RICHMOND, Va. (BP)–Southern Baptist missionaries living and working with people in areas of the world that restrict the gospel will no longer be named in public prayer lists distributed through the denomination’s information channels.
“It’s a very dangerous world we live in,” said Avery Willis, senior vice president for the International Mission Board’s overseas operations. “We need to pray for these people, but just to give their names might endanger them or, at least, cause them to lose access to the people they work with.”
IMB officials fear not only for missionaries and their families, but even more for believers whom missionaries reach and disciple. “From the standpoint of people who might not be Christian or might be anti- Christian, if someone knows you are a missionary, they might persecute the national believer,” Willis said.
Missionaries appointed to help lead ethnic people groups in “The Last Frontier” to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ were informed in February of the decision to withhold their names from birthday prayer lists sent for publication through the Baptist Sunday School Board, Woman’s Missionary Union and North American Mission Board.
The Last Frontier is the collection of people groups that have been kept from hearing about Jesus Christ, often by governments or traditional religions. To prevent loss of life or access, the board has labeled each missionary according to the level of security under which each one must operate.
Through the years, countless missionaries have documented miraculous moves of God that occurred on their birthdays, when people throughout the world were praying for them.
“Recognizing that this is a great loss to missionaries in these categories, we will suggest that these publications ask their readers to pray, at least, for ‘Last Frontier’ missionaries,” a notice to missionaries said. Those who pray need to spend more time on this group because the term “Last Frontier missionaries” could represent five to 10 people a day, Willis added.
People who want to pray specifically for Last Frontier activity can access the CompassionNet prayer network through a link on the board’s Internet page (www.imb.org). They also may e-mail [email protected] and ask for an automatic e-mail of the daily “Today’s Prayer” listing of concerns from throughout the world. Last Frontier needs are detailed on CompassionNet and Today’s Prayer as they come up.
Southern Baptists also should pray in general for Last Frontier missionaries every day, said Randy Sprinkle, who leads prayer strategy for the IMB.
“These missionaries live in sensitive, volatile places where often hatred and violence can explode around them or even against them without warning,” he said. “Ask God to cover them … asking that he may hide them in the tabernacle of his presence and grant that they may speak the word with increased confidence in him and in its power to bring life.”
Also, he said, pray:
— that as they are “children of the light” in a dark world, Last Frontier missionaries may be strengthened as by faith Jesus dwells in their inner person, and that they may reflect that light;
— that they may be reminded and, with deepening understanding, know the truth that all their adequacy stems from God;
— that God remove the blindness and deception that unbelievers might experience and that these missionaries would speak the word of life in the power of the Holy Spirit; and
— that they be covered with the full armor of God and continue until all peoples have heard and received the gospel.
Prayers for the Last Frontier should be voiced for believers, too: that they will be protected from physical harm and that when they are persecuted the strength of their faith will give a positive witness, Willis said. Also, prayers should ask God to break through barriers that impede the gospel.
