We are the Brown family
A Call to Ministry
I am Harry and we are the Brown family. We are missionaries to America working as a helps ministry to the local independent New Testament Baptist church.
In May of 2021 we had a family visit our church. They work in ministry full time as a helps ministry to church planters and pastors. He preached the biblical pattern of church planting from Acts. It is always 2 or more men working together. After explaining who and how he helped; he made this statement "I could use 7 more families like ours". This statement made an impact on our entire family. We spent a few hours talking to them after the service as we had many questions and both of our families had grown up in New England.
We went home from that meeting with a burden to do more. We were already working in every ministry available to us in the church. We knew that just being members of a church was not going to be enough for us.
We began visiting a few key churches that we knew had men that could help us. This included a week at a preaching and ministry conference at a church 300 miles away. The men at this conference repeatedly urged us to move forward and offered to help or answer questions any time in the future. Even being at this conference, I was still convinced that we were there to support our eldest, Jonah, who is called to preach; and did not see us being able to ever be in full time ministry. We had started a business two years earlier and had multiple commitments and contracts ahead of us. That meeting was the first time in my Christian life that I felt like every man in the church had the same doctrine, convictions and standards that we had as a family.
We returned home and went back to work while being faithful to our church. During this time we heard of and saw several independent Fundamental Baptist churches close. After seeing this God burdened our hearts to take action but, how? How can we help these churches? We were still searching for answers and God's will for our lives. While listening to a pastor teach Sunday school he proclaimed "stop dreaming and do!" I felt like the Lord was speaking directly to me through him. As he continued he read several verses in Romans 15 but one verse resonated with me.
Romans 15:27 It hath pleased them verily; and their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things.
I kept this in and waited until I was alone with my wife. I excitedly showed her the verse. "Do you see it?" I exclaimed. She heard the same verse read in church but did not see what I saw until she heard me read it again. Her eyes got very wide as she thought about the verse. God was calling us into full time ministry! This verse put into words what we wanted to do. "For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things." We are not only to minister in spiritual things, but to minister to others in the practical things of this life too! There are so many needed things that must be done to start, build, strengthen and establish churches. God gave the great commission to the church. Helping in ministry through the local church is the great commission.
As time went on we discussed ministry and the practicality of actually being in ministry full time. I only had one thought. Who am I that God could use me? I felt like I would literally be mocked for even suggesting that I could be a missionary. That night we went to church and the pastor preached, Who does God use? The answer was the foolish, the weak, the base and despised. Once again, it was like God was speaking directly to me. I told the pastor that he must have heard me ask these questions only a few hours ago. The Lord had given me the answer to my questions and was leading us to serve fulltime in the ministry of helps.
After much prayer, God brought to our mind someone that we had met 12 years earlier. This man was a missionary as a helps ministry. The conversations that we had with him back then stuck with us and we knew we had his prayer card. After locating the prayer card, I followed the link to his supporting church. He was still listed as a missionary sent out from their church but was now pastoring a small church plant not far from his sending church. I knew that I needed to meet him again and talk to him. As we started planning how we could make this happen; we saw a flyer posted to the church website for a national church planters conference to take place in a few short weeks. This was the perfect opportunity to learn more about the need for church planting and make a connection with the missionary again. We started praying about going to the conference. We did a preliminary search for a place to stay and were very dismayed at the price of lodging. We continued praying about this trip. After speaking with our pastor on a Wednesday night we were convinced that we needed to be there. We prayed one last time and went to the internet to search for a house to rent. Renting a home was the most economical way that we could travel as a family. A home on 26 acres and only a few miles from the church popped up on our map. It was so inexpensive that we thought there must be a mistake. It was less than half the price of all other options and was in our price range. We learned that the house had never been rented before and she was offering the first three renters a half price deal. We became her first renters and spent the Sunday before the conference at the church.
During the conference we heard of the dire need of Independent Baptist churches in America. The church planter went on to say that churches need to be reproducing churches. The problem is that a lot of times the pastor cannot see the forest for the trees. They are so worried about their church that every ministry happens in the church. The ones busy doing God's work in the church are the ones that God will call to full time ministry. This is where pastors struggle sometimes, because they do not want their workers to leave.
We met and were counseled by many wonderful Christian men during those days. We came home with a resolve to make ourselves available to the Lord and the calling that he has placed on our lives. I made a sign that hung on our fridge that read: Simplify & untangle ourselves from this present world! We made a plan to finish our current contracts and begin dismantling our business. We attended a Revival at our church. The Evangelist made this statement "our greatest ability for God is availability"! Another evangelist that I was listening to said this "God is not short in land or money. He needs men!"
We are available for the work of our Lord and Savior. We are Doers of the Work Ministry.
Our New Prayer Card!
