On a recent trip to the Markham assembly in the Toronto. ON, area, I had occasion to discuss the present situation with a brother there. He told me of a conversation he had with my father.
“I asked him, If the fields are white to harvest, why are we seeing so few saved?”
“Perhaps,” my father replied, “we’re not in the fields.” Busy at gaining further education, establishing careers, maintaining existing assemblies, securing comfortable retirements—all considered to be legitimate pursuits—who is actually in the fields?
During the last quarter of the 19th Century, North America was seen as a ripe mission field. Between 1871 and 1880, six intrepid young men from Scotland—later joined by UK, German, Dutch, Italian and other European evangelists—came to our shores. They pitched tents, rented halls, shouted out the gospel from street corners, and wore out untold pairs of shoes going from door to door. They held conferences, started magazines, and built assembly buildings with their own hands. In one generation they saw the establishment of more than 500 New Testament assemblies in North America. We honor their memory. In 1881, Donald Ross’ magazine, The Barley Cake, listed 33 pioneer evangelists in North America. How many do you know of today?
Following the Second World War, many of our best young men and women (who had seen the worldwide need while in the military) left these shores to plant the gospel banner in foreign lands.
But others saw the ongoing need on this continent, and also were uprooted to push the frontier of assembly life across Canada and the United States. Oliver Smith in Iowa. The McEwans, Lester Wilson, Welcome Detweiler, W. G. Smith, Harold Mackay and Herman Luhm in Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina. Gordon Reager in Atlanta. T. B. Gilbert. Harold Harper. John Spreeman, Noah Gratton and others in Quebec. The list is substantial. As the first wave of pioneers had worked in the industrialized Northeast, Chicago and the West Coast, so this wave reached into the Midsouth and the Midwest.
But then something happened. The next generation put considerably larger percentages of their time and resources into new church buildings and enlarging assembly numbers. Slowly but surely, gospel pioneering withered away, and what evangelists were left began frequenting already established assemblies—often to do the gospel work that should have been done by the local assemblies.
At the same time, we saw in many places (due, we said, to increased distractions in society) a diminishing of attendance at gospel meetings. Gospel Halls plodded on with regular Sunday evening gospel meetings and special series, seeing a few saved, mostly Christians’ children. Chapels tried a Sunday morning Family Bible Hour, but in spite of seeing some neighbors attend, the trend has been to drift away from gospel preaching to teaching Christians.
Whatever the reasons, though we rejoice at some bright exceptions, in most areas of NA the gospel offensive has almost ground to a halt. Some preach the gospel, largely to Christians; others have abandoned gospel preaching almost entirely. It is high time for that to change.
Though we’re thankful for every soul saved (each worth more than the whole world), we will not fulfill the Great Commission if assemblies of 50 or more are only seeing a few saved each year. Obviously if, on average, each believer saw only one person saved each year, the number of assembly believers should double each year.
That means everyone should be trained to evangelize, encouraged to do so, and we are praying specifically for one another in this venture. Every believer should have a prayer list of those they want to see saved ASAP, and we should expect God to answer these prayers.
But even this is not enough. Assuming there are 100,000 believers in assembly fellowships across the continent, doubling this number will hardly put a dent in the project. Just the increase in the Canadian population exceeds 150,000 per year; the US number is ten times that.
We must not only think about personal evangelism and public preaching at the local level. There must also be broadcasting of the seed. We need more well-designed, accessible, accurate, non-technical and attractive gospel web sites. What about satellite radio? Local cable TV programs? Gospel CDs or DVDs for mass distribution? What about blogcasts?
The massive need, the encroaching darkness, and the distracted and lethargic church in North America leaves the field almost wide open for us. The marvels of modern technology, the power of the unchanging gospel, the vast resources of heaven, and the convicting and illuminating work of the Holy Spirit are all in place. What is needed? Men and women willing and ready to stake their everything on the ironclad promise of God: “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him” (Ps. 126:6).
9 Suggestions For Potential Pioneers
1. Get a map of North America on your wall and begin praying for various needy areas of the continent. Pray for others who are becoming exercised for North America as a mission field. Pray that the Lord will thrust out the right ones at the right time.
2. Look for someone you can train to take your place in the assembly so you’ll be freer to move.
3. Clear up debt, simplify life, get rid of the clutter, free up time for the better things.
4. Communicate with some pioneer workers for their invigoration and to have a more informed prayer life. Tell them some encouraging things.
5. As you are able, invest prayerfully, financially and generously in North American pioneer evangelism.
6. Ask the believers to pray with you about the possibility that the Lord may be calling you to be involved in breaking ground elsewhere.
7. Look for opportunities to hone your skills in prayer, evangelism, Bible study, preaching, hospitality, or in whatever way the Spirit has gifted you.
8. Take vacation time and arrange a visit to a pioneer field in North America to “spy out the land” and/or learn on the job what the work there is like.
9. Watch (and pray) for a conference of exercised believers with pioneer hearts, asking the Holy Spirit to do a work in linking those with a common vision but with varied and complementary gifts, to work together in some new field. Oh, and did I say pray?