FINDING THE PEARL

It had been a long month!  September, 2006 had been a strange month in the life of a pastor as well.  Frankly I had not been at home or at my church very many days.  I had started off hosting an evangelist from India, then spent time with a leader connected with a Bible translation agency.  Then I was off to Dallas, Texas, where I spent a week listening to a man who challenged all of my assumptions and theories about ministry or missions!  

David Watson had facilitated the beginnings of one of the largest church planting movements in the world in the 1990's in India.  Now, he was beginning to train and catalyze leaders from Africa and new movements were beginning that promised to break new ground in the Islamic world.  Now during this week in Dallas, he was teaching leaders from various Mission agencies or churches about the principles that were bearing such amazing fruit.

After that week it was onto a plane with a group of people to go to West Africa to see a beginning Disciple Making Movement among Muslim people groups.  While there I was amazed to see all that was happening.  The high point was walking a short distance from the last paved road to a rural village.  Just a little over a year before, this village had been totally Muslim.  Now walking into the field where workers were harvesting grain we heard singing voices praising the Lord.  We were introduced to a woman who had been raised from the dead the previous year....with the result of seeing the whole village turn to Christ!  I spent the rest of the trip, listening, asking questions, and learning about what God was doing here and in other areas.  

I arrived home on September 30.  I was so glad to see my wife and I remember what I told her after walking inside our house.

"I have found what I have been looking for for 23 years!"

You see, 23 years before, as a Bible College student, I had been impacted by the Spirit of God.  I was impressed that my life was to be about God's Mission!  I studied missions, helped start a small mission agency, and even though I spent all those years in ministry in an American Local Church, I took many short term trips overseas to teach, preach and train leaders in Asia, Africa and Latin America. I believe that one day all will hear the Good News.  But I did not know how it would happen.  I could not see the big picture or understand any strategy whereby it would occur.  I had studied missions strategy, church growth, and church planting for years.  But the pieces would not come together.

On that day when I told my wife that I had found what I was looking for, I meant I had found a people that were multiplying disciples, groups, and churches in such a way, that it might be the first steps of a "Closure" strategy!

Years have passed.  I have not changed my mind!

It was later that I read again that parable of Jesus concerning the Pearl.

Matthew 13:45-46"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it"  

When the merchant found the one pearl, he was willing to sell everything and buy it.  That was the decision I made that month.  These movements to Christ....Disciple Making Movements and Church Multiplying Movements....these represented an expansion of God's Kingdom....An Exponential Multiplication.  Leaving everything else, all other ministry opportunity, all personal goals, even long standing desires for influence among God's people.....all of that was a small price to pay to have the Pearl.