Missions: the DNA of a Family and a School

Like Father, Like Son

By Michael*
Jacob’s father, Mid-America alumnus, MDIV, 1978

India, 623 million—LOST. Japan, 110 million—LOST.…” Dr. B. Gray Allison, founding President of Mid-America, must have mentioned every nation on earth in our Personal Evangelism class. He said the nation’s name followed by the word “LOST.” That first semester at Mid-America set the tone for my seminary experience as it prepared me to address earth’s greatest problem, lostness.

The Great Commission is in the DNA of Mid-America. I was blessed to have professors who were missionaries such as Dr. T.V. “Corky” Farris, Dr. Charlie Culpepper, Dr. John Floyd, and Dr. Howard Bickers. Every day in classes and in Chapel, the faculty prayed that our Lord would send out laborers to the nations.

In my final semester, my wife and I surrendered to go anywhere. That summer, God sent us to upstate New York with two other Mid-America alumni couples to plant churches with the Home Mission Board. In New York, God began to show me how a local church could be involved in global missions. At that time, the northeast part of the United States was known as a pioneer mission field. My oldest son was born during the time we served there.

By Jacob*
Michael’s son, Mid-America alumnus, MDIV, 2010

I was raised in a Christian home by two godly parents. I have many memories from my childhood of my dad going on missions trips every year to many different places. He led construction trips to Panama to build church buildings, traveled to Romania to preach the Gospel to new believers, and trained pastors in countries all over the world. As I was growing up, I thought that these trips were what every pastor did.

The Lord called me to the ministry while I was in college. After I graduated with my undergraduate degree, I knew I needed to attend seminary. My dad had gone to Mid-America a few decades before me, and after praying through all the different options, I believed that Mid-America was where the Lord was leading me. My wife and I, along with our newborn baby, made the move to Memphis from the East Coast, and I began working on my MDIV.

While at Mid America, the Lord used several professors to speak to my heart about the Lord’s plans for me. Dr. Stan May’s passion about missions made me want to pack up and head overseas after each class. Dr. Steve Wilkes took me with him on a trip to South Africa to work with IMB missionaries who were Mid-America alumni. It was Dr. Gray Allison who looked me in the eye and challenged me to take the Gospel to all the world for Jesus’ sake.

After graduating from Mid-America, I served as a youth pastor for a few years, but the call to the mission field was still echoing in my spirit. One day, as I boarded a flight headed to do mission work in East Asia, my dad called me and asked me to pray about joining his church’s staff to lead discipleship ministry among adults. It had always been a dream of mine to serve alongside him in ministry.

During those years between attending college and joining my dad’s ministry, dad had changed. His love for the nations had deepened and intensified. His belief of the role the local church played in the work of taking the Gospel of Jesus to the world had become focused and personal. He felt it was the responsibility of those with the Gospel to do whatever it takes to provide access to those without the Gospel. That responsibility was highlighted in every aspect of the church’s life.

It was not long before I participated and led missions trips to places that I didn’t think I would ever go. I loved it. The cultures were so different, the lostness was so palpable, and the needs were immense. After each trip, my wife and I would debrief, and she would ask, “Do you think that maybe the Lord might be calling us to go?” I kept thinking about my still growing family. My wife and I had several small children by this point. We were living close to family. Our kids were in good schools. We were serving at a great church, and I was living my dream of serving in ministry with my dad. How could I leave all of this? I would usually respond with something along the lines of me serving more in mobilization: “I just want to help more people be able to go.” Then I would remember Dr. May’s words to me years before when I had said something similar to him: “Why would anyone listen to you if you aren’t willing to lay your life down and go?”

We started highlighting a different Unengaged Unreached People Group (UUPG) in each of our worship services. We would highlight a different one in each service. I was presenting those UUPGs each week, and the numbers kept increasing. We were asking the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers to hundreds of millions of people who had never even heard His name before.

Then one Sunday morning, my dad, my pastor, preached a message entitled, “A Task Left Unfinished.” He read from the last chapter of Joshua and demonstrated how the task that the Lord had given His people had not been completed. In the last point of his message, my dad connected that passage from Joshua to the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18–20. He said, “We are the same as the people in Joshua’s day. The Lord has commissioned us with this task, and while we have made disciples of Jesus in many places in the world, we are disobeying Him by not going into all the world to make disciples.”

When the invitation began, I looked at my wife and said, that I was convinced Jesus was calling us to the mission field, and she agreed. After the service, I found my dad in his office and told him that my wife and I were submitting our application to the IMB (International Mission Board) the next day. He was stunned for a moment, then he wrapped his arms around me and began to weep. “Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord,” he said over and over again through tears. He knew what this was going to cost.

Since then, we have been serving with the IMB. I know that it was the influence of my dad and Mid-America that gave me a heart for seeing the nations come to Christ. I will be eternally grateful for that gift.

*Due to security concerns, last names are withheld.