Daron Butler, pastor of cross cultural missions at the Grace Brethren Church in Wooster, Ohio (Bob Fetterhoff, pastor), is speaking this week at the Moody Bible Institute Missions Conference
A number of Grace Brethren pastors and leaders are at the Missions Conference at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Ill., this week. Daron Butler, pastor of cross cultural missions at the Grace Brethren Church in Wooster, Ohio (Bob Fetterhoff, senior pastor), is one of the featured speakers, tackling the subject of Native American Ministries. Other speakers on the schedule are Jay Bell and John Ward, both of Encompass World Partners; Robert Soto, pastor of McAllen, Tx., Grace Brethren Church; Armando Lucio, recent Grace Seminary graduate who is involved in Native American ministries; and Bob Smoker, former Grace Brethren pastor who now is involved with ministry in Vietnam.
For complete information about the conference, click here.
Below is an article from the student newspaper, The Moody Standard, written by Clive Craigen, former Grace Brethren missionary and now assistant professor of world missions and evangelism at Moody. Click here to read the complete article.
October is one of my favorite times of the year. Not only because of the beautiful colors associated with the season and changing leaves, but because here at Moody Bible Institute, we step away from the normal academic schedule and invest time and energy in the love the Lord of the Universe has for the nations everywhere. And this year is no different.
“Incarnate” is the theme of this year’s Missions Conference. As you reflect on the theme, let the words of Paul in Philippians 2 soak deeply into your heart and soul: “We must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.” The incarnation is very gritty, very messy, very ordinary and profoundly different.
Jesus did not come to earth as a powerful ruler or a wealthy king, but as a baby with all the innocence and helplessness that is part of the human experience. There was a subtlety and a deliberateness connected with what would have cosmic ramifications. Some might say that Jesus wasted time. Think about it: He could have started preaching the good news of the kingdom of God and healing the sick and the lame before He was an adult – but He didn’t. May we live, learn, labor and love with same attitude of our Savior. May we be willing to give up privilege, position, and power in the spirit of the Incarnate One.
This year we have several speakers who will challenge us along these lines, 100-plus seminars, and a host of other activities which will point us down the path of humility and suffering. Tom Lin, the Vice President of Missions for InterVarsity as well as the director of the Urbana Students Missions Conference, will kick off the conference on Tuesday night. Wednesday morning will involve some special guests discussing incarnational ministry in the Muslim world. Pastor Daron Butler of the Navajo people will speak twice, once on Wednesday and once on Thursday. Yolanda Fields, Chief Program Officer at Breakthrough Urban Ministries, will speak on Wednesday evening, and Jamie Taylor, the great- grandson of Hudson Taylor, will speak on Thursday morning. And on Friday, Juan Peña of Providence Bible Church in Denver will wrap up the conference. Ethnefest returns on Thursday night, when we will pray and speak in a host of languages. This year a special focus on Native American peoples will be woven into the whole conference as we pray, dance, cry, lament and call on the God of the Universe to pour out His grace on this forgotten ethne.
