Bad Title, Great Book

From Gospel Translations

The Church Is Bigger Than You Think By Patrick Johnstone

Psalm 

The following are quotes from Johnstone's book that I hope will whet your taste to buy this book during Missions Fest '99. I read it this summer and it put fire in my bones.

• Jesus told us plainly that the world will become a most unpleasant place and evil will multiply and even apparently triumph, but at the same time [Christ's] people will multiply and spread across the face of the earth. Everything is heading towards a climax—both evil and good. It will be high tide at midnight. 87

• In 1960, non-Western evangelicals were half as numerous as Western evangelicals. But by 2000 they will be four times more numerous. 110

• The Singaporean church has now become the most missionary-minded church in the world in terms of the number of missionaries sent out for everyone thousand Christians. 115

• Mao Tse Tung was utterly opposed to all religions, and built a cult around his own personality. What an unlikely man to become the person who, by his actions, has possibly contributed to more people coming into the kingdom than any person in all of history! 124

• Missiology acts as the gadfly of theology. 177

• We began the century with less than 200 known mission agencies, but by its end we will have tens of thousands scattered across nearly every country in the world. 179

• I would estimate that in the West 90 percent of all Protestant churches, as a congregation, have no direct commitment to, or involvement with, a real live missionary. 181

• A recent WEF survey on mission attrition showed that one of the main causes of missionaries returning prematurely from the field was because they were not rooted and grounded in a local church. 205-206

• The sheer number of people living in the [10-40] Window area is daunting. Of the 6 billion people in the world in 2000, I reckon that 1.2-1.4 billion have never had the chance to hear the gospel, and over 95 percent of these individuals reside in the Window area. 215

• Nagaland and Mizoram States in NE India are possibly the most evangelical states in the world, but the vast Ganges plains of North India contain the greatest concentration of unevangelized people in the world. For instance, the number of people in Uttar Pradesh in North India is about 180,000,000 and the Christian percentage is 0.1%. 223

• In Malawi 6 people an hour die of AIDS, which is over 50,000 a year. The economic devastation is horrific with deaths most prevalent among the most economically active part of the population and with an expected 10 million AIDS orphans in Africa by the year 2000. 258

• We need to return to the concept of a pilgrim Church, a Church that will be hated, rejected, despised, persecuted, yet be an incisive, decisive, victorious minority which one day soon will be ready for its Heavenly Bridegroom as the perfected Bride. . . . Christendom is doomed, but the future of biblical Christianity is bright. 263

• I have been impressed by the increasing concern among Christians for the evangelization of Muslims, yet often the best missionaries are the ones who have studied little more than the basics of Islamics but have a passion for sharing Christ. In their boldness for Jesus, they plunge into witnessing to Muslims, where an Islamist would fear to go. 273

• Everything may fail, whether finances, health, co-workers, cherished methods, but God will not let us down. We may suffer, get cancer, be tortured or martyred but our relationship with God, our eternal fruit, our future and our crown are secure. 283

• The great pre-reformer in Italy, Savanarola, said, "What must a man possess who possesses the Possessor of all things?" 285

• The safest place for you is the center of God's will - even with chains on your feet as a hostage, with your body racked with fever or trembling in a cellar with RPG rockets crashing into the house above. 289

For the joy of all peoples,

Pastor John