| Mission and Ministry Experience |
in Wheaton, Illinois, was called by the Lord to be an evangelist in 1973 as a sophomore in Yale College, with several independent confirmations. As an undergraduate, Mr. White was a member of the Yale Standard, taking part in daily prayer meetings for the campus six days a week and Bible studies twice a week. He joined other believers as they produced The Yale Standard, a publication presenting stories on Yale’s Christian history, testimonies of undergraduates, and articles of evangelistic appeal. Issues were usually distributed twice a year to the entire campus. They also preached and sang once or twice a week in campus common rooms and in open spaces such as the Old Campus, often with significant opposition as there were few believers at Yale at the time. Various members of the Standard who sang and preached on campus in the 60's and 70's were mockingly called the “God Squad.” Over the years since, reports have come of alumni who first heard the Gospel through those efforts and who have since become believers in Jesus Christ. After withdrawing from Yale in 1973 for financial reasons, Mr. White was active in Bible studies at Yale for more than two decades and took part in a variety of outreaches to undergraduates. He also assisted with Bible studies at Columbia University, and was involved in weekly meetings at Princeton for four years in the late 70’s. His church, the New Testament Missionary Fellowship, held regular open-air outreaches in New York City at Columbia University, at major street crossings, and in many of the city's larger parks. Over the last decade, however, New York City has made holding such outreaches problematic, requiring police permits which can be difficult to obtain. Mr. White returned to Yale in 1985 with a full scholarship. He continued to be a member of the Yale Standard, but also joined the Yale Christian Fellowship and participated in various events with Yale Students for Christ. He and other undergraduates labored to get believers to work together on a campus where different groups of believers were often in competition. He became a member of YCF’s worship team, and joined Living Water, Yale’s Christian a cappella chorale. He continued to preach on and off campus with other students and with Living Water. After graduation in May 1987, Mr. White continued to be active with campus Bible studies for another decade. Beginning in 1995, he made the transition from leading Bible studies to being a guest speaker sponsored by the Yale Standard, InterVarsity, Campus Crusade, and various Chinese, Korean, and black student groups at Columbia University and at Yale. In April 1995, he spoke at Yale at a university-wide gathering of Christian students, graduate and undergraduate, as well as various faculty members, 200-300 present in all. Thereafter, he began to work more directly in evangelism, holding a series of campaigns at Columbia and Yale, in churches in Connecticut, and as a member of the ministry team at Manhattan Grace Tabernacle in New York. He has also spoken several times at the Lambs Theatre in Times Square, and in open-air Gospel street outreaches on 114th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in Flushing Meadow Park in Queens, and at the Bandshell in Central Park In early 2004, Roosevelt Muriel, the President of CEDECOL--the umbrella organization of the evangelical, Pentecostal, and charismatic churches of Colombia--visited Chris and Pilar White in their home in New York. He invited Mr. White to begin work as an evangelist in Colombia, beginning with ministry trips twice a year. Mr. White has spoken to churches in Bogotá, Cali, and Palmira, and has been on the radio and television in several cities. He has also held two evangelistic campaigns in Chia sponsored by that city's local churches. In March 2006, he spoke at the First Colombian National Congress of Evangelists in Bogotá on the theme The Passion of the Evangelist. Mr. White spoke in evangelistic campaigns in Chia and in Bogotá in January 2008, in Paipa, Tunja, and Chia in June and July, in San Andres Isla in November, and then in Piedecuesta, Bucaramanga and Socorro in January 2009. He will be holding campaigns in Chia, Ibague, and Cartagena between June and September of 2009. Mr. White’s chief burdens have been for New York City, for the Ivy League campuses, and for Latin America. His desire is to see genuine revival at a time when the Gospel of Jesus Christ is unfamiliar or misunderstood by far too many souls. He believes that revival will not come as the result of one person’s work or even the work of several independent workers. Revival comes when believers from various churches and backgrounds set aside personal agendas in order to work and pray together to build the Body of Christ, enabled by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. As Psalm 133:1 states, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” May the Lord grant us “seasons of refreshing” in this generation! |
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