God’s Heart for the World by Pastor Mark Brazee
God’s Heart for the World
Pastor Mark Brazee
For more than 30 years, Pastors Mark and Janet Brazee have traveled throughout the world sharing the Word of God and the Spirit of God. Together they’ve shared the powerful truths of faith and healing in more than 50 nations.
Today Mark and Janet pastor World Outreach Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they base their ongoing outreach to the world. The Brazees still travel as the Lord leads, and they are raising up a congregation who share their passion to reach Tulsa and the world.
The couple has also founded DOMATA School of Ministry and DOMATA Advanced School of Ministry, a Bible training school for ministers, located in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Missions is the heart of God for God so loved the world—the entire world. As a minister and as a believer, we have one great commission—go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. Building a ministry is fine, but that is not our calling. Building large churches, beautiful buildings, retirement centers and television ministries are all good things to do. But all this falls down the priority list after first of all going into all the world to preach the Gospel to every creature. Whether we are called as a frontier evangelist or a local family church pastor, our calling is first of all to missions.
Missions is such an important vision in the heart of God that it is almost a tangible thing—it can be taught, but it is better caught. I have been consumed with world missions since January 1975, when I had the privilege of spending a week at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, under the influence of Pastor John Osteen. When he walked on this earth, he carried the world in his heart. It was so tangible in his church that without even hearing messages specifically on missions, I caught it.
Now after 31 years of ministry, I can look back and see many things I learned the easy way and lots more I learned the hard way. My wife, Janet, and I have traveled the nations for 20 years and now pastor a church with a wonderful congregation also consumed with missions. In fact, we still travel to the nations on a regular basis. But now we’re able to look from the aspect of the “goer” and also the “sender,” and I see things I wish I had known much earlier in ministry.
As an itinerant minister in America and abroad, one of my greatest suggestions for others in the same type of ministry is to connect tightly with a local church that believes in you, believes with you, and believes for you. Being on the field with a church family “holding the ropes” is something we now experience when we go and something we provide for others as they launch out. In the book of Acts the apostles knew to return to their own company when they ran into trouble. A company is not just a group of ministers, it is a group that believes in each other and will pray “instantly and earnestly” in each other’s behalf.
Let me tell you about one missionary. He launched out from his home church with his family to live in another nation, but after a period of time returned home defeated and discouraged. The missionary slipped into a service on a Sunday morning but heard no mention of missions and no prayers for those laboring in the nations. The church was enjoying the presence of God and the Word of God and was busy fulfilling their local vision. After the service the missionary talked with the pastor and respectfully said, “Now I know why we floundered and eventually failed on the mission field. We went into a dark place to pull others out, and no one held the ropes.”
That’s why in our church every time a person, family or group leaves for a nation or goes on a short term trip we call them up during a Sunday morning service to pray for them. Afterward the congregation comes from all directions to throw money at their feet to help them go. But it doesn’t stop there, as we have prayer groups who consistently “hold the ropes” for them while they are gone. It makes all the difference in the world—literally. When my wife and I travel within the U.S. or internationally, we also have our church family behind us. This prayer support is the difference between night and day.
On the other side of things, as a pastor it is a challenge—and a mandate—to keep a vision for the world in the local church. The path of least resistance is to be self centered and focus through life with tunnel vision. Yet, our job is to touch the world, not just our city or our community.
Pastor John Osteen once said to me, “You’ll never touch the world without a power base.” So as a pastor, my job is to lead, feed and seed. To lead doesn’t mean to coach from the sidelines, but to lead by going somewhere first. Our churches will end up being a carbon copy of us because “such as I have, give I thee.” If we want our churches to pray, we need to be pray-ers. If we want our churches to worship, we must be worshippers. If we want our congregations to go into all the world, we must go there first. In other words, what we are they will become.
To feed doesn’t just mean to write a sermon for each Sunday service; it means to feed, watch over and protect. Then to seed means to plant vision in the people. Yet to do that, we can’t simply sit down and brainstorm, we must spend time in the presence of God and catch from heaven the vision God has for our church. One thing we can know for sure: If a vision comes from God, it will be very strong on missions. As one great missionary statesman said, “the mission of the church is missions.” And the light that shines the farthest will shine the brightest at home.