With Hearts for Mission

by Steve | Sep 14, 2020 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, Sept-Oct 2020

Honoring the legacy of H.T. and Alice Maclin. Alice Maclin passed away on June 23 (six years after H.T.). As shown in this photo, the Maclins were so very proud of their four children, Greg, Cathie, Susan, and Ruthie.

By Ruth Burgner –

H.T. and Alice Maclin may be names familiar to you. In January 1984, H.T. became the founding president of The Mission Society for United Methodists (now TMS Global). Its launch was well known among evangelical United Methodists and was so momentous in Church news that it was reported in outlets such as Christianity Today and Time magazine.

It is a gutsy move to leave one’s 30-year career to head a start-up. But except for a home mortgage and a set of encyclopedias for their children, the Maclins had lived debt-free. They shaped their lives in such a way to be available to follow God’s leading in decisions – like this one.

Those of us around during early days of The Mission Society for United Methodists remember how H.T. would recount the forming of this ministry. He would almost always begin by telling of 1944.

That year, H.T. was in the Pacific aboard the aircraft carrier USS Anzio. A typhoon hit that would take the lives of 800 men. In the midst of the panic on board, H.T. was captivated by the calm of a shipmate. When he later asked about it, this naval cook explained that his peace came from the Lord and that H.T. could have that peace. The sailor prayed with H.T., and H.T. surrendered his life to Jesus.

Two months later, H.T. witnessed a Japanese attack and the sinking of the USS Bismarck Sea. So many of his former shipmates were on that ship, to which he had barely missed being assigned.

“Why was I spared?” he wrote. “Whatever it may be … the result of it overwhelmed me as I had never been so before. I firmly believed I was saved for a reason yet to be revealed to me by the Lord.”

In 1947, after the war, H.T. married Alice. The next year, at the Urbana Mission Conference, this young couple (at ages 22 and 19) dedicated their lives to world missions. That would change everything for them.

After the Maclin’s time at seminary – and both graduating with their master’s degrees – H.T. and Alice were appointed by the United Methodist mission board to what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo and later to Kenya.

For the next 20 years, the Maclins would serve with their children in Africa.

So revered was this couple that in 1964, President Tubman of Liberia honored H.T. by naming him Knight Grand Commander of the Humane Order of African Redemption.

After returning to the States, Alice taught at what is now Perimeter College in Decatur, Georgia, and developed an ESL program there. She also spent some time in China, developing English curriculum for the first independent secondary school and college allowed to reopen since the Cultural Revolution.

H.T. served for nine years as an executive with The United Methodist Church’s General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM). Over the years, H.T. and others had noticed a change in the Board’s theology of missions and a decrease in the number of United Methodist missionaries being sent out.

When the founders of The Mission Society were looking for someone to lead it, H.T. volunteered. And in 1983 H.T. left his post with GBGM to take the helm of this new mission agency.

Funded entirely by donations, The Mission Society for United Methodists would provide additional mission opportunities for those of the Wesleyan tradition called to serve in cross-cultural missions.

H.T. and Alice’s basement became The Mission Society’s first office. In May 1985, just 17 months after its launch, The Mission Society for United Methodists commissioned its first 10 missionaries.

Now 36 years old, and with a new name, “TMS Global” has mobilized, trained, and sent more than 138 missionaries. Today its cross-cultural witnesses (missionaries) serve in 36 countries.

Nearly any time H.T. told The Mission Society’s story, he would conclude by reciting from Acts 26 (the text used in the service in which he and Alice dedicated their lives to world missions): “But get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you my servant. You are to tell others what you have seen of me today and what I will show you in the future.” (TEV)

This call – so faithfully answered by the Maclins – remains the burden and great privilege of the TMS Global community.    

Ruth Burgner is senior director of communication of TMS Global. Now inter-denominational, TMS Global continues in the Wesleyan tradition. To learn more visit www.tms-global.org.

Yes, He is Amazing

by Steve | Sep 14, 2020 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, Sept-Oct 2020

By B.J. Funk –

The Holy Spirit is so amazing! He is always fulfilling his main purpose of pointing to Jesus. As Oswald Chambers says, “The Holy Spirit is the One who makes real in you all that Jesus did for you.”

I am rejuvenated as I dive into my many resources on the Spirit, as I did in the late seventies. Using several guides, I go again and again to Catherine Marshall’s wonderful book, The Helper. Why? Well, I believe the Holy Spirit will play a vital part in the upcoming and yet unforeseen revival. The following story is from her book.

You probably know the name, Dwight L. Moody. Moody Bible Institute in Chicago was named for him. He was a great success as an evangelist in 1871. His tabernacle drew the largest congregations in Chicago. But according to Moody’s own estimate of those years, he was a “great hustler” and his work was being done largely in the energy of the flesh.

Two humble Free Methodist women used to attend those meetings and sit on the front row. Moody could not help seeing that they were praying during most of his services. Finally, he spoke to the women about it.

“Yes,” they admitted “We have been praying for you.”

“Why me? Why not for the unsaved?” the evangelist said, a bit perturbed. One of them answered. “Because you need the power of the Spirit.” After some weeks of this, Mr. Moody invited the women to his office to talk about it. “You spoke of power for service,” he prodded them. “I thought I had it. I wish you would tell me what you mean.” So, these two ladies told Moody what they knew about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Then the three prayed together. And the women left.

Moody wrote, “From that hour there came a great hunger in my soul. I really felt that I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service.”

One late autumn day in 1871 Dwight L. Moody was in New York walking up Wall Street. Suddenly, in the midst of the bustling crowds, his prayer was answered: the power of God fell on him so overwhelmingly that he knew he must get off the street. Spotting a house he recognized, Moody knocked on the door and asked if he might have a room by himself for a few hours. Alone there, such joy came upon him that “at last he had to ask God to withhold His hand, lest he die on that very spot from joy!”

From that hour, Moody’s ministry was never the same. Dwight L. Moody lived another 28 years. His work continues today through Moody Bible Institute, the Moody Press, and other avenues that carry his faith.

We think today’s troubles are bad, and they are. However, Catherine Marshall writes, “Christianity was born into a world of trouble. The Roman world of the first century was awash in a rising tide of demoralization and evil. Today, we can see thought-provoking parallels between the period of the decline of the Roman Empire and our own time.”

Outpourings of the Holy Spirit have five common elements, according to The Helper. 1.) Revival usually comes from the common people. 2.) The gospel is made easy to understand. 3.) There is love and joy in huge amounts. 4.) Music plays a large part – new songs and hymns are born. 5.) There is moral and ethical reform.

Furthermore, always the Spirit comes when evil has been rampant, men and women were depressed and in bondage, and the fires of faith burn low. Can you see our Society, and indeed our world, wrapped in the cloak of these three situations?

But there is good news. Jesus knew how much we would need the Helper during these difficult times. “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you,” (John 16:7).

Won’t you join me in praying for a move of the Spirit that tugs at our hearts for revival? Get out those books on the Holy Spirit, dust them off, and find the treasures God has for you through the Amazing Holy Spirit.

Come, Holy Spirit. Fill the hearts of your faithful.