand and the sensitive spirits of a few of our partners.
The Apostle Paul told the Philippians, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19) There's probably not a faith-supported missionary in the world who hasn't been encouraged by this passage. Have you ever noticed that it's not referring to the supported missionary (Paul) but to the supporters? (The believers from Philippi.) This has been a reminder to us that you walk by faith in supporting us, just as we do in living as faith-supported GMO Staffmembers. Thank you for making our mission possible by faith.
Some of you have let us know you’ve lost jobs or had your income reduced in some other way. There may be others who haven’t informed us of something we need to pray for you about. Please let us know—you’ve been so faithful to us, praying a specific need of yours is very important to us.
We may not be able to have any certainty in the stock market. Now is a time when even the experts don’t. But one thing we can be certain about is that the ultimate mission will go on. We want to continue to be a part of it, and He continues to make that possible through the faithfulness of our partners like you. Thank you, and may God bless you, for your generosity and your trust in His Word!
- P.S. Please see our latest photos!
