
One of the interesting things about missionary work is the significant closeness we are to the front lines of spiritual warfare. We work on the edge of hell, battling demons, sometimes ...
... fighting face to face (literally!).
Because of this, we constantly must adjust (and readjust) our battle plans, strategies and even our weaponry to achieve the victory edge over the tricks of guerrilla tactics hatched in hell.
Having said all of that, it becomes obvious that missionaries fulfill a vital part in the Church´s spiritual laboratory: The answers that missionaries apply to current foreign challenges are often the very solution needed for stateside issues.
Why, then, are missionaries so shunned by the so called Pentecostal intellectuals? Oh well…
Case in point:
Long before stateside congregations began planting daughter churches around the metropolitan area of the mother church, battle-tough missionaries were already pushing into that sphere of connected daughter churches.
It was truly a spiritual laboratory experiment. The possibilities of something (everything, at times!) going wrong were enormous. And, to answer your unspoken question, yes, a lot did go wrong. The concept worked very well as a tool to pull souls back from the licking flames of hell. But, on the other side, during those early years, there were many negative aspects to the experiment!
For example, there were daughter churches that refused to line up to the overall vision of the leading pastor… how did we deal with such issues? We would cry a ton of tears and go back to the laboratory and try again… and again… and again, until we got that one issue worked out… Then, another type of problem would crop up… back to the lab we went!
And, even to this day, we must keep a careful eye on apostolic quality and spiritual connectivity when dealing with daughter works.
However, that early experiment was successful! We now know that a well structured network of daughter congregations MULTIPLIES one visionary pastor into a battlefield giant whose apostolic (powerfully bright!) presence crosses many valleys of darkness.
I will be writing of other spiritual laboratory experiments, some were successful; others total failures… but before signing off, allow me to ask:
Ø Why are there so few stateside churches using the daughter work concept?
Ø (Deleted!) The other inquiries regarding the first question were deleted… too polemic!
Ø Why are battle-tested missionaries not brought in to help set the first daughter work up?
Ø And when the initial problems crop up (be assured, trouble will show up), why do some pastors refuse to consult and acquire “street-smart” advice from their missionary partner?
Because of this, we constantly must adjust (and readjust) our battle plans, strategies and even our weaponry to achieve the victory edge over the tricks of guerrilla tactics hatched in hell.
Having said all of that, it becomes obvious that missionaries fulfill a vital part in the Church´s spiritual laboratory: The answers that missionaries apply to current foreign challenges are often the very solution needed for stateside issues.
Why, then, are missionaries so shunned by the so called Pentecostal intellectuals? Oh well…
Case in point:
Long before stateside congregations began planting daughter churches around the metropolitan area of the mother church, battle-tough missionaries were already pushing into that sphere of connected daughter churches.
It was truly a spiritual laboratory experiment. The possibilities of something (everything, at times!) going wrong were enormous. And, to answer your unspoken question, yes, a lot did go wrong. The concept worked very well as a tool to pull souls back from the licking flames of hell. But, on the other side, during those early years, there were many negative aspects to the experiment!
For example, there were daughter churches that refused to line up to the overall vision of the leading pastor… how did we deal with such issues? We would cry a ton of tears and go back to the laboratory and try again… and again… and again, until we got that one issue worked out… Then, another type of problem would crop up… back to the lab we went!
And, even to this day, we must keep a careful eye on apostolic quality and spiritual connectivity when dealing with daughter works.
However, that early experiment was successful! We now know that a well structured network of daughter congregations MULTIPLIES one visionary pastor into a battlefield giant whose apostolic (powerfully bright!) presence crosses many valleys of darkness.
I will be writing of other spiritual laboratory experiments, some were successful; others total failures… but before signing off, allow me to ask:
Ø Why are there so few stateside churches using the daughter work concept?
Ø (Deleted!) The other inquiries regarding the first question were deleted… too polemic!
Ø Why are battle-tested missionaries not brought in to help set the first daughter work up?
Ø And when the initial problems crop up (be assured, trouble will show up), why do some pastors refuse to consult and acquire “street-smart” advice from their missionary partner?