At the Chinese Missionary Mobilization Conference, once-imprisoned Pastor Andrew Craig Brunson encouraged Chinese Christians to take up their calling to the Muslim world while sharing the mission in Turkey from his own experience.
The "2022 Chinese Missionary Mobilization Conference - Commemorating the 110th Anniversary of Charlotte Lottie Moon's Missionary Martyrdom in China'' was held online from 22nd to 24th September to inspire Chinese Christians to spread the gospel to the whole world. On the second day, Pastor Andrew Craig Brunson spoke about the mission in Turkey and China’s mission call to the Muslim world.
American Pastor Andrew Craig Brunson was jailed in this Muslim country in 2016 after serving in Turkey with his wife Norine for over two decades and released in 2018 after the intervention of the US government.
God focused prayers on Turkey for the Muslim world
Having worked in Turkey for decades, Pastor Brunson said Turkey was in many ways a ‘land of the New Testament‘. Although many of the New Testament books were written to or by people in Turkey, many Acts stories happened in Turkey, and various important churches in New Testament days were in Turkey, the sad fact is that it is today one of the largest unreached countries in the world in terms of evangelism. “Many Turks have never met a Christian in their life, and most Turkish cities don’t have even one single church”, said Pastor Brunson.
Pastor Brunson shared his own testimony of how God has worked in Turkey. “In 2009, God said to me clearly: prepare for the harvest,” he said. He could hardly believe it because the Muslim world has been hardly reached and the seed had not been sown for very long. Again, God told him clearly: 'God will accelerate'.
Then he started praying to prepare, and he started a new prayer, “God, please draw me so close to your heart that you can trust me and give me the power and authority to start waves.” Through these prayers, the pastor gradually understood God’s assignments for him. One of them was to go to prison.
Going to prison was still unexpected and difficult, the pastor said. However, God was working, not only through rebuilding him up in the prison but also by starting movements of prayers over the world, focusing on him alone, the imprisoned Pastor Brunson in Turkey. Later, he learned that a Christian network in China printed a million copies of brochures to call for prayers, which means there must have been millions of people praying for him in China alone. “Prayers came like tsunami waves,” he added.
That was the preparation for harvest, Pastor Brunson realized. God directed waves of prayers to break down the dark spiritual power in Turkey.
“Turkey is a key country spiritually. It has been the head of the Islam world for centuries,” he explained, “as God moves in Turkey, there will be also changes in the areas that Turkey ruled in the name of Islam, including North Africa, the Middle East, and Balkan countries.”
“I believe in my lifetime, millions of Muslims are going to turn to Jesus,” the pastor confirmed.
Time for Chinese Christians to bring in the harvest from the Muslim world
“This is the time for evangelizing the Muslim world, the front line of mission, right now”, he urged.
Pastor Brunson said when he read Brother Yun’s book The Heavenly Man in 2011, he started to pray to serve the mission of the Chinese calling to Muslims.
“Discern and recognize the time we’re living in! There will be more turbulence and darkness, but we can also see in the midst of that, how God is preparing the Chinese to take over this great assignment”, he encouraged. “I know you have been through difficult circumstances and the fires of persecution. Churches that have gone through fires will go to the most difficult places.”
Take up the assignment
At the end of his talk, Pastor Brunson told listeners that the most important thing is to take up the assignment, and then God will open the door. “Generations before you were not able to do this because things are not aligned. But it’s different now. Receiving God’s assignment is a privilege. If you don’t take up your appointment, God can give it to someone else who obeys.”
Particularly, he spoke to Christian men. “Where are the men? I have seen many single women working in very difficult mission fields in the Middle East, but there are not as many men.”
Pastor Brunson closed his talk with a prayer, “I pray that the same Holy Spirit that mobilized Hudson Taylor and many Western missionaries to China, will mobilize my Chinese brothers and sisters to the Muslim world. Draw my brothers and sisters so close to you that you will trust them to start waves in the nations. I pray that the same wind of revival in China will blow in Turkey.”
