Terrie and I have been in Manila the past few days in preparation for Spiritual Leadership Conference Asia, February 28–March 2.
Everywhere we go, we are reminded of the great harvest fields of souls here in Asia. And here in the Philippines, in particular, we are reminded of the tremendous potential for what can be done for Christ through the faithful gospel labor of missionaries over multiple decades.
For instance, this past Sunday morning, I preached in Bethany Baptist Church in Makati City (a part of the Metro Manila region). I remember as a young boy when Dr. L. D. Woosley preached in our church and asked us to pray for this mission work he was just starting. Today, this church is pastored by Dr. Gerry Nable who was saved in 1974 through the church’s outreach ministry. What’s more, Bethany Baptist is the home/sending church to fifty-nine missionary families preaching the gospel on foreign soil around the world. There are similar stories all across the Philippines as God has blessed the labors of multiple generations of American missionary church planting efforts here.
But there are still billions of people yet to be reached with the gospel. Our goal in hosting the Spiritual Leadership Conference Asia is to strengthen the hands of missionaries and pastors throughout Asia and pray for a host of many more to serve here.
As we begin this conference, will you please pray with us for these three specific needs?
1. Pray for souls to be saved.
It’s hard to describe the magnitude of the effort going into this conference. There are already people registered from over sixty different countries. It is a remarkable, Spirit-anointed partnership of “striving together for the sake of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27).
The driving factor in all of the investments of time, finances, and energy for this conference has been that souls would be saved all across Asia and beyond as missionaries are strengthened and new churches are planted as a result of what happens this week. Our desire is to encourage the missionary revival from Asia to the world.
2. Pray for missionaries, pastors, and Christian workers to be encouraged and equipped.
There are over fifty breakout sessions, all designed to provide practical training to pastors and missionaries in the areas of outreach, discipleship, standing for truth, training the next generation, developing a missions-minded church, and much more.
The evening services will be missions revival services with Christ-honoring music and dynamic preaching. We pray the Lord will use the fellowship and music to encourage many of His servants who serve in lonely places, and we pray that the preaching of God’s Word will challenge, convict, encourage, and motivate all of us to lift up Christ in every corner of the globe.
3. Pray for more laborers to surrender to God’s call.
A major area of prayer emphasis for those of us leading into this week has been that God would use the missions emphasis of this conference to call more laborers to His harvest.
Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest. (Matthew 9:37–38)
Already, it has been a blessing to hear from those who were called to missions during the most recent Spiritual Leadership Conference Asia in 2018 and are already serving Christ across the 10/40 window. Please pray with us that God raises up many more this week!
For updates throughout the conference, you can follow my Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram where I will continue to post throughout the week. Thank you for joining with us in prayer!
