Quotes and Notes from the Autobiography of John Paton, Part 1

John Paton became the great missionary that he was, at least in part, due to the godly influence of his earthly father.  He alludes to this in his autobiography in several places, a few of which, I want to emphasize here today.  Below are Paton’s quotes.

“Never in temple or cathedral, on mountain or in glen, can I hope to feel that the Lord God is more near, more visibly walking and talking with men, than under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oaken wattles.  Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, or blotted from my understanding, my mind would wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in that Sanctuary Closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal, ‘He walked with God, why may not I?’” (Page 8).

How many of our children will be able to look back upon their childhoods and remember their homes and parents in this way?  Would they describe our homes as “sanctuary closets?”  Would they hear the echoes of our cries to God?  Would they recall our lives and be able to say “He walked with God, why may not I?”  I fear that my children, at this point, would not be able to give the same testimony of their home life that Paton gave of his.  He gives more insight into his father’s faith and life.

“And so began in his seventeenth year that blessed custom of Family Prayer, morning and evening, which my father practiced probably without one single avoidable omission till he lay on his deathbed, seventy-seven years of age; when, even to the last day of his life, a portion of Scripture was read, and his voice was heard softly joining in the Psalm, and his lips breathed the morning and evening Prayer, falling in sweet benediction on the heads of all his children, far away many of them over all the earth, but all meeting him there at the Throne of Grace.  None of us can remember that any day ever passed unhallowed thus; no hurry for market, nor rush to business, no arrival of friend or guests, no trouble or sorrow, no joy or excitement ever prevented at least our kneeling around the family altar while the High Priest led our prayers to God and offered himself and his children there.  And blessed to others, as well as to ourselves, was the light of such example!”  (Page 14)  

John Paton’s father was a disciplined, godly, consistent example for his children.  Sixty straight years of morning and evening prayer, worship, and Scripture reading with and over his children.  This is such an indicting testimony of my own parenting.  This morning and evening worship was priority!  There was no rush to market, no rush to business, or arrival of friend or guests, no sorrow or joy or excitement ever prevented at least prayer!  In our day we could say no television program, ball game, or video game ever prevented morning and evening family worship.  

These two simple quotes are quite convicting of my own lax parenting.  They are not meant however to bring condemnation, but repentance.  May we all repent of our neglect.  May we reorder our lives and schedules to correct.  And may we see God honor our efforts, in spite of us, and give us godly, bold, missionary children.  

Until next time...

April News and Update

Dear Friends of Mission Surge,

I wanted to give you an update before April turned into May. I depend so much on your faithful prayers! I appeal to you to please please take time to pray for us and our work. You do not know how much we appreciate it.

First, I want to give you an update on the Oblivious Documentary. It was our goal to have it complete by the middle to end of this month, however we are behind our original schedule. The winter months were so wet and cold that it made it difficult to get out on the street and interview people. We kept having to postpone our on-the-street interview again and again. If we can remain on schedule from this point on, all filming should be complete by mid May. Then the film can be edited and released. Please pray that we will not fall farther behind. I really believe that this is going to be a tool to help awaken the people of the Bible belt to their need for the gospel. Please pray.

I also want to ask you to pray for me as I speak at Hopewell Baptist Church in Crystal Springs this Sunday morning. I will be sharing about the Great Commission and the work of Mission Surge. I still have several Sundays available this year if God would lead you, or your pastor, to host a harvest day, revival, family discipleship conference, or missions conference. I am also available to come and share about the work of Mission Surge with your church on Sunday night or Wednesday night. Please pray that God would continue to open doors!

Before I traveled to the Dominican Republic I promised to blog some quotes and notes from the autobiography of John Paton. I will begin posting those notes and quotes on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning next week. Please go to kevinivy.blogspot.com on Tuesdays and Fridays if you are interested in gleaning from one of the richest missionary biographies I have ever read! You can also follow my blog there if you have not already done so!

We are laying the ground work for beginning a mission here in Crystal Springs. We covet your prayers for this endeavor as well. We hope to have a Back Yard Bible Club this summer and get a Good News Club started in the local elementary school next school year. We have also found a location for an evangelistic Bible study to be held on Sunday nights. Now, we just need help and some converts! Please pray that God would lead, guide, direct, and work through us to reach this area with the gospel.

Please pray for our partner ministries: Refugee Ministries International, Coram Deo, and ECCI. Our new website is set to launch over the weekend (barring technical difficulty). You will be able to go to www.missionsurge.com and click on “From the Field” and read about their respective ministries, follow them on Facebook, read their blogs, listen to sermons, and give as the Lord would lead. We all covet your prayers. I ask you to please be in prayer as well for a couple who are prayerfully considering going to Southeast Asia as full time missionaries with Mission Surge. They are out of the country now seeking God’s leadership, guidance, and direction in this endeavor. Please pray for them and for us that God’s will be done.

Finally, for the past several years I have been praying about and meditating on and thinking through an 8 part discipleship study based on 2 Peter 1:5-8. It says, “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self- control, and self- control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter seems to make an outlandish promise in this text. He seems to be saying that if we make every effort to add to our faith these qualities and increase in them that they will keep us from being ineffective or unfruitful! This caught my attention because it seemed as though Peter was giving us a step by step process of growing into maturity. I wanted to take this list of qualities and formulate a discipleship study on each quality that would build upon the one before it. I wanted this to be something that was reproducible and geared for 1 on 1 or 1 on 2 discipleship. It has been like beating my head against a brick wall for the past 2-3 years! I could not get anywhere until 2014. God has been unfolding link after link in this chain over the past few months! I am overwhelmed at the progress that has been made. The rough drafts of the first 5 qualities have been completed! Each are 2 weeks in length (except for faith) and are easily reproducible and geared for 1 on 1 discipleship. I am super excited about utilizing this in our work in Crystal Springs and in our church as God would lead! This study will be available for down load as soon as the kinks are worked out. I hope that you will find it useful to you as well.

One of the kinks that needs to be worked out is a name for the study. I have come up with a few possibilities on my own, but I am not super “creative.” I have considered “The Matrix.” A matrix is like a womb, an environment perfectly suited for growth and development so I thought, this study, rooted in 2 Peter, would be like The Matrix of Spiritual growth. Another option is The Network. I want this study to be a net that fishers of men can cast into a lost community and make disciples with. I want it to be used for net-work so to speak. I also want it to be reproducible and used to form a network of disciple making disciples. Finally, since Peter (the rock) wrote the outline for the study, I thought about calling it Rock Solid. I am also open to suggestions. Are you willing to help me name this discipleship study? If so, I want to ask you to take 15 seconds, follow the link below, and choose the title that you think is the best…OR write your own suggestion! I would appreciate it if you would take time to follow the link and give me your opinion. I would appreciate it even more if you would lift me up and this study up in prayer. 

Name the Study here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FVX9PCW

Thank you so much for your prayer support, your financial gifts, and your willingness to spread the word about Mission Surge! If you know of someone that I can add to this newsletter, please have them email me at kevin@missionsurge.com We need all the prayer support we can get.  If you haven’t done so you can...

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/missionsurge 
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Thanks again for your faithfulness to pray for us and encourage us!

Until next time… 

John G. Paton Quotes and Notes

I have read stories about John G. Paton, but I am embarrassed to say that I have never read his own story about himself.  After all, it is 500+ pages in length...a bit intimidating to say the least.  For Christmas, I got a copy of his autobiography and have just begun to work my way through its pages.  What I am finding is absolutely spell-binding.  In his writing you can sense the power of God in the man.  You can sense a working of God's Spirit in his life and in his writing long after he has been dead and buried.  I am sad that in all my years of growing up in church I never heard his name, much less his story.  I would guess that you probably have never heard of him either.  I would also guess that you are probably not planning to dive into a 500+ page autobiography about him...or are you on amazon.com right now looking for a copy?

Just in case you aren't pulling out your credit card to purchase your own copy...and just in case you ARE pulling out your credit card, but will never actually crack the cover on the book once you receive it 2 days later due to that amazon prime thing you signed up for because you wanted to read more books this year...sorry for the rabbit trail.  My A D D kicked in...anyway...just in case you aren't going to read his book, I am compiling a list of quotes and notes from my personal reading for you!  His story is unbelievable.

It is a life-altering story of a man who gave his entire life to the evangelization of his own people in Scotland and the cannibals of the south sea (40+ years among the cannibals).  I will begin posting "quotes and notes" from this 500+ page work in the near future here on my blog.  I just want you to be aware and be on the lookout.  If you haven't followed me on twitter or Facebook please do so just to ensure you don't miss any breaking news.  You can do so here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mission-Surge/145423062144598

https://twitter.com/missionsurge

In closing, let me encourage you to be on the lookout for lots of new news in March.  God has been good to us at Mission Surge already in 2014 and there is much to unveil...in God's time.  Until then, keep your eyes open and remember, I leave for the Dominican on Feb 24 and need your prayers.  Please spread the Word.