April 14, 2003
INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION:
Missions multipliers
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___LEWISVILLE--The upcoming 30th anniversary of International Commission will highlight how God has used "ordinary folks" to lead more than 1.5 million people to faith in Jesus Christ.
___In the next 10 years, the Texas-based evangelistic organization hopes to share the gospel in every country on Earth.
___Founded in 1973 as International Crusades, IC works with Baptist churches to conduct church-to-church partnershipevangelism events worldwide.
CHRIS COWEN, pastor of First Baptist Church of Leonard, with help from Russian interpreter Svetlaya Pisklakova, talks with women in a Russian village about the gospel. The evangelistic visitation was part of a missions experience organized through International Commission.
___The organization has helped sponsor 516 week-long evangelism projects, involving 13,030 U.S. volunteers--many Texas Baptists--and 20,273 partners from other countries. Together, they have guided 1,545,895 people to ask Jesus to be their Savior.
___"We've got some great people of faith, but we're just ordinary folks who have said God can use us," International Commission President Rodney Cavett explained.
___Cavett's folksy understatement echoes IC's modest yet unabashed beginnings.
___Ben Mieth was "just a farmer" from Seminole in West Texas when he traveled to Japan to participate in a World Evangelism Foundation crusade.
___"On the way home from Japan, the Lord shared with me, 'What you did in Japan would work in Mexico,'" he recalled.
___Mieth felt an affinity for Mexico through his strong relationship with Mexican migrant workers who helped farm his land. "I wanted to work in Mexico," he said.
___On a River Ministry trip to the Mexico-Texas border, Mieth met the pastor of First Baptist Church in Chihuahua, Mexico. Mieth asked his interpreter to describe the evangelistic trip he had taken to Japan.
___"I've been praying for something like that for three years," the pastor said. Immediately, he invited Mieth to bring an evangelistic team from Seminole to Chihuahua.
___Mieth could almost hear the words of his pastor, Gene Hawkins of First Baptist Church in Seminole, "If we can win a few people to Jesus, maybe we should do it."
___When Mieth returned to church on a Wednesday night, Hawkins stopped the midweek prayer service to ask about his trip to the Rio Grande. Mieth announced he had committed the church to conduct an evangelistic crusade in Chihuahua.
___"Brother Gene tolerated us and took that first group," remembered Mieth, now retired and living in Glen Rose. "And it grew from that."
___That was 1971, and members of First Baptist in Seminole staffed the crusade. Then pastors from churches across the state of Chihuahua heard what happened and asked the group to come back the next year and work in all their churches, which meant recruiting beyond Seminole.
___Next came an invitation to Chiapas, in southern Mexico. About that time, Hawkins suggested the time had cometo incorporate.
JOHN Mayton, youth minister at Belview Baptist Churchin Midland, baptizes a new believer in Tanado, Indonesia, while participating in an International Commission mission trip. So the farmer, his pastor and a handful of other West Texans founded IC in 1973.
___The Chiapas crusade led to an invitation to Guatemala, which led to others in South America and then to Canada. Later came an invitation to India and eventually to points all over the globe.
___The organization's growth paralleled that trajectory. Mieth launched the ministry part-time out of a Sunday School classroom in the Seminole church. Later, he left farming and worked for IC full-time and moved the offices to Calvary Baptist Church in Lubbock, where Hawkins had gone as pastor. Then IC moved to Dallas to accommodate more staff, who could process and train a flood of volunteers.
___And last summer, IC moved into brand-new $1.25 million headquarters in Lewisville. U.S. staff now number 37, with five overseas.
___But despite all those changes over all those years, IC's approach remains the same, Cavett and Mieth reported.
___Overseas Baptist churches invite IC to enlist U.S. Baptist volunteers to help them evangelize their communities.
___IC staff provide training and preparation. They help the hosts organize to use the volunteer visitors' time most effectively. They help the volunteers understand how to relate culturally and overcome language barriers. They also stress spiritual readiness.
___About four months before an event, IC staff conduct a two-day training retreat with host pastors and key lay leaders, usually involving from 50 to 200 people. A key aspect of preparation is involvement of church members in Operation Andrew, a program designed to encourage them to begin sharing the gospel with their non-Christian friends.
___During the crusade, evangelistic teams, usually comprised of a U.S. pastor and about three laypeople, pair up with a pastor and leaders from a host church.
___They begin the crusade with a rally on Saturday. Then, from Sunday through the next Sunday, the teams work directly with their host churches. Monday through Saturday, the teams spend several hours each morning and afternoon making evangelistic visits in homes, shops, jails, parks--anywhere the hosts want them to go. In the evenings, they hold evangelistic services and preach the gospel. The crusade ends on the second Sunday afternoon or Monday with a victory rally.
___Participants go with 250 pre-printed copies of their personal Christian testimonies, translated into the local language. Even if they can't speak directly to the people, they can share what God has done in their lives, Cavett explained.
___Every time a person professes faith in Jesus, he or she signs a card with contact information, so that the local church can follow up with discipleship.
___"It's a biblical approach," Mieth said. "Jesus was always searching for people. He didn't sit back and wait for people to come to him.
___"People tell their testimonies, just like (the Apostle) Paul did. They tell people what the Lord has done for them. That makes the difference."
___The process developed gradually, he noted. "I didn't think all this out and then go do it."
___Instead, participants evaluated what worked in one crusade and shared it with leaders at the next crusade. "We'd tell them what was successful before and let them decide what we need to do," Mieth said.
___That close connection to the local Baptists is a strong key to IC's success, said Dick Senter, chairman of the organization's board of directors and a veteran of 23 trips.
___"We only go at the invitation of Baptist churches in foreign lands," said Senter, retired pastor of First Baptist Church in Allen. "We're wanted when we go, because the people there invite us.
___"And we make no bones about the fact we're there to share the Lord Christ. I believe in all the other types of missions, but ours is pretty well single-minded evangelism."
___That perfectly suits Malcolm and Peggy Bolton of Shiloh Terrace BaptistChurch in Dallas, veterans of "12 or 13" trips.
MARTIE and Brady Bohannon of First Baptist Church in Leonard with two fellow Christians in India.
___"We enjoy going and telling people about the Lord and seeing God work in so many different ways," said Bolton, a retired painter.
___"You can go here around us, and if people want to know about the Lord, there are churches on every corner. But if you go there and tell people about the Lord, they're open, willing to listen and receptive."
___They have experienced that receptivity all over the world, said Mrs. Bolton, an organist for a funeral home. She told about a trip to Kenya.
___"We came to this village, and I said I had come to tell them about Jesus, what Jesus had done for me," she recalled. "In front of all the people of the village, I asked the chief: 'Do you know about Jesus? Do you know what he can do for you?' And he said, 'No, but I'm waiting for you to tell me.'
___"People all over are waiting for us to come and tell them."
___IC's history has proved Baptists are more than willing to go and tell, Cavett said.
___Although IC is overtly Baptist, it is not part of any Baptist convention and does not receive funds from a Baptist agency. It does have a covenant agreement with the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board that guides cooperation around the globe.
___IC also works closely with Texas Baptists, a primary source of stateside volunteers. Although no formal relationship exists with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the BGCT's Texas Partnerships Resource Center links volunteers with IC when they specifically want to work in an evangelistic crusade, said Steve Seaberry, equipping coordinator of Texas Partnerships.
___More and more, volunteers participate from other countries, Cavett said.
___In 1992, IC conducted its first national-to-national project--which links non-U.S. Baptists to overseas hosts--in the Philippines. Now, almost five out of every six IC volunteers are from overseas.
___"The people in those countries are able to carry on these ministries without Americans being there," Senter said. "This ministry would be able to carry on very effectively if it gets to the point where Americans can no longer go overseas to participate."
___IC's overseas staff provide the training, and IC also provides financial support for travel. "This probably is the most important thing IC has done," he said.
___Now, IC has an audacious goal to conduct at least one crusade in every country of the world by 2013, Cavett said.
___The rise of the national-to-national projects appears to be God's way of making that possible, he said.
___"Humanly speaking, it's ridiculous," Mieth acknowledged. "But all the evidence is it's God's goal. It's going to be interesting to see how he brings this about."
___
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