February 26, 2001
Native Texan prays the numbers
in Las Vegas mission work
___LAS VEGAS, Nev.--West Texas native Isaiah Mejia knows the stakes are high in Las Vegas. Six-figure numbers race through his mind nearly every day.
___But you won't find Mejia pulling levers on slot machines, rolling a pair of dice in a game of craps, or anxiously hovering over a spinning roulette wheel.
___"I can't forget 777,000," Mejia explained.?That's the number of people in Las Vegas who profess no religious preference or affiliation whatsoever.
ISAIAH MEJIA (right) talks with Tommy Starkes, who has a ministry at the Tropicana Casino, while walking on the Las Vegas Strip. (NAMB photo by Gibbs Frazeur)
___Of the city's 1.5 million inhabitants, only 5 percent claim to be Christians. Just over 1 percent are Southern Baptists.
___As a Southern Baptist North American Mission Board missionary, Mejia, however, still likes his odds.
___"Our churches here live on the cutting edge, meeting people where they are," he said. "It's the law of survival, if you don't, you die."
___Mejia and his wife of 20 years, Jan, are among the missionaries featured in the 2001 Week of Prayer for North American Missions, March 4 –11.
___"We're discovering and looking for ways the church can effectively penetrate the community to share the gospel," Mejia said.
___As a ministry evangelism specialist with Southern Nevada Baptist Association, Mejia coordinates evangelistic outreach ministries at ritzy skyscraper casino-hotels on the neon-lit Las Vegas Boulevard, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Lake Mead campground and tourist-magnet Hoover Dam.
___By practicing what Mejia calls "street evangelism" at major entertainment, resort and leisure venues, local churches are able to reach the unchurched masses.
___"People are not beating your door down," he said. "They don't want in your church. They don't care what you do there. If your relationship with Jesus Christ has not transformed you, they don't want what you've got."
___Mejia came to Las Vegas in 1998 after serving as director of church and community ministries with Neuse Baptist Association in LaGrange, N.C.
___In a city where nearly everything glitters, Mejia finds often the simplest acts of kindness--such as handing out cups of cold water, hot coffee, free gifts or providing diaper-changing and infant-feeding stations at outdoor events--make people receptive to the gospel message.
___"People are receptive and warm and curious," he said. "They're seeking, but they're not interested in your God; they're not interested in what he can do. They're interested in what he's doing in your life."
___Recognized as the entertainment capital of the world, Las Vegas attracts 36 million tourists each year. Yet, Mejia said, the city's bright lights only mask a spiritual darkness evidenced by its high divorce rate, suicide rate and proliferation of prostitution and illegal drug use.
___Despite its reputation as "Sin City" or the modern-day Sodom and Gomorah, Mejia believes people in Las Vegas have the same needs as people everywhere.
___"They're people for whom Christ died," he said.
___And they keep moving to Las Vegas, Mejia said, citing a net gain of about 5,000 new residents each month.
___Mejia is a West Texas native from a missionary family. His parents were church starters with the former Southern Baptist Home Mission Board for 20 years. He professed Christ as Savior at 9 years of age. After graduation from Hardin-Simmons University, Mejia taught high school chorus, band and Spanish for a few years before entering full-time Christian ministry in the early 1980s.
___He served on staff in churches in Texas and North Carolina as minister of music, youth and education. A 1993 graduate of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Mejia served as pastor of a new Hispanic church start in LaGrange, N.C., and at First Baptist Church of LaGrange.
___Mejia asked Southern Baptists to prayerfully search their hearts to see if God might be calling them to serve God more in their own communities or possibly even in Las Vegas.
___"God said he didn't want your sacrifices," Mejia noted. "He said he wants your heart, and where your heart is, your treasure will be."
___Southern Baptists also have the opportunity to help reach Las Vegas through their giving to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, he said.
___"Mission giving is literally securing for one of those 777,000 folks who have no religious adherence whatsoever an opportunity to respond to the gospel," he said. "Don't underestimate what God can do with what is in your hand."
___
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