Overcoming Outreach FearsSýnishorn

FULL CIRCLE 

“This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground.  Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.”  Mark 4:26, 27

A few decades ago a popular Bible Study told people to look for ministries bearing fruit and join those. Such teaching discounts work in tough fields where it takes years to see fruit, or fruit is borne elsewhere.

Often people ask about fruit from our ministry. When they do I wonder why they are asking. Do they want to pray, hear stories, or validate not participating?

“Nothing works, so try everything,” is what missionaries to Muslims commonly say. We disagree that nothing works, but we do try everything we can to bring Muslims to Christ.

In personal relationships workers are positioned to see fruit, although it takes time. But we can’t limit sharing to one-on-one work. Billions of Muslims need to hear the gospel and Word of God. So besides personal relationships we reach out with videos, internet, TV, small scale and large scale outreaches. When we do widescale or open outreach, people move on and we don’t usually have the joy of seeing fruit on earth.

But there is a case where we actually saw several segments of outreach come together to bear fruit:

A student came to America from the Middle East. I met her on outreach and shared for years until she became a believer, and then after. Meanwhile, in London I networked with a ministry which was openly giving Bibles to visiting Muslims. A year or so later my student became a Christian. She was so excited she called and shared the gospel with a sister overseas. “Yes!” cried the sister, “I always knew Islam was wrong!”

Naturally, the believer overseas wanted to read the Bible. But Bibles weren’t available in her country. Then she remembered that a cousin had received an Arabic Bible when visiting London. She gathered up her courage and asked to borrow it.

“Why?” the cousin inquired. The sister’s tactful response was, “I’m curious about what it says.”

Later this sister came to America for a short discipleship training with us.

We praise God for the opportunity to see how the message in this case traveled from the Middle East to America to England and back to the Middle East in a full circle. This gives us courage to continue planting where we cannot see fruit.

In faith we know that “neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” (I Corinthians 3:7)

Dear Lord, let me see fruit from my work, when possible, so that I may be encouraged and encourage others. By your grace, water the seeds I have planted. When I see no fruit help me to be faithful to your work, believing that you will be pleased and use it for your kingdom.