FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)–Two thousand Southern Baptists are needed to help with nationwide evangelistic campaigns the next two years in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, reported Dub Jackson, Asia crusade coordinator for the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.
“These aggressive evangelistic partnership campaigns are calling for over 2,000 participants during the next 26 months,” noted Jackson, who recently met with Baptist leaders in the four countries.
The crusades — in which teams of 10 U.S. Baptist volunteers work with overseas Baptist congregations — are being held this summer through the spring of 2001, he said.
“When we go to these countries for partnership, we go trusting in the Lord and taking our direction from him as he leads through the leaders of each of these countries,” Jackson said.
“Korea alone has asked for 1,000 team members and 100 churches to join with them in what their convention leaders have described as their hope for nationwide revival,” he added. “They are praying for a new spark of real revival that will return them to the growing church they used to be.”
Baek Chul Key, president of the Korean Baptist Home Mission Board, told Jackson: “Our convention has stopped growing. We are praying that this major partnership effort will return us to the aggressive church we were in the 1970s.”
When Jackson met with the Asian Baptist leaders, he issued “an urgent plea for their prayers as we confess that America has never been in greater need of revival than now,” he said. “The leadership of each of these Asian countries has promised that they will be praying for an American revival as they prepare for revival in their own countries.”
The partnerships have two goals, Jackson added. “We are praying for nationwide revival for the country where we are serving and praying that as our teams return to the U.S.A., we will bring back the spark for nationwide revival in our own country,” he explained. “We believe God is pleased with these requests and will honor the prayers of his people.”
After the overseas crusades, Baptists in the United States should “humbly open the doors of our churches to 1,000 team members from Korea and another 1,000 team members from Asia and aggressively seek revival for America now,” Jackson pleaded.
The International Mission Board has promised to deliver the volunteers necessary to conduct the Asian crusades, he reported.
“This cannot happen without the miraculous moving of our Lord in our hearts and a new commitment to serve wherever he shall lead,” Jackson acknowledged.
“As we decide whether the Lord would have us go on one of these partnership campaigns, our only prayer should be, ‘Lord, do you want me to go?'” he advised. “If he leads us to go, he will care for all of the needs connected to that decision.”
The campaigns are:
— Hong Kong, 20 teams, July 29-Aug. 9, 1999.
— Taiwan, five teams, Nov. 4-15, 1999.
— Japan, 20 teams, June 21-July 3, 2000.
— Korea, 100 teams, Oct. 18-31, 2000.
— Taiwan, nationwide crusade, spring of 2001.
For more information, contact Jackson’s office at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Phone (817) 923-6280 or (817) 923-1921, ext. 4871; e-mail [email protected].
