Crowds get re-energized

to reach a needy world

Mission ConneXion draws thousands in its sixth run

   TUALATIN — Anyone looking to tap into fresh enthusiasm for the big task of reaching the world for Jesus Christ was able to find it here Jan. 18 and 19.
    And based on estimates from organizers of the sixth annual Mission ConneXion Northwest event, plenty of people did just that. An aggregate attendance of almost 13,000 people filled Rolling Hills Community Church in Tualatin to attend four plenary sessions and dozens of wide-ranging workshops pertaining to fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission to take the Gospel to the whole world.
    That exceeded last year’s estimated aggregate attendance of about 10,000.
   “In our sixth year as the largest annual church-missions mobilizing event in the Northwest, the Lord contninues to demonstrate that He chooses to use the foolish and weak to glorify Himself in the world,” said Bill MacLeod, founder and chairman of the annual event.
    MacLeod’s comment alluded to a theme from opening night speaker Heather Mercer that set a tone for the entire conference. Mercer made world headlines in 2001 when she and an aid-worker associate were held prison by the Taliban in Afghanistan for 105 days until a rescue operation by U.S. Special Forces.
    Today she ministers in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, and she reminded the Mission ConneXion attenders that concern for one’s safety cannot be a prerequisite for effective missions.
    She said reaching the world for Christ requires people willing to take risks while leaning totally on God. Such risks may seem foolish in the eyes of the world, she acknowledged.
   “For the Church of Jesus Christ to transform the world it will take two things — foolishness and fearlessness,” she said. “Self-preservation is probably one of the most dangerous mechanisms of the Enemy to keep the world from being won.”
    Mercer openly admitted the fear that she sometimes felt while imprisoned in Afghanistan, but said the key to overcoming such fear is a genuine love for God and for the people in every land that He loves.
   “Perfect love casts out all fear,” she said.
    Sponsored by churches from throughout this part of the Northwest, Mission ConneXion rotates its location each year among several of the Portland metro area’s largest churches.
    Other plentary speakers at this year’s event at Rolling Hills were Bob Sjogren, author and president of the missions ministry Unveilinglory; Reuben Ezemadu, founder and international director of Christian Missionary Foundation in Nigeria and much of Africa, and Portland-based international evangelist Luis Palau.
    Expanding Saturday upon Mercer’s Friday night theme, Sjogren said too many Christians mistakenly think that what Jesus accomplished on the Cross exempts them from any potential suffering. Because they are unwilling to accept the possibility of serious risks, they fall short of life’s ultimate purpose, he said.
   “It’s all about glorifying God. That’s what this life is about.”
    Although such messages were serious, they were important and impacting for the many who attended, said MacLeod.
   “We are grateful and amazed at the growth in attendance, that on opening night at least half to two-thirds were attending for the first time, and that Heather Mercer’s challenge to be ‘foolish and fearless’ still strikes a chord among young and old today,” he said. “May the nations be blessed by what God is birthing here in the Northwest.”