eNews | Fri 8th Nov '19
Pastor Andrew Owen
Dear eNews friends and church members,
Will you be a part of my Fantasy team?
I told the story in a recent message, of one of the most amazing rescue missions of all time. The mission to Entebbe.On Sunday, June 27th, 1976 Air France flight 139 from Israel to Paris was hijacked.250 passengers plus crew were flown by the hijackers to Entebbe Uganda, where the notorious Idi Amin was ruling as a dictator. 100 of the hostages on board were Israeli.The hijackers made desperate demands; 40 terrorists held in various countries were to be released, including members of the notorious Baader-Meinhof gang held in Germany.Israel was stuck between a rock and a hard place.The hostages were held 2,000 miles from home, what could they do?Shimon Perez was minister for defence at the time, and all the experts told him there was nothing that could be done, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin wanted to negotiate, seeing no other option.But a formidable story starts to unfold. After all the experts told Perez nothing could be done, he said,"If an expert tells you it can’t be done-find another expert."Perez argued with a team of advisors that we must launch a rescue mission.These people must be saved!He said, "we have to use our imagination no matter how crazy it seems."Then, doubt gave way to determination.When these military advisors told him after hours of deliberation that they, in fact, had no plans, Perez told them, "then I want to hear the plans you don’t have."These people must be saved!Mad unlikely schemes were considered, and again Perez said, "unlikely does not mean impossible."These people must be saved!Against the clock and overwhelming odds, Perez created what he called the Fantasy council. Military officers who imagined/dreamed/thought.Eventually, they came up with a far-fetched, outrageous unlikely to succeed plan.History tells us that the Israeli defence force flew 4 Hercules planes 2000 miles, on a daring rescue mission whilst Amin was out of the country. They went and found a limo just like his and pretended Idi Amin was arriving home.With the element of surprise, they quickly overran the Entebbe airport, and everyone was rescued barring 4 people who were unfortunately caught up in the crossfire, and 2 Israeli soldiers who died in the line of duty, including the brother of the now PM Benjamin Netanyahu.The drive and passion to rescue the lost overcame all personal comfort, cost or sense of inability.Whilst many in Israel were indifferent, and yet others felt powerless the cry:These people must be saved made a way.This is exactly where we are at, we are God’s fantasy team, sent on a mission to rescue those around us who are lost in the present, and lost without hope for eternity. It is time to win the lost at any cost.We have just opened our new Legacy Missionary fund - home and away. And the special giving for that fund continues in all our Glasgow locations this Sunday.We have been dreaming, like the fantasy council, that our world is within reach. We have set a goal of:- £1 Million raised for missionary causes- 10,000 people won at home in our towns and cities- 100,000 won away, in India, Africa and Asia. Places where we already have ‘boots on the ground’.We have never received an offering that size (yet!!). But the fund is open, active and already hard at work.It’s actually not that impossible a target.To date, we have seen over 900 decisions this year alone!T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) wrote and said this,“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”We are the new fantasy team, yet it’s no fantasy. God has already sent His Son to seek and to save those around us. He has sent us; He is with us.Our vision for the future should shape the agenda for the present.Will you be a part of that fantasy team with me?Will you invest with us? Believe with us? Pray with us? Stand with us? That £1million legacy missionary fund is within reach, and more importantly the harvest coming in because of it.We look forward to seeing you over the weekend,We love you guys,Andrew