Editorial

August, 1986 Dear Friends,

Is 1986 going to be a worldwide threshold year highlighting a groundswell of advance toward the year 2,000?

I think so. Two issues back, I actually listed on two pages 110 key events leading right down to the year 2,000. Since then, many have told S me it is a mind and heart expanding list. (If you missed it, write me for a copy.) Yes, I think we are nearing the End of History, and that this is a unique threshold year, just like 1886 was. Note these key meetings:

In Sept., some 400 executives of the two largest mission associations in the world will meet at the Navigator headquarters in Colorado Springs: the IFMA on the lSth 18th and the EFMA, the 22-25th,
Sandwiched between (on the 19th) will be a "huddle" of key leaders discussing "how to define goals for the year 2,000!"
Then Oct. 6th will be the momentous Fourth Triennial Convention of the Asia Missions Association, held both on our campus (and at the City Convention Center here in Pasadena) bringing non western mission executives from Africa and Latin America as well as Asia. An historic first. What a profoundly significant force is this group of godly men!
I just got back a week ago from a key conference at the site of D. L. Moody's birth in Western Massachusetts (see story across the page). Amazing! That is the very place where an earlier THRESHOLD event took place a hundred years ago, ushering into being the greatest single push forward in worldwide outreach that has ever occurred. Three other conferences this year have already celebrated the initial thrust back in 1886 of what became the Student Volunteer Movement.

This year, 1986, is not "culminating" anything special. We are simply at the doorstep TILE THRESHOLD Of great new strides forward, this time in every part of the globe. We are just awakening. Wheaton College has never had so large a Sunday night mission prayer meeting (300 to 500 students). In cautious New England, Congress '87 next January now has one entire "tack" on the subject of missions this is the huge annual meeting of evangelical forces in the New England area. In previous issues we have described the explosive new, specifically MISSIONS interest among Christians all down through Latin America.

On and on. What will it take to awaken you, dear reader, to the fact that we are nearing the End of History, and we had better be busy about our Father's business, not ours? "Look up, for your redemption draws nigh (Luke 21:28)."