THE FIELDS ARE WHITE UNTO HARVEST

(written by Brent Moeller, BBFI missionary in Durban, South Africa)

The well respected Baptist pastor from Lusaka Zambia, Conrad Mbewe said,

“The church in Africa is growing by leaps and bounds. This is certainly a matter to thank God for, especially when one compares this to what is happening in the church in the West. It is disheartening to any Christian who goes from Africa to, say, Europe, and finds church buildings that have been turned into libraries, museums, restaurants, and bars. It is equally sad to see so many churches with mainly elderly people tottering to their graves and almost all the pews empty. Where are the people? Where are the young people? How can such churches survive?

It is so refreshing to return to Africa and find churches meeting in every conceivable place as new churches sprout up almost every week. It is said that the number of Christians in Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century was about 9 million and that by the end of the twentieth century it was about 380 million! Church structures cannot cope with this kind of growth. So, churches are simply meeting in classrooms, in grass-thatched makeshift structures, and under trees—and yet they are still growing! It is also refreshing to see in attendance young parents with their toddlers, teenagers and young adults, all the way to octogenarians. It speaks well for the future of the church in Africa.

The church in Africa is full of zeal, though so much of the time, (my addition in italics) this zeal lacks knowledge (Rom. 10:2). This zeal is seen in evangelistic fervor.…Individuals whose knowledge of the Bible is still at kindergarten level will soon be found leading a church in a village. Some of them do not even have a full Bible. Yet they are preaching wherever they find ears that are willing to listen. You will find lay preachers in streets and on buses and trains. Personal witnessing takes place in schools, colleges, and universities.

There is a desperate need for more training in order to reduce the wildfires being produced by this zeal where knowledge is lacking. Many people who make up the church in Africa—including church pastors and ministry leaders—simply inherited the church. They have adopted what they have found in the church without really knowing why they do what they do. Without being anchored in the Bible’s teaching about the church, they have been at the mercy of the winds that are blowing and the waves that are beating against the church, and consequently, they sometimes take the church in directions that hurt its spiritual life. This is because they are simply flowing with the tide. This zeal that lacks knowledge sometimes results in the church finding itself in seriously unbiblical practices…”. Quoted from, “God’s Design For the Church”.

There are workers from many different Christian groups giving their efforts in Africa. Some are kindred spirits with us, some are good and decent folk though not as we are. However many are deceitful, practicing syncretism (a compromise of Christian terms and principles married to the former religious and cultural beliefs of a nation.) Sadly others, are downright devilish.

There is no more fertile field for neo Pentecostalism with its health and wealth gospel and its practices of demonic deliverance than sub Saharan Africa.

Forbes Magazine published the 10 wealthiest preachers in the world, four were Africans. All of the preachers in the top 10 are prosperity gospel preachers.

The charismatic movement is so closely similar to the core beliefs of Africanism, like following people of power and those who cast out evil spirits, that it is not hard to understand why it has become the largest “Christian movement” here.

THE LABORERS ARE FEW….

• There is a desperate need for preaching of the true gospel, of Biblical discipleship and leadership training.
• Africa is a continent of children and young people. There is a great need for laborers to work among these groups. (African kids love music and sports.)
• Christianity in South Africa is many times a women’s movement. We are desperately needing to see Christian African women trained to be godly examples in the church and in the home.
• Men’s ministry – In South Africa, far too many children grow up with no father, much less a male role model.
• There is a lack of job skills in a country with some of the world’s highest youth unemployment.
• So many African ministries are still dependent on foreign funds to survive.
• There is lacking a burden to see new churches both in Africa and abroad started, mostly due to a dependence mentality.

When we arrived in South Africa in 1991, there were seven other families serving in different parts of the country and another family on deputation. Now thirty-one years later, none of those families are here with us. The causes for this are varied: death, disease, the tour of duty fulfilled (retirement), discouragement, defection of national leaders, dereliction of duty (moral failure), and new duties assigned by the Commander and Chief.

There are national churches in existence in the areas where our faithful missionaries once served. Some are merely existing. Some are struggling financially. Some have changed allegiance. Some have carried on flying the same standard as the missionaries. Yet none, to my knowledge, are the thriving churches they once were under missionary oversight.

We currently have two other families who serve as missionaries in South Africa, in totally different areas of the country. Both are faithfully serving but could use help, as could we.

I am sixty years old, but not ready to “hang up my boots”. I realize though that time is not on my side.

We need help. We need laborers. What’s the solution?

Praying Matthew 9:38

A daily reminder – The alarm on my phone goes off each morning at 9:38 AM to remind me to pray this Bible promise back to God. It has given me opportunities to get others involved who might also tend to forget…

How must we pray?

• That our local believers get involved in the harvest.
• That we will receive new help from our American churches for the harvest.
• That Christians from other nations will come to help us. (We now have some missionary partners from the Philippines who are serving in South Africa.)
• Pray remembering what God has done in the past.
• Is it time to pray for a New Student Volunteer Movement? In the days of evangelist Dwight Moody, over 100,000 college students volunteered to serve on the mission field.

Hudson Taylor prayed in recruits for China. One hundred new missionaries joined him in one year!

The Moravian Church - in 1727 this group of believers started round the clock prayer vigils for the salvation of the nations for the Lamb of God. This went on for 100 years without fail. At the apex of these prayer services, there was one missionary for every 58 members in that church. Sixty-five years after that prayer meeting started they had sent out 300 missionaries!

Time is not on our side.
Circumstances are not on our side.
The sheer scale of the challenge is not on our side,

Yet God is!

He gives us a simple command to solve the problem, Matthew 9:38!

“May it be that it shall become as natural and easy to pray daily for foreign missions as to pray for daily bread.” (Andrew Murray “The Key to the Missionary Problem.”)