His for the Harvest

I am a native of Cheswick, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, born in 1961. At the age of twenty-one, I was born again and then filled with the Holy Ghost. Within a few years, I attended and graduated from Free Gospel Bible Institute (1985-1988) in Export, PA. In December of 1988, Denise Lantz and I were married in Goshen, Indiana; we have been blessed with two precious daughters, Abigail and Elisabeth. Our first pastorate was in Carlisle, Pennsylvania from 1992 to 1998, and then we followed the Lord’s call to pastor in Mentor, Ohio where we currently serve.

While pastoring in Pennsylvania, I strongly felt the Lord dealing with me to become more actively involved in mission work. Up to this point, I had taken two short term missions trips; to Lima, Peru, the other to Mexico. God began to open more doors of opportunity, I took my next mission trip in 1996 to visit Linda Tobman’s work in Taiwan, and since that time I had the privilege of ministering in over 20 different countries including the Philippines, Croatia, Nigeria, Burma, India, Sierra Leone, and Honduras. While traveling to foreign countries and various people groups, I began to realize the value and priority some cultures place on education. Recognizing that the Lord could use this tool to open doors to spread the gospel further, I began working on my graduate studies.

 In 1997, the Lord laid it upon my heart to begin Sprinkle of Nations (S.O.N.) Ministries, a short term missionary endeavor. The name is taken from Isaiah 52:15, "So shall He sprinkle many nations…" In 2004, by God’s grace, I launched S.E.N.T. Ministries, (Student Evangelism to the Nations Teams), taking college-age students on short term mission trips to encourage them to develop a heart for long term missions. Recently, with the Lord’s help, I have developed a five-course discipleship program called, The Decorated Disciple , to help train Christian believers and workers around the world. Then I began to write a Christian Leadership program entitled The Master’s Minister. I desire to use these materials to train ministers, especially in other countries where theological resources are limited.

Close to half a century ago, J. Oswald Smith wrote a book entitled The Cry of the World. The name of this missionary work adequately summarizes the spiritual condition of multitudes of people in every nation who know not the Lord! It is one of my passions to work alongside many other godly men and women to help remedy the most significant problem known to man by bringing the Good News of the Gospel to a lost and dying world. In this book, I endeavored to make the point that we all bear the responsibility to do all that we can to fulfill the Great Commission. No one person or group can do it alone. May the Lord help us, The Last Days Church, to cooperate in reaching the lost at any cost.

In closing, I wish to encourage and challenge all of my Christian readers with this portion of a devotional by J. Sidlow Baxter: “Think…of those cities in the ‘Regions Beyond’, where thousands, yea millions, are really wanting the truth, but do not know it, and cannot find it. Do I now address some younger person who ought to offer as a messenger to them? Does not the thought of their darkness and futile groping stir you, as Paul was ‘stirred’ over Athens long ago?"

Let these lines of Eva Doerksen speak to you:
"If you had been to heathen lands, Where weary ones with eager hands Still plead, yet no one understands, Would you go back? Would you? If you had seen them in despair, Beat on the breast, pull out the hair, While demon powers filled the air, Would you go back? Would you? If you had seen the glorious sight, When heathen people, long in the night, Are brought from darkness into the light, Would you go back? Would you? Still, they wait, a weary throng, They have waited, some, so very long, When shall despair be turned to song? I am going back! Would you? Do I now address some middle-aged or older person who cannot go out to other lands, but who ought to be praying more, or giving more, or encouraging more, or helping more, toward the evangelizing of those cities and peoples? Oh, let the thought of them stir you into compassionate cooperation with those who go out there to tell them!”

 

If all of Christ’s followers will humbly hearken to this passionate counsel, many in the world will hear and believe in Jesus. His laborers shall then one day understand the precious words of the Master say: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant…enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Matthew 25:21

HIS FOR THE HARVEST
"So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider." Isaiah 52:15