Me

Africa.

It’s a long way from Coopersburg.

I’ve spent the last six years serving as a church planter/pastor in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania. And my family and I, we’ve loved it. We love the church God has raised up here and we love serving God by serving them.

Yet at the same time a desire has been growing and growing to serve the Lord in Africa. It’s actually a desire my wife and I have had for a long time.

We want to serve the church, that’s for sure. I want to preach the Word. We want to train men. We want to disciple. We want to develop deep biblical friendships with other people in the local church. And we want to help orphans. I’ve wanted to be involved somehow, someway in a mercy ministry to orphans for as long as I can remember. It’s hard to imagine that I was an eight year old walking around wanting to help orphans, but I think it’s the truth. Marda sure was.

We have a desperate kind of desire to be involved in serving those in need.

Now, I don’t want to unload a sermon on you to explain why, but I’ll give you the bullet points why we are so passionate about this and why we are one hundred percent convinced that God wants His people to make great sacrifices to help the helpless.

God’s attitude towards orphans and widows is revealed in the commands He gave to Israel in the Old Testament. Check out Deuteronomy 24. One of the marks of a godly person, according to the Old Testament is that he cares for the orphan. If you look back at the book of Job that’s actually one of the ways he defended his character. Lack of concern for the orphan is given as a mark of wickedness. In Isaiah 1, Isaiah cries out against the wickedness of the people of Israel. God tells them He hates their religious activity. He says in verse 16 , “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice…” and what will that look like? “reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan…” A quick survey of the New Testament reveals as someone has written, a “startling level of commitment to ministries of compassion. Tabitha was a godly woman whose chief occupation was helping the poor. (Acts 9:36-41) Barnabas was a man of some means who made an indelible mark on the early Christian communities, first by supplying the needs of the poor out of his own coffers (Acts 4:36-37) and later by spearheading efforts and taking up collections for famine stricken Judeans. (Acts 11:27-30) Titus was the young disciple of Paul who organized a collection for poor Christians in Jerusalem. (2 Cor.8:3-6) Later he superintended further relief efforts in Corinth (2 Cor.8:16-17) When we last see Titus, he has taken over the monumental task of mobilizing the Cretan church for similar good works. Paul was a man himself deeply committed to remembering the poor. (Gal.2:7-10) His widespread ministry began with a poverty outreach (Acts 11:27-30) and he went to great lengths to network the churches of Greece and Macedonia for relief purposes. (2 Cor.8-9) In the end he willingly risked his life for this mission of compassion. (Acts 20:17-35) The Good Samaritan is the unnamed lead character in one of Christ’s best love parables. When all others including supposed men of righteousness had skirted the responsibility of charity the Samaritan took up its mantle. Christ concluded the narrative saying, ‘Go and do likewise.’ (Luke 10:37) These early Christian heros fully comprehended that religion that our God and Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows and distress…They knew that true repentance evidenced itself in sharing food and sustenance…” with the hungry. Bottom line, mercy is a test. It is a test of the reality of our religion. Pure and undefiled religion is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress. As Timothy Keller explains, “…the poor and needy are a test. Our response to them tests the genuineness of our faith toward God. No passage is clearer at this point than Matthew 25:31-46. This describes Jesus’ examination of mankind on Judgment Day. He distinguishes those who have true faith from those who do not by examining their fruit, namely their concern for the poor, homeless and sick prisoners. How can this be? Jesus, when he says, “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me,” is merely expanding on Proverbs 19:17…He is also agreeing with James, John and Isaiah in saying that a sensitive social conscience and a life poured out in deeds of mercy to the needy is the inevitable outcome and sign of true faith. By such deeds God can judge true love from lip service.”

With something like 10 million orphans in Africa and verses like those, my wife, my children and I, we’ve been longing to get involved. We see this as an awesome opportunity for the church to bring great glory to God through sacrificial service. Some say that by 2010,10% of the population of South Africa will be orphans. If you move into a culture that is far from God and you were just dreaming about ways that you could impact that culture - could you possibly think of a more strategic way to make an impact than to help place needy children in solid Christian families?

We obviously can’t do it all by ourselves, but we would like to play a part. God’s opened up an amazing opportunity. It’s in Pretoria, South Africa. Grace Fellowship Church of Pretoria has asked me to come and serve as pastor alongside Joel James, a fellow Master’s Seminary graduate.

I’ll have the chance to pastor and preach God’s Word. I’ve served at Grace in Pretoria twice now while Joel was back in the States and our family has grown to love the church and the city as well. I’ll also have the opportunity to train men. For one, I’ll be serving alongside my father Dr. Wayne Mack in the Grace School of Ministry; a post-seminary training program that helps pastors better understand how to shepherd, disciple and counsel their people. For another, my doctoral project focuses on training African men in Biblical preaching and I’ll have many opportunities to put that into practice.

But besides all that, my family and I will be able to play a key role in the opening of Tsholofelo Ministries. This particular ministry will be an extension of Grace Fellowship Church, Pretoria. The needs in Pretoria are intense. AIDS, poverty, crime…you’d have to see it to believe it. We want to develop a mercy-ministry hub that is going to be able to help God’s people serve the needy in a wide variety of ways. Like, work for food type ministries, educational type services educational type services to children in the townships, medical/hospice training people how to care for those of dying of AIDS to name just a few.

The potential really is as great as God gives us the ability, the wisdom and the strength. To begin though we want to start with an orphanage. We have land that is directly adjacent to the church which has been donated specifically for this purpose, and we have the funds for the first home. Since we believe that God designed the family, and that the family is His normal way of training and discipling children, we are planning to have each child placed in a family with a father, mother and five to seven other children. Besides pastoring and preaching and shepherding the church, a large part of our focus as a couple when it comes to the orphanage is going to be on houseparents.

We’re glad to say that God has raised up South Africans to be vitally involved in the administrative duties and so we’ve been freed up to focus on discipling the houseparents. We want to do everything we can to help them raise the children in a God-honoring, biblical, African way. The church is particularly interested in selecting men who not only will serve as good husbands and fathers, but who also might be trained as godly pastors. We’d love to see some of these men become deeply involved in the ministry at Grace or even eventually sent out by Grace as church planters in their communities. We think that this is a tremendous way of shepherding shepherds. I know that back when I was a young man, fresh out of seminary, I would have loved to have been in a church with a pastor who was really dedicated to helping me with my family and with my growth in the ministry.

Honestly, I could go on and on. I look back over this note and there’s so much more I’d like to say. Typical preacher, I guess. But can I just close by asking you if you’d be willing to pray for us. This is a great big thing and we are small weak people. We’re just very glad to serve a great big God. We need His help.

I think of how the writers of Scripture, men like Paul, wrote to the church, pleading with them “Pray for me.” He believed that the church had a vital role in his ministry - that he needed them to pray. And so do we. We also need your financial support. We need all the ministry partners we can get and there are no small prayers or acts of service or gifts - it is all eternally significant!

THE TWO MINISTRIES SENDING US AND EQUIPPING US FOR AFRICA:

Grace Fellowship Church #7001 Route 309, Coopersburg, Pennsylvania 18951 (610)282-8066 www.gracelehigh.org

Grace Ministries International A ministry of Grace Community Church 13248 Roscoe Blvd. Sun Valley, Ca. 913522 (81 909-5700 www.gracechurch.org