Last evening I was in Roanoke, Virginia, at the GoCenter. You can learn more about the Go Center at: https://www.gpartners.org/gocenter
Iwas called to ministry in April 1971, on in a Sunday night service at LandmarkBaptist Temple in Cincinnati Ohio under a missionary named Bob Hughes.
Withina few weeks of that night I heard that Thomas Road Baptist Church was startinga brand-new Bible college called Lynchburg Baptist College, I registeredimmediately and went there with my heart set on going to Africa to share thegospel. Yet during school, I was able to be part of a church plant inWinchester, Virginia, Shenandoah Valley Baptist Church. After graduating Godthen called me to be the pastor of that church. I never really got to be thatmissionary who went full-time to the mission field.
Ibegan to realize that the Lord left me in America as a pastor to mobilize,influence, and send as many people as we can. And raise as money as I could formissions. Now with that background justrecently as we studied through the Gospel of Luke, we found that God gives theGreat Commission to His disciples to preach the gospel to all the nations, topreach the good news, the message of the kingdom that Jesus saves. The Gospelof Luke seems to be all about what Jesus said in Luke 19:10, "For theSon of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
Asyou read through the gospels, every one of them ends with a reference to theGreat Commission. In John's gospel, Jesus said, "As the Father has sentMe, even so send I you." That was the commission to those disciples: Justas Jesus was sent as the Son of God to seek and save the lost we are to also tobe bringing this good news to a lost world around us. Over these past 50-plusyears of ministry, by God’s grace we have been able to influence hundreds,maybe thousands of believers to love Jesus, to pray for missions, to go to theforeign field, and to give to missions. We've watched God do awesome things.
I'minvolved in a ministry right now in India where we have 600 pastors I'mdirectly connected to. I went there in January of this year and took an individualpicture of 400 of them. I also got a bio of them at that time that I have onhand. It gives their name, their place of ministry, and how many churches theyare pastoring. I'm asking people like you to partner with me to pray for theseprecious pastors. Would you take one of these pastors into your heart?
Inthe video I made of today, I'm standing in front of pictures of unreachedpeople groups in the world. I understand right now there are 3.4 billion peoplewho have little or no access to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many of the pastorsI'm working with are ministering among the Koya people, the Banjari people, theChenchu people on the east side of India, and they are reaching these unreachedpeople groups with the gospel of Christ. But besides them are many otherpastors reaching many other people groups with the gospel of Christ. They desperatelyneed our prayers. Of course, they need money, and I'll talk about that in mychat tomorrow. But right now, I'm asking for prayer partners. Would you bewilling to join me as a prayer partner for one of these pastors? I will sendyou his name, his location, how many churches he's pastoring, the names of hisfamily members, and you can pray specifically for him and his ministry, and youcan join with me in impacting many lives for Christ.
Ifyou feel that the Lord is leading you to join me in this prayer effort pleasesend me your name and email address to pastormike@pmiministries.org andI'll get back in touch with you. I beg you, I plead with you, join me as aprayer partner. I already have 100 people who have already joined with me topray for these 400 pastors. I just need another 300 prayer partners right now.I trust you'll be one of those 300 that will join me. We should all be a partof fulfilling the Great Commission.
