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BOB WALDRON, Executive Director
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The Scottish author, Alistair MacLean, is famous for his fast-moving action novels. His book, Where Eagles Dare, is about Allied agents who staged a daring raid on an alpine fortress where Nazis held an American officer prisoner. Unknown to the Germans, the officer had full knowledge of the D-Day operations, so his rescue was crucial.
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Even more thrilling than MacLean’s novel is the story of the Highland Oaks Church of Christ in Dallas, who have accepted the daring challenge to help rescue Satan’s prisoners by becoming an Eagle Church for Asia.
In the world of birds, there are millions of sparrows but only a few eagles. Sparrows fly low to the ground and never venture far from home.
Eagles, on the other hand, soar to heights never dreamed of by sparrows, seeing vistas and horizons sparrows never see. And eagles possess strength like most sparrows only dream about. It is not that eagles are better than sparrows, just different. Both are needed.
Churches are a lot like sparrows or eagles. In missions we need innumerable sparrow churches to faithfully support missionaries and national workers. They play an indispensable role in world missions.
But we also need a few eagle churches—churches with vision and resolve to focus their resources on upper-tier issues that will point the way for sparrow churches and dramatically impact the world of missions.
Highland Oaks has become such a church for the world’s most populous region by accepting the oversight and financial support for our newly appointed facilitator for Asian church planting. In the months ahead Highland Oaks will develop a growing familiarity with Asia and partner with MRN to initiate a strategy for planting churches throughout the continent. This will provide both needed leadership for the Body of Christ and an Asian focus for many sparrow churches.
Iron Maiden, a British heavy metal band, wrote the song, “Where Eagles Dare,” long after the movie had splashed across the silver screen. The lyrics end with these words:
They dared to go where no one would try.
They chose to fly where eagles dare.
It is rare to discover a congregation that will take responsibility for evangelizing a whole city. Rarer still to find a church that would dream to reach a complete nation. But, thankfully, God has raised up in Highland Oaks a church that has chosen to fly where eagles dare by accepting the burden for an entire continent.
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