On October 14, 1991, Gara Starks, chairman of the Missions Committee of the Executive Council of the SBCMC, wrote to then President of the FMB, Dr. Keith Parks, saying, "The Executive Council of the SBCMC has the desire for our churches to be more involved in ‘personalized interaction with our foreign missionaries, particularly music missionaries." I was contacted by the Board and on January 17, 1992, was officially designated by the SBCMC Executive Council as their Ad Hoc Missions Consultant. I had the wonderful privilege of serving on the Council for 10 years, although the title later became "Music Missions Liaison," with voting privileges.

At that time (1992), the FMB had 98 music missionaries. By June, 1996, there were 127 music missionaries serving in 43 countries. In my report to the Executive Council that year, I said, "Since we were appointed 40 years ago, hundreds of other church musicians have used their talents in mission fields around the world:

l. They have taught music in small Bible schools and seminaries.

2. They have promoted music on local, state, regional and national levels.

3. They have been involved in publications and recording ministries.

4. They have written music.

5. They have helped set up music programs in local churches.

No matter what phase of the work in which they are involved, they have used their musical abilities to win lost people and to strengthen the local church."

During the 10 years that I served as the Music Missions Liaison, the SBCMC did many things to serve the music missionaries and to tie them to the local church:

l. Free membership was given to all music missionaries.

2. The Annual Journal and Proceedings were sent to the fields where they served.

3. A letter was sent out following the annual conference, informing the missionaries of the program and its personalities.

4. Furloughing missionaries were invited to participate and give testimonies at the annual conference.

5. The Council was provided with updated lists of names and addresses and furlough plans of not only all music missionaries, but of missionaries in another area of service who used music as one of their main tools of work.

6. State music directors were given furlough dates and addresses and encouraged to use missionaries in related activities while they were on furlough.

7. In 1994 all of our music missionaries had been adopted by a local church or local choir.  In this program they were encouraged to use creative ways to be involved with the missionary, his work and his family.

8. Opportunities for volunteers to participate in music projects around the world were presented to our churches.

I would like to say a word of gratitude to the FMB (now IMB). During these years, they have been very supportive of this relationship with the SBCMC. They have paid for the expenses of the Music Missions Liaison at the annual conference; they have supplied and paid for the expenses of the music missionaries on the program and have sent an "events person" and material for an exhibit booth at the annual conference.

Unfortunately, in these recent years, because of major strategy changes at the IMB, fewer and fewer opportunities have been put before the many dedicated church musicians of our convention for service on the foreign fields. In our emphasis on church planting, a very proper emphasis in these troubled days, sadly we have forgotten the important role that music plays.

Billy Graham, in the book How Sweet the Sound (XIII and XIV), says, "Songs can touch and open the heart to hear God, when sermons and preaching may fall on deaf ears.   In our crusades, it is often the singing that God uses to prepare the heart to hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Cliff Barrows, in the same book (83), says, "You can communicate spiritual truths through music in ways that will be remembered."

Bill Fasig, team organist for Billy Graham crusades, says in the same book (219) that "God uses music to open the heart, and the Word of God to fill it."

Dr. Stanley Moore, former music missionary to Brazil, said in the book, Missiology (571), "Music is a powerful means to communicate the Gospel—one ordained in Scripture and practiced by the church throughout the ages. Though music remains one of the most effective tools of communication, too many limit the role of music to its use in worship and too few realize the potential of music to evangelize the lost and nurture the soul."

I could fill pages of experiences showing the power of music, but just let me mention a few:

• A music-evangelism team from SWBTS went to Zambia in 1954. They presented 45 concerts in 30 days and 676 people accepted Christ for the first time.
• Charla Hallock Greenhaw has seen hundreds of prisoners saved and baptized as a result of a Bible Study that began as a male choir. She also saw many street children of Recife, Brazil, saved as a result of a choir that she started.
• Bill O'Brien, when he served as a music missionary in Indonesia, led a choir concert and 56 people made professions of faith.
• A church choir and handbell choir from FBC, Mineral Wells, Texas, sang and played through the streets of Caceres, a strong Catholic city in Spain, and then to a standing room only crowd at "The Church of the Precious Blood". They presented the gospel in concert. Music had been used to break down barriers and helped Spanish Baptists enter that city with the preaching of God's Word.

Space doesn't permit the telling of the hundreds of similar experiences of music missionaries in every part of the world.

In spite of all these evidences of the power of music in the work of evangelism and church planting, opportunities for dedicated church musicians who have a call to missions have constantly dwindled in recent years. Not only have these opportunities come almost to a halt, but many who have served as music missionaries have had their job descriptions changed and have moved into administrative positions that have left them unable to exercise their main spiritual gift. Some of these, not feeling the fulfillment that they previously had, have returned to the States.

One, whose name I withhold for security reasons, and who has served as a music missionary in a mid-eastern country, told of how, when she was in the application process at the IMB in 1986, was asked the question whether she was a musician or a missionary. She replied, "Music is my means of sharing the love of Christ with those who desperately need Him." Though serving in an Islamic country that forbids the propagation of Christianity, through the use of music she found many ways to share publicly the Good News.

I am grateful that new strategies for reaching the world for Christ are constantly being developed. Our Southern Baptist IMB is still at the forefront of spreading the Gospel around the world, but at a time when other churches and parachurch agencies are sending musically trained missionaries in growing numbers around the world to spread the Gospel and disciple the nations (see Missions Frontiers, Bulletin of the U.S. Center for World Missions, Vol. 18, No. 5-8, May-August, 1996), the number that we are sending has dwindled considerably.

In closing, let me quote two more statements by Dr. Stanley Moore in his chapter "Strategies for Music in Missions" (570-571), in the excellent book Missiology-An Introduction to the Foundations, History and Strategies of World Missions, edited by John Mark Terry, Ebbie Smith and Justice Anderson:

"Mission field strategies need to incorporate more music missionaries in church growth and development.  Church planting teams that include music missionaries should be more the rule and less the exception. The music missionary's work can greatly enhance and complement the other missionary skills as the team seeks to develop mature congregations."

"Another suggestion for the future is to accelerate the use of volunteers in music missions. Volunteers can open doors that many missionaries and nationals cannot."

I thank God for the opportunities that I had during my 35 years as a missionary of our Board. My earnest prayer is that our mission strategists, led by God's Holy Spirit, may once again challenge Southern Baptist church musicians to use their talents to help fulfill the Great Commission.