Dean goes to a missions conference

Valley Bible Church, Clovis, California

Mindy loves missionary slide shows. When she was growing up and missionaries came to her church (as they often did), she enjoyed hearing their stories from the farthest parts of the earth, from Africa or Asia or South America.

Sadly, she had to work the night I went to the opening event for the Valley Bible Church’s missions. She could have heard from a missionary all the way from San Francisco, California.

The church holds a mission conference every year, and the Friday evening event I attended was billed as a family night. Guest speaker (and missionary) Alan Bond of Jews for Jesus, a parachurch ministry, spoke about the Gospel in the Feasts of Israel. The next night, his topic was “The Yeshua Message,” preceded by a dinner for junior high through college students. The conference would continue during the Sunday morning worship service with “The Messiah and the Jewish People” as the topic, and the entire event would culminate with a potluck meal after the worship service.

Friday evening's portion of the conference began with a dessert potluck. Mindy had made some chocolate cookies for the event, which was held in the church’s fellowship hall.

One wall of the room displayed the different missionaries the church supports. Some of those ministries were in distant locations, like Africa and Europe, but there also were displays of local ministries such as Valley Mission Jail Ministry. One table was full of pamphlets from Jews for Jesus’ ministry.

Jews for Jesus was founded in 1973 by Moishe Rosen to introduce Jewish people to Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah. The ministry began in San Francisco but now does work throughout North America and in Australia, England, Russia, and other parts of the world, including Israel. But -- as I mentioned earlier -- the conference’s speaker works more locally, from the original San Francisco office.

While enjoying dessert at one of the round tables in the fellowship hall before the lecture, I chatted with folks. I learned that Valley Bible Church was now a combined ministry of three local churches that had merged over the last decade. As one man put it, “Our building had outgrown the congregation.” At first, the three pastors of the three churches served together, but that proved impractical over the long run, and the church now has one head pastor, Del Foote. People around the table spoke admiringly of Pastor Foote, and a couple of people said he was the reason they attended the church.

Richard said he’d grown up Catholic. “They have Jesus, but the Scripture isn’t as important to them. They don’t bring a Bible to church.” I mentioned that Catholic churches do have four scripture readings as part of the mass, but he said, “They don’t have a fifty-minute sermon like we have here.” He lamented the lack of young people in the church (I’d guess that besides the younger Pastor Foote, attendees that evening seemed to be in their sixties and older).

Pastor Foote introduced Alan Bond, whose message focussed on the feasts of Leviticus 23. He drew parallels to the life of Jesus from the seven festivals in that passage, including Passover with its images of sacrifice. He connected Paul’s discussion of Jesus as the First Fruit of new life (in First Corinthians 15) with the Feast of the Firstfruits in the Leviticus passage.

At the conclusion of his talk, Bond invited questions. I asked whether the many secular Jews of the Bay Area still celebrated the feasts. He said many Jews only go to Temple for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the equivalent of “Christmas and Easter Christians.” Pastor Foote closed the evening in prayer and urged all of us to leave a love offering for Bond’s ministry at the door as we left.

As I stepped outside, I noticed a woman arranging herself in her wheelchair and pulling out a flashlight for her journey home. She said she didn’t need assistance; it was only a few blocks from her home. I was impressed with the efforts she made to be at this event and wondered how many missions conferences she had attended over the years. Sometimes the most difficult, and essential, mission we have is local.