Local Church Doing Global Work

HANS FINZEL: Hi, this is Hans Finzel, president of WorldVenture, based in Littleton, Colorado. Our website is WorldVenture.com. Welcome to Missions on the Frontline. This radio program is part o four initiative to make you aware of new and exciting ways you can be involved in missions. WorldVenture supports over 1,000 mission projects and missionaries in over 65 countries. We’ve been sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ around the world since 1943. Here at WorldVenture we have a passion for the local church in America. In fact, we see our calling in missions to serve churches as they do mission. I’m so happy to have in the studio today a local pastor of one of our partner churches – Millington Baptist Church in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. Welcome, Peter.

PETER PENDELL: Hey, thank you Hans. It’s good to be here.

HANS FINZEL: Uh, you and I have known each other for quite a few years.

PETER PENDELL: A long time.

HANS FINZEL: And we just appreciate so much the partnership that you have had. I think you’ve been the pastor of that church for 25 years or longer?

PETER PENDELL: Twenty-nine.

HANS FINZEL: Twenty-nine years.

PETER PENDELL: Yes, this July it’s 29.

HANS FINZEL: Wow.

PETER PENDELL: Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: And the thing we want to talk about on the program today is how a local church gets involved in missions beyond just paying for missionaries and beyond just praying for missionaries.

PETER PENDELL: Right. Right.

HANS FINZEL: And let’s start with your own journey. You’ve been a local church pastor for 29 years. How did you kind of get fired up for the cause of missions beyond New Jersey?

PETER PENDELL: Well, I was saved in Japan through The Navigator ministries and other missionaries who were there but it was mainly The Navigators so it gave me a heart for people overseas because I had contact with them and I owed my eternal life to ministry overseas.

HANS FINZEL: I remember when you and I were in Japan together.

PETER PENDELL: That’s right.

HANS FINZEL: And you were tracing a little bit of your spiritual heritage there.

PETER PENDELL: A very special trip for me.

HANS FINZEL: Yeah, that was an awesome trip.

PETER PENDELL: Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: So you were saved in Japan, so you were in the military; you already had some overseas experience. How have you through the years promoted missions as the senior pastor?

PETER PENDELL: Well, I was in a church for six years in Ossining, New York and that was my start because I was… It was a Conservative Baptist Church and so we had lots of people from this mission agency which is now called WorldVenture. And that gave me an immediate in and contact. One of our reps at that time was Roy Watson and he kind of took me under his wing and was really encouraging to me. That tied me to the mission agency. Warren Webster – people like that – were real heroes for me at the time.

HANS FINZEL: So when did you make your first overseas trip related to missions?

PETER PENDELL: I came in the mid-80’s when our overseas director for Africa asked me if I could go to Cote d’Ivoire and speak at the conference for our team there and I was just hungry to go because I had been on the Board for three or four years by then and had a real taste for what was going on.

HANS FINZEL: So your first mission trip was 25 years ago. Can you still remember that trip and what it was like to see first hand missionary work and not just be back here supporting it?

PETER PENDELL: I remember what I preached about. That was the most formative event in my life at the time.

HANS FINZEL: Really?

PETER PENDELL: Oh, I tell you…

HANS FINZEL: Why? Why?

PETER PENDELL: Because I got firsthand contact with people, whether they were missionaries… Now I can remember one guy, I remember seeing him on his knees by his bed. Another… A national leader at the time just impressed me to pieces. Just people. As well as the exotic kind of thing of being in another land and culture.

HANS FINZEL: You know, I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had on this program that have been totally changed by a short-term mission trip.

PETER PENDELL: It’s amazing.

HANS FINZEL: By going overseas and seeing it firsthand.

PETER PENDELL: My mistake was that I went without my wife. I came back after three weeks and tried to tell her what it was like and there’s just no way that you can do it. It doesn’t work; it doesn’t translate.

HANS FINZEL: No, you can’t do it.

PETER PENDELL: That’s right.

HANS FINZEL: And it just doesn’t work and so we always encourage people to go on a short-term mission trip.

PETER PENDELL: Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: If you’re listening and you’re thinking about – uh, your church has got a short-term mission trip coming up – go! Sign up and go. It will rock your world and change your world.

PETER PENDELL: Yes, it does.

HANS FINZEL: Now it changed how you were a pastor, didn’t it?

PETER PENDELL: Oh sure.

HANS FINZEL: How did it change?

PETER PENDELL: Well, being on the board helped [with] some of the changing because I was exposed to so much and there were times when I’d go home on a Sunday and I’d dump my message and just talk about what I had seen and heard. And I was just overwhelmed by it and it came through and that infected the church to some degree because they were hearing it from somebody who had been there and had seen these things. And then that gave me more opportunities to travel, too. And as I went to different countries and were exposed to it I became grateful for what I had but I had so much to learn about those places and that filled me to overflowing and I came home and talked about it. I couldn’t help it.

HANS FINZEL: I think that it’s the key to getting a church mobilized for missions – to get the senior pastor mobilized for missions.

PETER PENDELL: I do too.

HANS FINZEL: Don’t you?

PETER PENDELL: I think without that you are just fighting a battle.

HANS FINZEL: Yeah, so another thing if you are listening and you are in a church, send your pastor overseas...

PETER PENDELL: That’s right.

HANS FINZEL: … if he hasn’t been. I know the pastors on our board here, we just finished up a board meeting and one of them was saying, “You know, in my contract with the church they pay for me once a year to go over and visit our missionaries. It’s just required.”

PETER PENDELL: Yeah, that’s so rich; that’s so good.

HANS FINZEL: That’s such a great experience to keep them mobilized. Let’s talk a little bit about your philosophy for missions committees. How have you run missions in your church?

PETER PENDELL: Uh, I guess it’s changed over time but it’s been a part of our organization and we’ve had people who – from an older generation now – have had a heart for missions; have had a lot of experience in it. And so it’s kind of run itself. It’s been… It hasn’t been a very big labor. More recently, it lost focus and they were just getting frustrated with counting money and trying to divvy it up fairly and they needed a greater focus and they needed a greater challenge.

HANS FINZEL: Now, WorldVenture provides some help to local churches. Have you received some help in your church from WorldVenture?

PETER PENDELL: Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: What was that like?

PETER PENDELL: Oh, it was so important. About six years ago Bruce Swanson and Andy Spohrer came and ran a DESIGN YOUR IMPACT seminar for key leaders, especially the missions leaders but myself and others as well and they helped us design the future for – at least the foreseeable future – by looking at who we are and what kind of gifts and abilities we have to bring to the table and then helping us find ministries. Not necessarily WorldVenture ministries but anything out there that we could really focus on for five to ten years and that just revitalized what we are doing at Millington for missions.

HANS FINZEL: Wow, that’s awesome! So if you’re listening and one thing that WorldVenture loves to do is to serve local churches with some various kind of Saturday seminars that we offer church leadership, missions teams. So if you go to our website WorldVenture.com and click on the CHURCH CONNECTIONS page you should be able to find a link to the different resources and things that we have available to the local churches. Well, as you had your DESIGN YOUR IMPACT I happen to know that it helped focus you all on Senegal.

PETER PENDELL: Yes.

HANS FINZEL: How did that unfold and how did you pick Senegal as a country that you were going to have a special relationship with?

PETER PENDELL: It was really neat because the leaders… It helped us realize that WorldVenture is not the only mission agency out there, though it’s obviously one that they were high on and we were, too. But we had total freedom to look at ourselves and what we might do and what we did was set up a criteria by which we would look at different ministries around the world. And so our job was to go look at what was available and what fits within these parameters? Senegal came out on the top even though it had some disadvantages for us. The language was difficult because we would rather have gone to a Spanish-speaking country but we didn’t have the other assortment of needs met as well, as we did in Senegal so it just came down to a point of saying, “This is what God has designed us for. Maybe not another church, but us and let’s go for it and see what He does.”

HANS FINZEL: And what is the language in Senegal?

PETER PENDELL: Well, it’s French as the national language and then tribal languages, too.

HANS FINZEL: Yeah, Senegal, of course, is on the west coast of Africa on the Atlantic.

PETER PENDELL: That’s right.

HANS FINZEL: It’s interesting because you live in New Jersey …

PETER PENDELL: That’s right.

HANS FINZEL: … on the Atlantic.

PETER PENDELL: Just a hop across.

HANS FINZEL: You just hop across to Senegal. Let’s unpack… So you adopted Senegal and then how does that play out or what does that mean that you’ve… What is the special relationship? What do you do? How often do you go? Who goes? How does it work?

PETER PENDELL: We’ve had probably five years of trips back and forth and there’s been at least one trip each year. This year there is two. There is a group going initially – or already went in January – that’s planning and was part of a conference there for supporting churches and partnering churches to get together and think through things. So we had four people go to that. Now we have – I think it’s eight - leaving next week for 10 days and they are going to implement some of the plans that were drawn in that first trip over. So we’ve got teams going over every year. Usually about a dozen because that’s a number that fits well in the transportation modes but we also have, as much as we can, their people coming our way as well.

HANS FINZEL: Really?

PETER PENDELL: Right now that’s Adama Diouf who we support and is a WorldVenture International Partner. He has come twice before, he has preached in our church, he has met with different groups of people, we’ve thought together with him and have prayed together with him. He’s coming the end of May and we are going to be talking more about, “Okay, how do we develop a little bit more?” Right now… Well up until now, we’ve gone to various towns and villages and we’ve had medical work and teaching and one of our guys goes over and does computer work for the missionaries. They love him more than anybody else. But we’ve also narrowed in on one town that we are going to work with and the idea is to just build relationships with the town leaders. Muslim. Christian; just be there with them. Spend time and discover the needs that they have that we can partner with. And they’re not looking just for a bunch of money to come in. They are looking for relationship and they are a very relational country.

HANS FINZEL: Wow. So what kind of stuff will you do in that village?

PETER PENDELL: One of the things we want to do, if they want it and we can work it out, is they need to grind grain and if they can grind grain they save a lot of people a lot of time and they can take some of the grain and sell it. That’s one of the key things. We can do special conferences on public health. We can bring in medical teams. We can do children’s ministry in that town and you now the Muslim leaders there are amazingly open to getting help, no matter what it is. They are not as discriminatory as we might expect them to be. Then there are national projects. There’s an agricultural project that one of our guys going over has great experience in agriculture and they need him and they know it and he’s got great ideas. That kind of thing.

HANS FINZEL: That’s fantastic. So the people… These are just people from your congregation. Is it always the same people or do you… Is it a constant, changing group? You said every year you take about a dozen.

PETER PENDELL: It’s largely the same people. There are probably about 25 people involved so we’d like to spread it beyond that and that may be possible once we get to other areas, in terms of ministry possibilities in villages. Right now it’s been about 25 people.

HANS FINZEL: That’s really neat. So you recommend that to churches?

PETER PENDELL: Oh boy, I can’t think of anything better. What it’s done, it’s given ownership in the world of missions to some key leaders in the church. But frankly, you know, don’t want to just count the dollars and dole them out and those kinds of things. They want to do something on line. In fact, one of our leaders – a key leader for this Senegal ministry – works for Alcatel-Lucent and Alcatel-Lucent is right over in Senegal. He’s got contacts there even because of his business contacts.

HANS FINZEL: Oh, that’s fantastic.

PETER PENDELL: It’s very exciting.

HANS FINZEL: Let me just back up and ask a fundamental question. Why should a local church get involved overseas? Aren’t there plenty of needs in your own back yard?

PETER PENDELL: Yeah, there are but there are a lot of places overseas that just don’t have access, number one. They really don’t. They can’t turn on the Christian radio. They can’t go to a church down the street. They are surrounded by mosques; it’s a part of their culture. It’s very difficult for them. But it also feeds us. It takes away some of the pride factor because you realize, “Oh they do things very well over there and they do them differently than we do.” It brings you back with a different sense of humility and it feeds the idea that if they are finding new ways to reach out there, we’ve got to find new ways to reach here. We’re the missionaries here and we can’t just be occupied over there so it’s a two-way street. It’s really positive.

HANS FINZEL: I know I’ve always said when I go overseas and on a short-term mission trip or whatever I always feel like I received a lot more than I give.

PETER PENDELL: Oh, by far.

HANS FINZEL: Is that the way you all feel?

PETER PENDELL: By far. I taught village pastors the last time I was over there and I just came back so wanting to have the same fire in my gut that they have in theirs. It was very refreshing.

HANS FINZEL: Are they happy to see you when you come back?

PETER PENDELL: They love us! They really do. It’s amazing, yeah, they don’t know that we get more than we give and we’re not going to tell them, but we really do. But they love us. They really do.

HANS FINZEL: Another thing that I think is so powerful about this idea of an on-going relationship of a church here in America with a church or a village or a team overseas of nationals is just the fact that you are really communicating a love and commitment. You said they love you. I know one reason they love you is because you keep coming back.

PETER PENDELL: That’s right.

HANS FINZEL: So many short-term trips go one-time. They take a lot of pictures and videos and then the people never see them again.

PETER PENDELL: Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: But when you come back and then you come back again and then you make a commitment, “We’re going to help you find a way to grind grain,” and you actually follow through, isn’t that so powerful?

PETER PENDELL: Yeah, it’s amazing. We have a couple of women who have gone over repeatedly. They are core women and they are known and they get to know the names of the leaders there, too, so they will speak to them by name. There is nothing that registers like that. Um, they will sit in the villages and pray for people. They’ll listen. Sometimes there’s no translator but there’s still communication going on. It blows your mind; it’s amazing.

HANS FINZEL: In case you are just joining us, this is Hans Finzel and you are listening to Missions on the Frontline, a program sponsored by WorldVenture. If you are interested you can visit our web site at WorldVenture.com to learn about a lot of exciting information and helpful resources about how you can be involved in missions around the world. I have in my studio today as a guest, Peter Pendell, who is the pastor of Millington Baptist Church in Basking Ridge, New Jersey and we are talking about how churches can really be mobilized to missions. In the old days it seems like missions was kind of passive in churches where people prayed and people paid. And it usually was a small group of people, right?

PETER PENDELL: Right.

HANS FINZEL: A small group of people who actually prayed for missionaries and a small group who kind of carried the budget and paid for missionaries. But now I think we are excited to see churches go to a whole new level of partnership in mission – of actually participating in mission.

PETER PENDELL: Right.

HANS FINZEL: And that’s what you guys are doing.

PETER PENDELL: That’s right.

HANS FINZEL: That’s cool. Uh, just… Before we move to a couple of other topics, so where do you see this partnership going as you continue your church as a long-term commitment to the church in Senegal. Where do you see this thing going? Where would you like to see it go?

PETER PENDELL: Well, you know I think it’s going to go deeper in terms of them coming here more. I’d love to see us learn from them in that way and gain from them but just recently I’ve become acquainted with Transformational Ventures with WorldVenture and I see possibilities for business people going over to help with those areas and we’ve got the perfect avenue for that because we have… There are friends over there. They will want that and I think that’s one of the major ways.

HANS FINZEL: Business people helping business people and that’s TransformationalVentures.com if you are interested in that. Where business people here in America can help business people in other countries who are micro-enterprises, small businesses, and this is about job creation. It’s about economic sustainability.

PETER PENDELL: Right.

HANS FINZEL: You know one big problem in Africa has always been the tremendous dependence on funds from the west and we’re trying to break that through helping people create their own business so that’s TransformationalVentures.com. Well Peter you’ve been on our Board -- this is your third cycle through -- so for about 18 years.

PETER PENDELL: That’s right.

HANS FINZEL: And thank you.

PETER PENDELL: My privilege.

HANS FINZEL: Thank you for being on the board all these years and I know you’re about to wrap up your service after these many years on our board. Uh, can you reflect with me for a moment? Looking back over the years what have you seen [regarding] changes take place in missions from when you started more than 25 years ago?

PETER PENDELL: There weren’t a lot of changes until recently it seems to me. Now we’ve had organizational changes and I know that and missionaries are now moving off the compound that they used to be on and those kinds of things and they are more in the cities than they were. That’s wonderful. What I really appreciate what’s going on now is the mega-change with different forms of ministry. And it might be somebody in China who is in the Chinese opera and is using that as an avenue. Or somebody helping people climb the Alps or who knows? It’s all feeding into church planting and building up leadership there but different avenues used. That thrills me.

HANS FINZEL: Yeah, today people can be missionaries in the arts…

PETER PENDELL: Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: …in business, in medicine, in education, in government, politics. Uh, I like to say missions isn’t just missionaries anymore in the old classical sense.

PETER PENDELL: Right, right.

HANS FINZEL: Which we thought of as you go to Bible school, you go to Seminary and you go out and evangelize and you teach people the Bible and you start a church.

PETER PENDELL: Right. That’s right.

HANS FINZEL: Now whether we still believe that all that’s important but like you said, a whole lot of other people can feed that effort through the arts, through science, through education, through business, so that’s exciting.

PETER PENDELL: We talk about world partners, instead of missionaries because the missionary word has so many ideas loaded to it.

HANS FINZEL: Yeah, I …

PETER PENDELL: World partners is very different.

HANS FINZEL: World partners. Yeah, so that’s what you all use at your church?

PETER PENDELL: That’s what we use at our church.

HANS FINZEL: I like that because missionary is a really loaded term.

PETER PENDELL: Yes, it is.

HANS FINZEL: And it has a lot of negative connotations and a lot of traditional connotations.

PETER PENDELL: And a lot of places where the word can’t be used…

HANS FINZEL: Right.

PETER PENDELL: … and world partners can.

HANS FINZEL: That’s another great thing about non-conventional missions.

PETER PENDELL: That’s right.

HANS FINZEL: Is they can get into places that a traditional missionary can’t get into.

PETER PENDELL: Absolutely. Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: Whether it’s in agriculture or business or the arts. Again, education. One of my best friends at… He and I have been friends for 30 years. He owned a car parts business in Los Angeles. He’s selling his business, he’s in his mid-50’s and he and his wife are moving to China and they are going to study Chinese and they are going to mentor university students and disciple them for Christ.

PETER PENDELL: Yeah, that’s right.

HANS FINZEL: Who would have thunk it?

PETER PENDELL: I know it. We have a family, a couple that is back in mainland China now. He’s an ophthalmologist and he retired early so he could go over and teach in a medical school. And because of his stature in that kind of position, the students want to be in their home all the time and they have cultural training and teaching about what Christmas is all about and what Easter is all about.

HANS FINZEL: They love it.

PETER PENDELL: It’s amazing.

HANS FINZEL: The Chinese are so hungry to learn about that.

PETER PENDELL: Oh, the door is so wide open – especially with people of that stature.

HANS FINZEL: I always say that… And I love China and I’ve been there a number of times. Chinese love Americans.

PETER PENDELL: Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: I’m not saying that China loves America…

PETER PENDELL: Right.

HANS FINZEL: …but the Chinese people are so hungry to know us…

PETER PENDELL: Yes.

HANS FINZEL: …and they like Americans and they want to learn English…

PETER PENDELL: Right.

HANS FINZEL: … and they have such a spiritual openness.

PETER PENDELL: Right. Right.

HANS FINZEL: …to learn about God.

PETER PENDELL: Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: To learn about Jesus Christ because Communism has failed in China.

PETER PENDELL: Right.

HANS FINZEL: And the old religion of China has failed the people so they are very open.

PETER PENDELL: It’s an exciting day.

HANS FINZEL: It really is. Hey, the last thing I want to talk about, Peter, is your trip this summer to the dedication of the Cebarra Bible. Is that how you call it?

PETER PENDELL: Yes, Chibraru.

HANS FINZEL: That’s a cool story because you were in… We were going to have a big celebration in Ivory Coast [Cote d’Ivoire] because this is a new… This is the first time we are going to have this Bible complete for a large people group in their old language.

PETER PENDELL: Right.

HANS FINZEL: You were there sort of at the front end, weren’t you?

PETER PENDELL: I’m not sure when they started but I can remember in the mid-80’s on my first trip going to the homes of missionaries who were doing the translation work and at the time there was no other way to do it except for carbon copies. And you know you’d type out the text and then you’d send it out to your readers and there might be a dozen readers and they’d come back with comments. And then you’d have to type it out again with whatever changes you made and then it would go out again for a second reading. And the funny thing is, when I went back again the next time or a couple of times later, they were using computers. And it just revolutionized everything and the speed of translating was so much easier. I have seen the New Testament completed. Now it will be really fun and exciting to go back to see the entire Bible.

HANS FINZEL: Well, we appreciate you going over there and that will be an exciting trip as we dedicate this new Bible for this people group.

PETER PENDELL: Very much so.

HANS FINZEL: The Cebarra Bible. Well in just the minute or so we have left do you have any parting thoughts you’d like to share with our listeners about why they should care about world evangelism and taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth?

PETER PENDELL: As a matter of obedience but if you get close to the heart of Jesus it’s more than obedience. It’s simply going with Him. And it’s also as if He takes you with Him and He puts His arm around your shoulder and says, “Come on. I want to show you something.” And so when you go that way there is more to see; there’s more to appreciate and you see His hand in so much of what is going on. You come back thrilled and renewed and ready to go, “Where does He want me to go next?”

HANS FINZEL: As a man who has had your whole career as a senior pastor, mostly in this one church for 29 years, you probably agree that the church that is not involved in missions and not involved internationally is pretty sad, isn’t it?

PETER PENDELL: Oh, it’s short-sighted. It really is.

HANS FINZEL: One dimensional.

PETER PENDELL: There’s just more that needs to be done.

HANS FINZEL: Yeah. Because I can tell by talking to you that your relationship with all these missionaries and mission projects around the world has really done a tremendous amount for your church.

PETER PENDELL: Absolutely. Absolutely.

HANS FINZEL: Some people think, “You know, we don’t have the resources to go outside our own back yard. We’ve got to hoard and we’ve got protect and we’ve got to take care of people right around us but you guys have been so blessed by this international involvement.

PETER PENDELL: Absolutely. Yeah, it’s good for us; it’s good for everybody.

HANS FINZEL: Well thanks for being on our program today.

PETER PENDELL: Glad to be here.

HANS FINZEL: We really appreciate your service so much with WorldVenture. Thanks for listening today. This has been Missions on the Frontline. We’re here to expand your vision and make you aware of new and exciting ways you can be involved with missions around the world. Please visit our web site WorldVenture.com for more information, the latest news and updates. There’s lots of help for your local church at WorldVenture.com. If you have a particular interest in Business As Mission, go to TransformationalVentures.com. And don’t forget to drop me a note. I’d love to hear from you if you have any questions about missions, or program ideas for the future, you can email me at Frontline@WorldVenture.com. Again, write us at Frontline@WorldVenture.com. This has been Hans Finzel. See you next week at Missions on the Frontline.