CHADDAR CHEESE

Congrats to Beth Patton for being the first senior staffer to locate the frozen gravel road in Minnesota. The cold and chill of the pictured scenery really puts me in the spirit of the season- as in the spirit of getting my tires replaced and radiator flushed and filled with anti-freeze. This is the kind of road my cousins and I would have engine troubles and break down in our pick-up while poaching- I mean hunting- for a Christmas goose. I can still smell the sputtering gas fumes sitting in the back of the 1972 Dodge Club Cab 4 wheel-drive, praying a kindly farmer might pass by with a tow rope and thermos of coffee.


Question: What do Jesus, Spiderman, and Elf all have in common?

Answer: They are the top three movies of our staffer of the week.

Chad Lawrence has come from a childhood of Defiance (his hometown in Missouri) to a new creation in college (thanks to a Campus Crusade neighbor) to the Pursuit of God (from Tozer to seminary study) in his 32 years of life. He has been a staff member for over 6 years at the Harvard of the Ozarks- Missouri State University. When I asked Chad to list his passions they included prayer, fasting, reaching the lost, thinking of ways to reach, love and serve the orphans of the world. Then I asked him to share something a little more spiritual.

His highlight of the fall was almost eating a whole pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. His words of random wisdom included,"Safety tip for next year...only half a pie." And "Spiderman 3 comes out in May- you should go see it." And "You can call Finch Papaw, he likes the name. Finch also thought Paul Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress, bless his heart." For more fun and insight be sure to read Chad's profile.

Chad with his favorite cousin Christy

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A ministry lesson God has taught me my six years on staff is stay in love with Christ and you never need lack passion for people.
Chad Lawrence
Missouri State University

As we gear up for DCC I wanted to share some perspective on the CM 2007 conference and just how the Lord has been shaping South Korea to play a key role in launching movements across the globe.
In 1980 there were only 93 Korean missionaries worldwide. Today, 26 years later, almost 13,000 South Koreans are serving as long term missionaries in foreign countries and are sending more than 1,100 new missionaries annually. South Korea sends more missionaries than any country but the United States. Some feel it won't be long before they are number one.

The following is an excerpt by Rob Moll from the article Missions Incredible published in the March issue of Christianity Today.

"Witnessing the largest-ever Christian gathering during his 1973 Seoul Crusade, Billy Graham posed for photos with his leadership team in front of the 1 million people audience on Yoido Island. It was a special event that Graham wanted to share with his staff, but it was also an extraordinary moment in the history of Christianity in Asia. On the tiny river island in Seoul, Graham saw the future of a continent and predicted Korea could be a base for preaching the Gospel throughout Asia."

More than 30 years later, it seems Graham was right.

Since the birth of the Korean church, evangelism has been one of its defining characteristics. In 1907, a major revival in Pyongyang coincided with the creation of the autonomous Presbyterian Church of Korea. The year also marked the ordination of the first Korean missionary. In following years, the Korean church sent missionaries to Siberia, Manchuria, and Hawaii - a total of 157 missionaries between 1907 and 1937.

The church fought for survival during Japanese occupation and the Korean War, but the Koreans' evangelistic zeal remained fertile soil for the modern missions movement that grew out of Western evangelistic efforts and a student revival. One of the leaders of the 60's student revivals, David Lee, says "We'd have 500 to 600 students gather for several hours of prayer, and we would pray for missions. Revival leads directly to evangelism.

In 1973, about 3.2 million people attended the Billy Graham Crusade, including 1 million the final day of the Crusade- the largest recorded Christian gathering up to that time. The entire country of South Korea had roughly 2.3 million Christians in 1973. The crusade, along with Campus Crusade for Christ's Explo '74 produced explosive church growth. The occasions also contributed to an intense Korean concern for the lost, both inside and outside South Korea. But the church's missionary fervor was held in check by the South Korean government restrictions on foreign travel.

The 1988 Olympic games finally opened the floodgates for Korean missionaries. The Seoul games forced South Korea to open politically, allowing its citizens to travel to many countries that were once inaccessible. With the confluence of economic prosperity and political freedom, the passionate spark of the Korean church for missions burst into a hot flame."

Fanning the flame with you
-Bert