Tim Thornborough gives us a preview of the forthcoming 9:38 book
An urgent phone call arrived – the voice at the other end oscillated between joy and desperation. He had taken a stand at a book exhibition, which thousands of people were touring round, and was handing out invites to do Christianity Explored. By the end of the week, 3,500 people had signed up, and he only had a dozen trained leaders to run it with: ‘The harvest is plentiful…’
Isaac Shaw of the Delhi Bible Institute was pleading for someone to come out and help train more people to cope with the flood of interest in the Gospel. And such opportunities are not restricted to India…
Another friend in a Welsh town started knocking on doors in the street around his church building. He offered some simple study notes on Mark, and asked to come back the following week to talk over the passage, and give the next week’s notes. He soon had far more people interested than he alone could handle: ‘…but the workers are few.’
The real task is to convince men and women who have grown up in a culture whose ideals are comfort, personal advancement and self-fulfilment to follow their true calling to take the life-saving, life-giving gospel to our lost and needy world. The call is completely counter cultural for us. Rather than comfort, this calling brings pain and persecution. Rather than self advancement, this calling is that Jesus would increase, and we would decrease. And this calling asks us to lay aside self-fulfilment now for the joys of the new creation later, where our reward will be far greater than all the treasures of Egypt.
This is the project for a new book that is being produced by 9:38 and The Good Book Company, to be released at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly in June 2006. It aims to distil the heart of the 9:38 project by presenting clearly and passionately the call to Gospel work, and the varieties of opportunity available for people to serve.
The first section outlines the nature and urgency of the task, and the personal qualifications required for people to embark on full-time ministry.
A second section outlines the realities of many different kinds of Gospel ministry: in ordinary church life; overseas; in specialist student ministry; in an inner city environment; and the value of doing an apprenticeship. Each chapter is filled out with the personal stories of those serving in these areas. The book concludes with chapters on guidance and help on what to do next.
The list of authors reads like a ‘who’s who’ of the evangelical world, and we would greatly value your prayers as the book begins to take shape over the next few months. Our hope is that this book will be a significant tool in convincing many men and women to spend their lives working in the harvest field.
‘Workers for the Harvest Field’, edited by Vaughan Roberts and Tim Thornborough will be published on June 29th at the EMA.
Authors include Vaughan Roberts, Richard Coekin, David Jackman, David Peterson, Peter Comont and many others
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A great new resource from 9:38
for the church family: What is Gospel Ministry? What’s it like? What are the different types like? What can I do to bring most glory to God? and for pastors: To put in the hands of those who could be thinking through whether full-time gospel ministry might be for them
The book will be launched at this year’s Evangelical Ministry Assembly in June, and is being published by The Good Book Company |