Is the “unthinkable” about to happen?
Are Southern Baptists about to miss one of the greatest harvests for Christ the world has seen? International Mission Board president Tom Elliff asked those questions in his report during IMB trustees’ Nov. 15-16 meeting in Springfield, Mo.
IMB president Tom Elliff addresses 84 new missionaries during an appointment service Nov. 15 at Second Baptist Church in Springfield, Mo.“This is harvest time, folks. It is no time for us to be asleep in the harvest,” he said, drawing from John 4:35, which says, “The fields are white unto harvest,” and Proverbs 10:5, “He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully” (NASB).
The world “is filled with people who desperately need to hear the gospel,” Elliff continued, and IMB’s assignment is to assist fellow Southern Baptists to bring the light of the gospel to the world.
Despite this crucial need, Southern Baptists no longer are giving through the Cooperative Program as they used to give, Elliff said. CP has been in decline for the past five years.
Elliff called the falloff in giving a “tragedy” because CP and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions are the two “lifelines” that support Southern Baptist missionaries.
“We don’t determine how many missionaries [are sent]; Southern Baptists by their giving tell us how many people [they will] have on the field,” Elliff said. “Now that’s just the plain, unvarnished truth.
“I don’t want to be a son who acts shamefully. Southern Baptists don’t want to be sons and daughters who act shamefully, but we will be if we sleep in the harvest,” Elliff continued. “You need to pray with me that God will stir among Southern Baptists.
“When we think about the way doors have opened – in corners of this world that have been so dark and so closed for so many years, it is unthinkable – that Southern Baptists would not provide more missionaries, more laborers for the harvest,” he said. – BP