Today’s chapel featured a panel discussion with several of our missions and evangelism faculty on Great Commission work around the world.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Chandler Snyder 0:00
We are incredibly thankful to be up here this morning, and I am incredibly honored to be leading this panel with our faculty, outstanding faculty, ready to talk about one of our six core values. In fact, just so you all know, it was from last spring’s town hall meeting that we got some feedback from students that said we want to continue, not only highlighting our faculty as they lead us in song and in the pulpit throughout sermon series, but also in opportunities like this, where we get to hear about their experiences that shape […] how they teach and lead in the classroom. So thank you for providing feedback. It matters, and we make decisions based off of that. I so wanted to point that out.
Chandler Snyder 0:41
As you all know, Southwestern has six core values. There’s a pop quiz later, so be ready. Just triggered every student in chapel. Those six core values are being grace filled, scripturally grounded, confessionally guided, student focused, globally engaged, and Christ centered. […] And today we’re going to deep dive into the core value of being globally engaged, standing on the shoulders of the incredible global missions week that we had last week. But before we get too deep into the panel discussion […] some of you may not know these incredible faculty members that we have, some of our online students may not be familiar with them either. So I want you all to introduce yourselves. I’m going to start with Dr Kevin Rodgers. Got a little bit of highlight of him last week. All right, he’s a dear friend. I want you to do three things. All right, real quick, okay, because I got to keep you all– we’re aiming at a time target here. Okay, so here’s the three things I want to know. Who are you? That sounds brash, but I do want to know it. All right, they may not all have had you in class. So real brief introduction, what you teach, how many years of service you’ve given internationally, and to the Lord at SWBTS […] then finally, your favorite food from overseas. I want to know those three things. All right, so Dr Rodgers.
Kevin Rodgers 1:59
I’m Dr. Kevin Rodgers and I have served in Sub Saharan Africa for about 27 years. I’ve been at SWBTS for a month and glad to be here. Yeah, 27 years here is coming, I’m sure. And my favorite food would be from Zambia. It’s inshima with […] chicken and then cabbage, and you kind of cook that with tomato, onions and cooking oil, relish. It’s really, really good, making me hungry, actually, thinking.
John Mark Terry 2:28
I’m Mark Terry. I teach missions and evangelism here as an affiliate professor. I did my Master of Divinity and PhD here, my wife and I served 25 years in Southeast Asia, mainly in the Philippines, and my favorite food is bulgogi, Korean barbecue.
Chandler Snyder 2:54
So students, hear that, and either get an invitation to his house to eat or invite him over to eat. You know it’ll get him there.
Mike Copeland 3:00
Yeah. I’m Mike Copeland. I spent about 13 years overseas, Central Asia and East Asia. I’ve been here for two years, starting my third year of teaching, full time faculty. I teach Intro to Missiology.
Chandler Snyder 3:12
You showing Dr Rodgers the ropes now?
Mike Copeland 3:14
No, no, no, he definitely is a blessing to all of us here. So no ropes needed to be shown. Just it’s nice to have somebody else in your corner as well.
Chandler Snyder 3:24
So yeah, favorite food?
Mike Copeland 3:28
Lachman or lamien. And for other students, just mifan is great. Just mifan anywhere else but in the States.
Daniel Sanchez 3:38
And I’m Daniel Sanchez, and I’ve served for about 15 years, both in Central America and then with the whole Mission Board. And I’ve been here for 39 years now, teaching as a professor of missions. I’ve got quite a few different foods. I’ve had chicken Kiev in Kyiv in Ukraine, and Beijing duck in Beijing. But my family’s from Spain, so paella is my favorite dish, which has, it has seafood in it. It has a special type of sausage, olives in it, and all kinds of condiments that makes make your mouth water. So that’s my favorite food.
Chandler Snyder 4:21
Alright. Dr Sanchez is OG. He has been on the faculty at Southwestern longer than I have been alive, so we’re going to listen real intently when he talks. All right, that’s what we’re going to do. Dr. Sieberhagen?
Dean Sieberhagen 4:32
All right, well, I’m ready for lunch now. I’m Dean Sieberhagan, served in Central Asia with IMB for 13 years, and have been teaching here for 12 years. And I’m very tempted to say lagman. If you’ve never had lagman, you’ve missed out. But my favorite would be grilled lamb kebabs.
Chandler Snyder 4:54
All right, so just highlight real quick before we jump in. There are over 100 years of field experience on the stage right now, ready to share with you why it matters that we are globally engaged. You throw in the rest of the Fish School faculty, and then journeyman terms across our other schools, we have nearly 200 years of on-field missions experience on this faculty. So it is an incredible opportunity that we rejoice in, that the Lord has brought this much juice to the faculty. So all right, here we go. We’re diving in, globally engaged. Yeah, it sounds good. It sounds nice and catchy. But what does it mean to you? Dr Copeland, we’re going to start with you on this one. All right, what does it mean to you that Southwestern is a globally engaged institution?
Mike Copeland 5:42
I think the primary thing that I would– that pops to my head, especially from this semester in our global missions week, is prayer. So if you noticed last Thursday, when Dr Ford called our students forward to pray, something very strange and weird happened in this, in that there were more guys than normal coming to kneel and pray about the nations. That is actually very rare in in missions, missions teaching, missions mobilization and going overseas, to have so many guys. And so, prayer. We have, we are admonished, and there’s no way for us to know where he’s sending us if we’re not listening.
Chandler Snyder 6:24
So all right, Dr Rodgers is as a newer guide to the fold here, coming from overseas. Why did it matter to you that Southwestern is globally engaged as you prayerfully considered coming and joining the work here?
Kevin Rodgers 6:36
Yeah, that’s a great question. Because, you know, at some level, you feel like, well, we’re sacrificing a lot to leave where we were, kind of at the tip of the spear, and to to come here. But, but it’s so wonderful to come here and see students who are already the tip of the spear here, students who are going, students who are praying, students who are involved. And when I think about, what does it mean to be globally engaged in my personal life. But even what I would like to see built into our student body are students who are completely holistic in their perspective. In other words, you know your geography, and you understand the lostness in the world, not just the part of the world you’re drawn to, but all around the world, and you can speak intelligently about that. You pray for the lost and have as a part of your regular devotional life to pray for the lost, to study about lostness. And you’re seeking God’s will for your life. But even more importantly, to me, to be globally engaged means you’re globally engaged right here where you are. Been so encouraged to see the way that this, this community, is actually engaged globally, even here within Fort Worth. And so many people are working with refugees, working with people who are from all over the world, here in Fort Worth, and then going all around the world. So I think it’s the total package, what you should be after in your daily life, your study of God’s word, your devotional life, and even how you’re growing as a believer.
Chandler Snyder 8:02
That’s great. All right. Dr Sieberhagen, was coming to you, it’s well and good that we’re a globally engaged institution, but not many of you know the genesis of that core value started just about two years ago. So, Dr Sieberhagen, can you tell us about the genesis of that core value, how it made its way into the six defining things that Southwestern is and is going to be, and why it matters.
Dean Sieberhagen 8:25
All right, so we looked at some of our legacy, and from the very start of Southwestern we’ve been known as the Great Commission seminary. Dr Naylor is famous for saying that you can go in any time zone of the world and find a Southwesterner serving on the mission field. In fact, as I think of time zones, I can picture faces of our students who are there right now, which is why he said the sun never sets on Southwestern, because anywhere the sun is shining, a Southwesterner is serving. So we we’ve been known as that, the Great Commission seminary, and it’s part of what has been our lifeblood. But an amazing thing has also happened, is that we’ve had the world represented here. We have so many people sitting here among you who have passports from all over the world, bringing the world into our classrooms as you come and as you lead prayer meetings on a Wednesday, and as you start fellowships that we can be part of. God has brought students from the world right into our classrooms, and that impacts many things that we do, how we pray, how we– even how we teach, because we’re aware as we teach, we’re not just teaching people from Texas. We’re teaching people from all over the world. It’s amazing. And if you didn’t know, another incredible way that has been part of this core value is we have programs that are 100% in other languages. We have a full Chinese language program. We have a full Portuguese language program. We have a full Spanish language program, and who knows where the Lord’s going to stop with that? And so it’s not only that we were this Great Commission seminary sending, but we just realized the nations [are] also coming here, and there’s so much we’re doing here that is about the Great Commission. So global engagement is even what we do right here at the heart of our seminary. And that gave genesis to this idea that, of course, this is our core value. This is who we are.
Chandler Snyder 10:15
Yeah, that’s so good. Just to highlight a couple of things, about a fifth of our residential population are F1 visa-holding students, international students that the Lord is called here to study. So we think about a globalizing world, and the draw to come to Southwestern, it’s a global draw, but for those that feel called to impact neighbor and nation in a globalized community, you can come here right now and learn cultures and learn context and build relationships and inroads into international communities while you prepare in the classroom. It is such a unique opportunity, even among our sister seminaries, that we shouldn’t take lightly.
Daniel Sanchez 11:07
If I could add to that, when I came to teach here in 1985, we used to talk about the closed countries. There was the Iron Curtain, the Bamboo Curtain, but now we can talk about the countries with creative access. By using creativity, we can get into these countries. I’ve taught in both Russia and China, but many of our students now are missionaries, are utilizing digital means and so on to reach every corner of the earth, and it’s just wonderful. As I talk to students, to say, anywhere that the Lord leads you, there’s going to be a way for you to minister there.
Chandler Snyder 11:50
So good. All right, I’m gonna switch with the order. So, get ready. I’m coming to you next. Alright, so we’re an academic institution. All right, we’re happy about that. That’s who we are. It’s what we do. We are. Our mission is about preparing and educating God-called men and women to do what God has called them to do. So let’s turn our attention to the classroom for a second, both on campus and online footprint. It’s really where the rubber meets the road here. So Dr Terry, what role does Scripture, specifically a passage I know is very important to you, 2 Timothy 2:2 play into your engagement with students in the classroom, both online and in the residential programs?
John Mark Terry 12:28
55 years ago, a visiting missionary taught me the importance of 2 Timothy 2:2. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, Well, the things that you have learned from me, entrust those to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. So I like to think of that as the chain of faith. And when I was a student here in the Master of Divinity program, 50 years ago, I know you think, He looks so young! How can that be true? Definitely, at least two people laugh. Thank you. But 50 years ago, Dr Cal Guy taught me the principles of indigenous missions, and so in the 40 years that I’ve been teaching on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, I have endeavored to teach my students the same principles of missions that Dr Guy learned from the Apostle Paul, that he taught to me, and I have taught to them, and now they teach others also. That’s the chain of faith.
Chandler Snyder 13:33
All right. Dr Sieberhagen, how does your classroom feed into our intentional, globally engaged core value and strategy. And before you jump there, I want to highlight the starting point of Scripture that we just used to talk about the classroom. It’s the starting point of our classrooms. Our core values don’t stand independently of one another. So, when we talk about being globally engaged in execution of our mission, it starts with being scripturally grounded and understanding what the Bible says, who we are to be, and what we are to do. So thanks for highlighting that Dr Terry. All right, tell us about your classroom.
Dean Sieberhagen 14:12
Every single classroom is a globally engaged classroom. I, when I did my MDiv, and I ended up on the mission field. I was incredibly thankful for every class I did, because I realized I was the only Bible teacher they knew, the only person understood worship, the only biblical counselor they had, the only theologian they knew. So every one of my classes was incredible missionary training. When you go to the world to share, you’re not there to be an expert at their religion. You’re there to know your religion. You’re there to share your faith. And so, man, systematic theology, I thought I didn’t get enough. I should have taken more. I should have taken more counseling. I should have taken more. More across all these courses, because every one of them was actually a global engagement preparation class, and that’s what we believe here. Don’t think that as you’re preparing for missions only come to focus on our Fish faculty classes. Focus on every class. Church history will help you to be globally engaged, to learn. Every one of these courses are vital for global engagement. So when you sit and you’re reading a book, textbook, in any class you’re reading, know that God is using that to prepare you for the mission field and be globally engaged. So every class is a global engagement classroom.
Chandler Snyder 15:37
So good. As a MDiv graduate, I needed my full MDiv. When I went to serve overseas, I needed the whole thing, so thanks for pointing that.
Mike Copeland 15:46
Yeah, Itried to skip out on an MDiv, and I got an MA in missiology, and then I was on the field, and I realized I needed to get more education. So I got more and I took Hebrew so even your biblical languages will come in handy, because I was drinking tea with a Muslim man who just came back from Hajj, and he was telling me that the name of Muhammad, you could pronounce it in Song of Solomon, and that means Muhammad is in the Old Testament. I can open up the Old Testament. I could look in the Hebrew and I could say, well, that’s a verb. Sorry, it’s not a noun. So your your biblical languages also are help you to be globally engaged.
Chandler Snyder 16:26
Alrighty, in Texas Baptist College and in Southwestern Seminary, we have programs meant to equip future missionaries, and these programs actually culminate on the field with an on-the-field experience, getting training and equipping from an IMB missionary team deployed globally. Dr Rodgers, tell us about these curricular options that we have at both the undergraduate and the graduate level, for those that are considering if God is calling them to something else.
Kevin Rodgers 16:51
Yeah it’s super, super helpful. And also, I think, connects even to some of the things you guys have just been saying. So we have two programs. There’s Intercultural Studies, [a] Bachelor’s in TBC, and then there’s also the option to be able to get the 2+2, the Five Year Program, with the MDiv in church planting. And so, what that looks like is, that if you’re in the regular four-years bachelor’s program, then you do a Hands On term, a semester abroad, and you’re working with an actual IMB missionary team on the field answering a job, and that’s within the body of your of your degree, it’s for credit and everything that we do builds up to that moment. And then when you come back […] because you do that in your junior year, everything after that relates back to what you’ve done. So it’s sort of the pinnacle, and maybe a chiastic perspective of of your your degree. Or, we have people who are actually saying, No, I want to do my bachelor’s and my master’s together and and then from there, you’re actually going overseas as an IMB missionary, at the completion of that whole cycle, as either a two-year missionary or perhaps midterm, or even long-term as a career missionary. And the coolest thing that I’ve just experienced this semester that’s been so wonderful is that we actually have so people in the classroom. Every day when we pray, we pray for lost people, we pray for unreached people groups, but we also pray for our colleagues who are on the field right now serving. I’ve got interns who I’m supervising that are overseas right now, and their friends are sitting in the classroom and hearing about where they are (as best they can with security protocol), and also praying for them and remembering them daily and and thinking about [them]. So where am I going to go? What am I going to do? And when I go and get there, I know that in the classroom, my colleagues and my students […] the fraternity of students that I’m among, they’re going to be remembering and praying for me. So it’s Southwestern, it’s missions while you’re here at Southwestern, abd missions while you’re gone. And it’s all one big connected loop. It’s wonderful.
Dean Sieberhagen 18:57
Can I comment on that? So we have spent years developing best practices. We have an incredible missions program, but you don’t have to say, Well, I’m not in a mission program. I can’t serve. One of the greatest needs we have on the field right now is for theological educators. And every student we have here needs to be praying. Those [that] are in the PhD program need to be praying. Am I getting this PhD to be globally engaged? Am I going to serve? We just sent one of our PhDs in Old Testament to Angola Africa to help teach Hebrew and Old Testament in sSuthern Africa. Old Testament professors on the mission field are very scarce. Many of these needs are huge, to have people go and engage. So you don’t have to be in our mission specific programs. You can be anything right now, Christian educators and biblical counseling, massive need on the field. The IMB is ready to send you if you have those degrees. So you need to come talk to us about any degree you’re doing and how it fits to get to the field. Our mission programs are amazing, but any program you’re in, we need you on the field.
Chandler Snyder 20:16
Great. All right, the classroom drives us to outcomes. It’s why we’re here, and it’s the primary mechanism of our preparation, in partnership with spiritual formation in local churches. But we do offer a number of co-curricular options that we incorporate into our values to help you live out being globally engaged. So some of our students, particularly international students (and Dr Rodgers, ’cause he’s a newbie), are familiar with and this time overseas. This is a compliment, and I turned it into criticism. I didn’t mean to do that, man. All right, they’re familiar with the Southwestern endeavor of GLD, our global leadership development. I know you were key, Dr Sanchez, in seeing this start at Southwestern. So what is it? And what are these partnerships globally? And what do they mean for our school being globally engaged?
Daniel Sanchez 21:06
We got an invitation from the president of a seminary in Havana, Cuba. They said, Please come and train our professors. The government does not allow them to leave the country. They’re doing the best they can. In a two-year period of time, we trained 15 of them. They got a master’s degree. They had a all-time high number of 58 students in the seminary. But in two years, they had 800 students. They started extensions all over the place, and we started getting invitations, then from other countries. What year was that? What year was that? This was about 12 years ago, and so we started getting this invitation. So [we] responded to the seminary in Guatemala, and then the seminary in Cali, Colombia. And to make a long story short, then, we now have a consortium, which is a voluntary association of seminaries where they share resources and encourage one another. They give credit for people wanting to go from one seminary to another. And to make it long story short, now, then the Spanish-speaking consortium has the seminaries from all of the countries of Latin America and Spain. Well, then we got an invitation from Brazil that said, What about the Portuguese speaking seminaries? So we have a consortium then for the seminaries in Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique and Angola. But then the other seminaries started inviting us, and we then have an Eastern European consortium of Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Finland.
Daniel Sanchez 22:59
And we’re working with them, many of them in the shadow of the war that’s going on, but people are responding to the gospel, and they are wanting to train more people. Then two of the graduates, PhD graduates from our PhD in World Christian Studies […] started a seminary in Cairo, Egypt, and that seminary is working very well. And then there’s a seminary in Nazareth and Israel also. But then Jordan, Lebanon and Syria are seminaries that we are relating to. And as you know, Dr Rodgers, you started an association of seminaries in Africa. And with your being here, then we’ve been relating to individual seminaries in Africa, but we’re going to be talking about then bringing them into the entire fellowship of seminaries. So this, then, responds to what we were saying before that globally, the Lord is opening doors. There’s the Asian seminary. We started with the seminary in South Korea because we’ve had a partnership with them for a number of years, but now the Philippines and then Malaysia are involved in this and other seminaries, also some that we’re not able to mention publicly, because they are working very creatively to train people, some underground seminaries going on in some of these countries. So the Lord has opened doors. And just recently, we got an invitation from India. There’s seven seminary leaders meeting with Dr Mahfouz that is going to go over there. So the Lord is opening doors for Southwestern to relate to theological education, and this is making a big difference in these seminaries. You know, we mentioned what happened in the seminary in Cuba, the one in Cali, Colombia has grown from 90 to 900. And we could go on and on, sharing how these seminaries are training a lot of people for ministry, praise the Lord.
Dean Sieberhagen 25:23
Yeah, let’s give you some […] some details of what we do. So the seminary might come and say, We want to develop a program. We don’t know how to have this program. We use our experience to help them develop a program, develop the curriculum, put together a syllabus for different courses, learn how to make that program accredited with an accrediting agency. We ask them, what faculty do you have? How can we help train your faculty? In many cases, we’ve had those faculty training right here at a master’s level, and some even at a PhD level. We help them with online portals. They want to know– their people are spread out in their country, and they want to learn how to do online. We have one of our graduates who has his own company that helps with online education, and he helps, at a very low cost, helps them to develop their own line delivery system like Canvas. And then we help build a library where we can we help establish a library and whatever books are available in that language, where we can we send our own professors and PhD students to go. And we have one right now in the Philippines, teaching as we speak. And so these are the ways that we do it, practically as we partner. So think about that. Isn’t that incredible? That your seminary is helping all of these Bible schools and seminaries all over the world. It’s truly amazing what God has allowed us to do.
Chandler Snyder 26:48
Yeah, praise the Lord. Yeah, praise the Lord. And that’s you all showing up, dedicating yourselves to classes, remaining registered and progressing in your degrees. This is missional engagement that we invest in, and we’re able to do that because we’re collectively focused on what the Lord has called us to do. All right. Dr Copeland, coming at you, what other endeavors in the co-curricular space do we have available to our students to say yes and to consider what God’s calling them to do now?
Mike Copeland 27:17
Well, as you are praying and as you are thinking about going or hearing the Lord speak to you simply– I’ll just start with Wednesdays. We have prayer for the nations at 11 o’clock in Mathena Hall. We pray for a nation or people group each week, and many times we have students or those who have engaged that people before come and lead that time. So that happens every week throughout the semester. As you continue to seek opportunities, you know, come into the Mission Center, World Mission Center, ask us about Everyday Evangelism, all the different evangelism groups that are going out throughout the week. Student Life is heavily engaged in that, as well, plus also, many of your professors and many staff. Our campus has a wide breadth and depth of those who are engaging globally and locally. So that’s great.
Chandler Snyder 28:11
And also want to highlight our international student fellowships. We have a number of international student fellowships that meet and organize and gather together in region-specific gatherings, where they get to speak in their heart language and worship in their heart language and have community and food that speaks to their hearts. And yet they are incredibly generous, and would love to invite students into those with them. They are eager to have engagement in that space. So come talk to a couple folks, and they’ll point that out to you.
Mike Copeland 28:39
We also have plenty of mission trips as well: Boston, Spain, going this semester, their team’s already set. But you can also find those students that are engaged in those trips and be prayerful, prayer warriors for them, be partners with them. And then also coming this next Spring Reading Days. I’m leading a team to Thailand, and we’ll have different trips throughout the summer. And, yeah, just getting involved and watching out for those as well.
Dean Sieberhagen 29:04
Listen out soon for Madagascar, a fun place to go, and some of us, you can join us, and that’s where Chandler, that’s his place. He, in fact, can speak some of that language with you, but we’re going to have an amazing time in the country of Madagascar. Interest meeting will be happening soon. Listen out for that.
Chandler Snyder 29:25
That’s great. Such a good segue, like we planned it all right, now we’re going to have some students that said yes and that took advantage of some of these opportunities come up. So we’re going to invite Cameron Warmack and Nate Croft to come up awkwardly stand on stage and give a testimony of their time. Cam, you stepped up first, grab that mic and come. I told you it was going to be awkward, so I’m going to deliver, yeah, stand right in front of us. Man, tell us about your time and what the Lord called you to do, your journey to say yes and about your time.
Cameron Warmack 29:54
Well howdy, all my name’s Cameron. I was privileged to go to Germany […] Cologne. Particularly, I was able to go along with nine others, Dr Sieberhagen and his wife, and Dr Bradford. And it was this amazing time. But […] there was also some hardships that came right before the trip, right? Where I’m like, thinking to myself, how am I going to provide for this trip? [How] I’m going to provide financially for it. But it was really encouraging to remember is that as the Lord was guiding me, he was also providing for me, and so he provided all my needs financially. And so this is really beautiful […] while we were over in Germany, some of the stories that we heard– let me backtrack. So we went over to Germany to work with the refugees from the Middle East, right? They fled and went to Germany, and so some of the stories that I’ve heard […] was just heartbreaking. And I remember one of the things that we used as outreach was volleyball. I didn’t know this, but a lot of people in the Middle East, they really enjoy playing volleyball, and so we set up volleyball court out on the park, and they were just playing with loads of Middle Eastern people. And I remember I was playing with this one guy, and we were killing it.
Cameron Warmack 31:14
But it was really important that we did, though, because afterwards, we sat and we just talked. And we had about a 10-minute conversation […] but throughout the whole conversation, he was telling me his story, and at the end of it, he was telling me how he wanted to leave Islam and want to come to Christianity, because from what, where he came from, all he ever saw was evil, darkness. And while he was saying that, he was looking over his shoulder to see if his family could hear him. And so that just really shocked my heart. And so we had loads of conversations like that. But at the same time, I learned a lot because, as the Lord was putting me there to invest in people, to pour out my heart with them. He also doesn’t leave you alone. He teaches you. And he really taught me a lot about John 15 and that in the importance of abiding in Christ, and that he taught me how to remain in Him, to dwell in him, and to rest in Him. And so I want you guys to consider going to a short term missions trip, because there are so many places we need to go and to invest in. And so if you feel that urge, pray about it and and as the Lord guides, he provides every single time. So I want you guys to think about it. Thank you.
Chandler Snyder 32:31
Awesome. Thanks, Cam. Nate, come on up. We can talk about how nice he’s dressed. Cam showed out for it. Respect, my man. Alright, Nate, tell us about your experience.
Nate Croft 32:41
Yes, Hey, my name is Nate Croft. I had the privilege this summer of going to South Asia through being sent by SWBTS and Link Teams. And I was originally planned to work over the summer, but I heard about this opportunity, and I prayed about it, and this is where the Lord led me. It was such an amazing trip. So my team of six, we went to a metroplex in South Asia with about 32 million people. So it’s about 2 million […] more people than the whole state of Texas. So Texas has population density of about 100 people four square mile. Our city had a metroplex at a population density of 115,000 people per square mile, so about 150 times more people per area. And our team really enjoyed being there. We got to see a lot of people who were very spiritually open and spiritually interested. We got to share the gospel a lot, but there was also so much spiritual darkness. There was so much idolatry, and so many of the people we interacted with had never had a meaningful interaction with the gospel. A lot of them didn’t even know who Jesus was, or if they did, they thought of him as some Catholic idol.
Nate Croft 33:51
But God was so good during our trip, and we got to share the gospel with over 50 people. We got to pray also [with over] 50 people, and we gotta see two people come to Christ, which is just amazing, and all because of God. One of the greatest things that God taught us over the summer, which we’ve already been talking about a lot, is prayer and how God answers prayer. And I wanna share with you a story that happened in the first week while we were there, me and a couple others went out to go do evangelism and go talk to people. And we kept running into groups of people that didn’t speak any English. And we tried to engage, but we couldn’t really talk to them, because we there’s a language barrier. We tried to use Google Translate some, but it was still a bit of a barrier. So we kept running into these people, and eventually we just kind of stopped and prayed. We said, Lord leads to a person of peace. Lord lead to someone who speaks English. And then we went, and we met another group of people, and they didn’t speak English, but as we, as we disengaged from them, this guy came up to us and started speaking English to us, and he said, Americans have soft hearts. And we said that we were like, well, our hearts have been transformed by Jesus. But then conversation kind of moved on, and there was a lull. […] And this man said, Okay, tell me more about Jesus. And we were all kind of in shock, because we that’s why we’re there, right? And we just prayed five minutes before Lord lead up to a person of peace, Lord, at least, to speak English. And the Lord had led this person to us, who speaks English, is now asking us to tell us more about Jesus. So we got to share the gospel clearly with him, and we got to pray with him. He didn’t accept Christ at that moment, but we got to just plant that seed, and who knows what God’s going to do with that. And over the summer, we kept seeing God just answering prayer, and God really spoke to us the about the power of prayer.
Nate Croft 35:35
So as I close, I want to give you all two challenges. First, I want to challenge y’all to pray, and don’t just pray sporadically, but pray regularly and fervently. One of the practices of the missionaries we were working with was that they set an alarm on their phone at 10:02 every day, and it would go off, and they would pray. That’s representing Luke 10:2. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few, so pray for the Lord of the harvest to send out more workers. So I’ve started doing that. I’ve changed the time a little bit because I don’t want my alarm to go off in the middle of Dr Dodd’s Hebrew class.
Nate Croft 36:10
What a testimony! If our campus, if we all set an alarm for a time, if our campus was full of alarms going off, and we were praying for the nations and we were praying for lostness. The Lord calls us to pray. It’s not a suggestion. He says, Pray for the Lord of hosts to send out more workers. And I would encourage you all– How hard it would be to set an alarm on your phone and when that goes off, to pray? And secondly, I want to encourage you to ask, God, are you the worker he’s praying to send out? And if you are, there’s a lot of opportunities we’ve talked about. You can go through Link Trips this summer. If you want to, you can talk to Micah or Alex at Student Life, or there’s a lot of other mission opportunities. So I encourage you all to be praying and to see if the Lord is leading you to be the one who is sent to go. Thank you all so much.
Chandler Snyder 36:51
Thanks, Nate. Appreciate you guys. Thanks so much to Cameron and Nate. All right, talking about sending– Dr Terry, coming at you in this one. All right, you’ve already mentioned that you are a rather seasoned, experienced individual who had lots of– I mean, “old,” I’m gonna let you say the word you want. I’m just gonna season it up. All right. How has sending changed from when you went to when these individuals who are considering going right now? What’s the difference? What’s it gonna look like?
John Mark Terry 37:19
Well, my wife and I were appointed by the Foreign Mission Board in 1975. Of course, now it’s the International Mission Board. The process is somewhat similar to what it was back in the olden days. One of the biggest changes is the destination of where the missionaries are going. Back in our day, almost all the missionaries went to what we call today open countries. So we went to countries where you could enter on a missionary visa, like the Philippines, Japan, Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya, you could go in openly as a missionary. In fact, the first thing we were taught to say in language school in the southern Philippines was “Missionary wako,” which means I am a missionary. But they don’t tell missionaries to say that anymore, because about 75% of the missionaries the International Mission Board appoints now are going to so-called closed countries, or high-security countries, where they have to exercise creative access, to go in and be very circumspect about how they go about doing doing their work. But those countries are essential for the progress of the kingdom, because that’s where we find the greatest lostness. In the open countries, where missionaries have worked for 200 years, there are strong national churches that are doing marvelous work, but in many of these high-security countries, there are very few believers, very few evangelical churches. And so the mission agencies, including our own International Mission Board, are focusing on them, and rightly so.
Chandler Snyder 39:04
All right, great. Dr Sieberhagen, talk a little bit about what sending looks like today between the International Mission Board and local churches. What does the general process look like?
Dean Sieberhagen 39:15
Yeah. So thankfully, we have the incredible privilege as Southern Baptists of having our International Mission Board. That helps with that, but the International Mission Board does not want to do it independent of your church. So if you are going to be sent, there’s going to be a very high value placed on how you’re involved in your local church. So don’t think that the IMB is just going to send you to do something over there you’re not doing here. You need to be on fire, active, involved in your local church. And they’ll actually require you to go through a process in your local church of involvement in ministry, so that when you go, your church sends you. We believe in sending. Not you, just one day say at your church, Bye, everybody. See you in heaven. Doesn’t work like that. Your church sends you, and the IMB helps to facilitate that sending. In fact, today, the IMB wants you to have five prayer partner churches, five churches who covenant to pray for you as they send you to the mission field. But then the great thing is, the IMB has this great method, if any of you, in any sense, feel called and want to know what it looks like, you come and talk to any of us, and we will help start you on the path with IMB. It starts with an initial questionnaire. You just go and you scan a QR code, and it immediately gives you a questionnaire. You begin, and it starts the process of walking through getting to the mission field, and we are all familiar with that, and we help to walk you through that as well. So it’s a really great process where you’re not just left on your own to figure out, how am I going to get there? So I’m feeling burdened now, that Asia is very far away. How’d I get there? You don’t do it on your own. Your church sends you, and we walk you through that process with IMB. It’s really amazing. There’s really no reason why, if God is prompting you, you don’t begin that journey. Come and talk to us and let us help you start that journey.
Kevin Rodgers 39:15
And I think I would also add too, don’t put missions in a box in your mind of what this, is what you think it looks like, because the whole face of missions has changed so much, particularly over the last 25 years, where now we basically speak in terms of, instead of the West going to the rest, it’s people are going from everywhere to everywhere. So it’s not only us going to the nations, the nations are coming to us, as we’ve said earlier, and that makes missions look different. So there are lots of creative things that people are doing all around the world, where it might be that you’re going to as to a zero-to-one context in a people group, and you’re planting churches, or you might be actually doing student ministry in some place that you never imagined before, or living in Europe, doing diaspora work with people who are from other parts of the world, that have moved there, but you’re engaging them there because they’re more open there, or coming alongside other missionaries from other parts of the world, global mission partners, we call them, GMPs, and helping facilitate them to be able to go to the nations and to reach lostness. So it’s not so much of us in our own world doing everything, but we’re working together globally, with the church all around the world, and God is doing incredible things. I think it’s more amazing than any time in history. This is the greatest time in the world right now to be alive, the greatest time in the world to go to the nations.
Kevin Rodgers 41:14
A retired missionary was asked to pray for a couple who was going to go to the mission field. And this is what he prayed, Lord help them to know that they are not taking you to the mission field. You are taking them. You are already there. And I think it’s important to know what the Lord is doing. For example, see, the seminary in the Ukraine in Lviv has over 1000 students meeting in basements to protect themselves from the bombing. But people are responding to the gospel, and therefore we need to ask the Lord to guide us to where he is opening doors for us and that we will join, often, many people that are sacrificing to share the gospel.
Chandler Snyder 43:27
Great. All right. Dr Copeland, let me give you the last shot. What do you want to tell them? Though I said we give you the last shot. I’m also going to ask Dr Sieberhagen in this question, so you second the last shot.
Mike Copeland 43:36
All right, that’s great. That’ll be good backup. So if you are hearing anything along the lines of the stir in your heart, a call to go or being sent in some form, you know that one of the very first steps you need to take, piggybacking on what Dr Sieberhagen said, is talk to your pastor. If you’re not in a local church and you’re not deep in ministry there, as well as being on campus and doing all the other things we’re doing, you’re not doing it right, and you’re not going to be going the way that you need to go. My family, every time we came back to the States, we went to the same church. The church that we went to is kind of… very– tons of introverts. Right next to a university, bunch of professors, [would] rather shake your hand and then walk by, but that meant they loved you to death. But when we get home, we’d be getting hugs from them. They’re asking how our children are, and we get to tell them where the cooperative funds went to, when we had a medical emergency, or when we needed to transfer countries, all these different things. If you’re not in your local church and you’re not sharing what God is doing in your life, and hearing from your pastor and hearing from brothers and sisters in your local church, you’re not going to be doing it right.
Chandler Snyder 44:56
That’s great. Thanks. Dr Sieberhagen?
Dean Sieberhagen 44:58
All right, so Romans 10 says, If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. If he’s Lord, then give him your Yes. Just give him your Yes. Say Lord, If and when you call, I’m not fighting. I’m not arguing. You have my Yes, I will go. There’s no conversation if he’s your Lord, because if he’s your Lord, then he says, and you do, that’s how it works. And so settle it. Settle it that Jesus, you have my Yes. And my yes may be that I’m here in a church, sending and praying and actively involved, but if you, at any time, tell me, I want you to go, there’s no argument. You have my Yes. Some of us haven’t given him our Yes. Yet you’re here because you’re thinking what you want to do with your life. Get to that point of surrender, of saying, Lord, you have my Yes. There are too many places in the world that have yet to hear about Jesus. If you call me, it’s settled. You have my Yes, I will go.
Chandler Snyder 46:11
It’s fantastic. Let’s thank our panelists for taking the time and investing so deeply in us. Thank you all so much. All right, I’m going to end our time reading a passage of scripture from Revelation 7:9, and then I’m going to pray, and we will be dismissed. Also mad respect for staying on time. Guys. Well done. All right. Very impressed. All right. Revelation 7:9-10. After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.
Chandler Snyder 46:54
Lord, thank you for the opportunity to be here and to prepare. Thank you, as well, for the opportunity to be here and obey Lord. We pray that this season of our lives would be marked with deep relationships in local congregations, deep relationships with fellow students, deep relationships with incredible faculty who have, on some level, been there and done that, and can point the road for others in what you’re calling them to do, Lord, we trust that this outcome that was just read, that all tribes and peoples and languages will be around the throne crying out Salvation belongs to our God. Lord. Help us find our yes in that, and let us run into it with eager, joyful obedience, and may you be glorified in that. I pray for each of our students, each of our staff, each of our faculty that are potentially wrestling with a call right now, I pray that you would create ways and means through the Word and the Spirit, local churches and fellow believers, to point them to what you’re calling them to do, and to bolster that call in their lives. Lord, we know that you’ve called the nations here, and that you have called us to the nations. Be glorified as we eagerly execute the mission that you have given us. And it’s in your name we pray and it’s for your glory that we work. Amen, go in the peace of the Lord and with his focus.
