"Praying for Your Missionary" by Eddie Byun. A Review


Praying for Your Missionary: How Prayers from Home Can Reach the Nations
Eddie Byun
IVP Academic
IVPress.com
December 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8308-4556-9; $16.00
5 Stars of 5 Stars

I’ve seen it happen too many times: someone is sent out to another place to take the Gospel of Jesus to people in other locations, and after a flurry of emails and letters, they slowly become fairly forgotten. Or an indigenous evangelist and church-birther will visit an American church and rouse liberality and liveliness. But once they’re out of sight, they quickly go out of mind. Eddie Byun, missions and teaching pastor of Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos, California, and author of Justice Awakening and Praying for Your Pastor, has delivered a great tool for Christians and churches in his brand-spanking-new 192 page paperback, “Praying for Your Missionary: How Prayers from Home Can Reach the Nations”. This little volume is user-friendly, prayer-friendly, missionary-friendly, and missions committee-friendly!

Beyond the introduction and epilogue, Byun spreads out a twelve-chapter manual on how to, and why to, pray for our missionaries. The chapters follow an acronym he likes to use: “MISSIONS CARE”: more workers, intimacy with God, spiritual coverage, strong singles-marriages-families, incarnational love, oneness of teams, never-ending devotion, successful ministry in God’s eyes, churches partnering well, agencies partnering well, re-entering well, ending well. That could certainly be turned into a bookmarker or magnetic display for easy recall! Each chapter draws from Scripture, are full of exemplary stories, and conclude with very practical discussion questions, prayer points, and action plans. Byun is very insightful, and gave some applications that I had never thought of.

This is the kind of book that should find its way into the hands of congregational missions committees, the person-in-the-pew, pastors, mission agencies, denominational and congregational leaders, and seminaries. It’s a great tool if you have a missions sermon series or conference and want to get your church onboard in synchronized praying for God’s world rescue operation. I’m handing my dog-eared-marked-up copy to our missions chairman and encouraging him to lead our missions committee through the book. I unashamedly commend “Praying for Your Missionary”!

I am very delighted that IVP sent me a copy of this book, at my request, used for this review. The only requirement they asked of me is that I give my honest assessment, which I have done. This appraisal is freely made and freely given.

You can purchase the book here: Praying for Your Missionary

Pastor Mike

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