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Read the report from Rev. Dick McClain, Mission Society executive vice president and chief operating officer, regarding the Nigerian Mission Mobilization Conference held last week.

"I’m on the plane from Abuja, Nigeria, to London, having completed the Global Engagement Training conference that was sponsored by the Nigeria Evangelical Missions Association (NEMA) this past week. I was blessed to be able to join Darrell Whiteman and Kirk Sims (our Ghana Field Leader) for this conference. The event was led by The Rev. Timothy Olonade, Executive Secretary of NEMA.

A word about the name of the event. NEMA has adopted The Mission Society's Global Outreach Seminar and has republished it with a few changes as the "Global Engagement Training." It, along with Darrell Whiteman's signature teaching on communicating the Gospel across cultural barriers, was presented to nearly 100 pastors from numerous denominations at the Miango Rest Home, a retreat center near Jos, Nigeria, June 22-26, 2009. The largest contingent was from the Anglican church. That included three of their bishops. A special blessing was the participation of three delegates from the Methodist Church of Benin, including one of their bishops. Darrell Whiteman and I have of course done many of these conferences over the years. We both agreed that this was clearly the most sophisticated group of delegates with whom we have worked over the years. Almost all of them were ministers, many with substantial training. Their questions and their challenges were insightful and deep, and their responses were heartfelt and deeply moving.

Because NEMA is seeking to mobilize the churches of Nigeria to send 15,000 missionaries to the Muslim countries of North Africa and the Arab Peninsula by 2020, there was a strong emphasis on not only the urgency of reaching our Muslim neighbors, but also the new approaches that will be needed if we hope to be more effective than the church has been over the past 1,400 years. As Darrell brought his teaching to its climax, he shared about the new thing that God is doing among Muslims - leading millions of them to become devoted, baptized followers of Jesus while remaining within their Muslim community and context so that they can be witnesses for the Savior to their Muslim brethren. Clearly this was a new way of thinking about Muslim outreach for many of the attendees. Keep in mind that this conference was located near the city of Jos. Just six months ago, Jos was in flames due to Muslim-Christian violence that left more than 400 dead (a conservative estimate), and many churches, mosques, homes and businesses burned or in ruins. The suffering of Christians at the hands of Muslims in Nigeria has been great. Eventually, Christians have begun to fight back. They had their own 9/11 just days before ours, though the world press made little of the devastation in Nigeria. So, to challenge Nigerian Christians to believe that God has not left Himself without a witness within the Qur’an, and to imagine that a Muslim could remain such while becoming a passionate follower of Jesus, was a real challenge for many of them.

The response can only be explained by the work of the Holy Spirit. God began to break hearts, resulting in two of the evenings being largely focused on prayer for the Muslim world. Heaven surely was moved by the sound of nearly 100 Nigerian pastors and bishops crying out to God on behalf of their Muslim cousins. The result was that hearts and minds began to change. One woman’s testimony perhaps best summed up what we saw God do among our new Nigerian friends. “Because of the conflict, whenever I see a Muslim, I just become angry in my heart. I don’t even want to look at them. But I see that I need to love them,” she said. “If we cannot deal with Muslims right here, how are we going to be able to reach them in Senegal or wherever else God sends us?” She went on to say that she intended to begin to pray for her Muslim neighbors and to reach out to them.

All this came after two days of teaching the Global Engagement Training. Kirk Sims and I were joined by two former students of Darrell’s, both professors at Jos ECWA (Evangelical Church of West Africa) Theological Seminary, as well as by Tim Olonade and The Rev. Dr. Nkechi Nwosu. The response to the Global Engagement Training was very positive, and there is every indication that it will be taught many times again as pastors share it with their congregations and leaders with the pastors under their care.

Our effort in all this has been to come alongside what God is doing in Nigeria. For years, we have been challenging American churches with the implications of the shift in the church from the North and West to the Global South. Noting the growing non-Western missions movement, we have said repeatedly that our job in the future would be to help our Global South brothers and sisters in their efforts, knowing they would be able to go where we could not and do what we cannot. This week was an opportunity to put feet to those words as we became servants to NEMA, and through it to the churches of Nigeria.

At The Mission Society's recent Horizon Mission Conference, the following vision was affirmed regarding The Mission Society in 2033: "The Mission Society is a member of a global association of missional communities who collaboratively send and receive cross-cultural kingdom stewards."

Though that language is a bit stilted, the message rings loud and clear. God is doing something in the world that is much bigger than we are. Our call is to discover what He is doing and where He is doing it, and to join Him. Rather than simply promoting our own ministry, our call is to join hands with God’s people around the world, and to collaborate with them in Kingdom expansion that goes not only from West to East, but from East to West; not only from North to South, but also from South to North. Laying aside any and all desire for credit and recognition, we are to simply be servants of Christ by becoming servants to His Body.

That happened last week. I cannot imagine any higher calling, any more fulfilling work, nor any more fruitful ministry than to strengthen the hand of God’s people in places like Nigeria so that they can be His agents of mission around the world. It is something to which God has called not just our little team, but the whole Mission Society family.

Thank you for your prayers during this past week. They were indeed answered."