In Memory of Lovell Cary

Nothing to Win but the World

• Lovell R. Cary, 83, veteran missionary and church leader, completed his earthly assignment last night, February 27, and was translated to an eternal home.
• Dr. Cary accepted his first appointment to missions in 1954, and went to Hawaii.  In 1959, he moved to the Philippines.  He later served as Field Director of Asia Pacific for 20 years and as Assistant Director (8) and General Director (8) of World Missions.  Since 2004, he has served as a Missionary Evangelist.  He also served eight years on the International Executive Council.
• He has introduced Christ to thousands, and his Christian life and global passion have impacted the world.  He was known as an effective preacher of the Gospel and as "Mr. Missions."  His biography, Nothing to Win but the World, sums up his life as a missionary statesman.
• Lovell and Ginny were married for 65 years.  They have two daughters - Sharon and Susie - three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.  Sister Cary has shared his call, commitment, and ministry.Please remember them in your prayers and thoughts.  Funeral arrangements are yet to be determined

.In Memory of Lovell Cary

• In 1946, Lovell and Virginia Cary embarked on a lifetime journey of missionary service destined to influence hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and at the same time significantly impact the world missions ministry of an entire Pentecostal denomination. From the United States to the territory of Hawaii in 1954, from Hawaii to the Philippines in 1959, from the Philippines to the entire Asia Pacific Region in 1967, and to continents and countries beyond, the Carys have carried the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. 

Their journey has been one of unimaginable challenges and untold sacrifices. It has also been a journey of incomprehensible fulfillment and the miraculous manifestation of God’s amazing grace and power. Unquestionably, they have done their part, and they have done it well. 
Surely, heaven is rejoicing as they welcome a faithful servant of the gospel, Lovell Cary.

In 1946, Lovell and Virginia Cary embarked on a lifetime journey of missionary service destined to influence hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and at the same time significantly impact the world missions ministry of an entire Pentecostal denomination. From the United States to the territory of Hawaii in 1954, from Hawaii to the Philippines in 1959, from the Philippines to the entire Asia Pacific Region in 1967, and to continents and countries beyond, the Carys have carried the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. 

Their journey has been one of unimaginable challenges and untold sacrifices. It has also been a journey of incomprehensible fulfillment and the miraculous manifestation of God’s amazing grace and power. Unquestionably, they have done their part, and they have done it well. 

Surely, heaven is rejoicing as they welcome a faithful servant of the gospel, Lovell Cary.

Cary receives Spirit of Azusa Award

10.15.10 - 10:46 am

Dr. Lovell R. Cary received the Spirit of Azusa Award Tuesday evening as part of the fifth annual Azusa Lecture at the North Cleveland Church of God. The award is given each year to honor a person whose life and ministry reflects the legacy of what is one of the best-known revivals in Christian history. 

A reception in honor of Dr. Cary followed the award presentation. Dr. David Roebuck, director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center, and the Rev. Billy Wilson, director of the International Center for Spiritual Renewal, made the award presentation.

Lovell R. Cary was born in Logan, W.Va., and his early ministry was as an evangelist and pastor in West Virginia and Florida. He and his wife, Virginia, began their missionary service in 1954 in Hawaii, which was not yet a state. The Church of God appointed him as overseer of the Philippians in 1959, and superintendent of the Far East in 1967. In 1984 Cary was elevated to assistant general director of World Missions and four years later to general director of the department. 

Tenure limitations led to a change in 1992, but Cary was returned to the office again in 2000, making him the first person to serve as general director on two different occasions. He served for a total of 16 years as assistant director or general director of the department. 

Dr. Bill George, in his recently released book, “Until All Have Heard: The Centennial History of Church of God World Missions,” writes that Cary’s “long tenure in the field and as a missions executive earned him the appellation of ‘Mr. Missions’ in many quarters of the Church.” George stated that Cary brought innovation to the World Missions department that greatly expanded the number of missionaries.

And during his time as general director the Church of God entered 25 new fields. Although tenure limitations forced another change in their lives in 2004, Cary and Virginia continue to travel widely as missionary evangelists. A biography titled “Nothing to Win but the World” will be released later this month.

According to Roebuck, the Spirit of Azusa Award is given each year to honor a person who represents the ongoing revival that began in Los Angeles in 1906. He noted, “Among the characteristics of the revival at the Azusa Street Mission was an emphasis on Pentecost, a hunger and expectation for revival in the last days, and a sense of global mission. 

Participants fully expected God to repeat the Acts 2 Pentecostal outpouring in their day. But the revival was not just a feel-good meeting. Lives and destinies changed. Countless numbers of people looked upon the harvest field and responded, ‘Here am I Lord, send me.’ They went to countries they had only heard about. Believing the Lord would return soon, they often went without expecting to return home. Historian Vinson Synan called them ‘missionaries of the one way ticket.’ Today many scholars believe that the Pentecostal movement has been the greatest missionary movement in the history of Christianity.” In making the presentation Roebuck noted, “Although there are many missionaries worthy of honor, we have chosen Dr. Cary for his missionary zeal, dedication, and sacrificial obedience to Jesus’ Great Commission to ‘go into all the world.’” 

The Azusa Lecture and Spirit of Azusa Award were in established in 2006 on the occasion of the centennial of the Los Angeles revival.

The Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and the International Center for Spiritual Renewal present the award each year. North Cleveland Church of God hosts the lecture, and the Church of God World Missions Department supported this year’s event, which celebrated the centennial of the denomination’s world missions ministry.

Historically a Missions-Minded Body, the Church Of God Still Gathers the Worldwide Harvest

By Lovell R. Cary, General Director of the Church of God World Missions Department

FROM THE TIME our first missionaries sailed from the shores of America, global evangelization has been a primary focus for the Church of God. World Missions is still focused on that global harvest. More than 1,800 souls are added to the kingdom of God daily through the witness of national workers, missionaries and laity. Yet the task looms large.

Reaping the Harvest

Reaching this harvest demands urgency on our part. All of us must labor faithfully together if we are to reach every nation and people group with the gospel before Christ returns for His church. Recent world events confirm that the end-time harvest must be brought in before it is lost. For this General Assembly period, World Missions has set a goal of 1.5 million souls saved with 1 million of those added to the membership of the Church of God. Stories reach us daily of God's move. In a recent e-mail, missionary Tommy Smith in Indonesia wrote: The nearly 15,000-member Church o f God in Medan has 23 Sunday services in this city of 3 million people (Indonesia's third largest city). Five of them are in a seven-floor mall. The church uses floor six, which seats about 3,000, for worship and floor seven as a prayer center in the Medan Plaza Mall. Four services are also held in the Lake Toba International Hotel ballroom; and two special services, conducted in the Mandarin Chinese language, not Bahasa Indonesia, are held at other locations. The miracle is that the Medan Plaza Mall was about to go out o f business. Stores were closing down and moving out. But after the church moved in, life was given back to this mall and people started to shop here again. Rental rates for shops in this mall have now increased to four times what they were prior to the churches moving in. It reminds us o f the story o f Joseph; wherever he went, God was with him, and others were blessed because of it. The Medan Plaza Mall was blessed because the David's Tabernacle-Bethel Church o f God congregation moved into the building.

Training Laborers

Where we have trained our national leaders, the Church of God flourishes and souls are saved every day. Tommy Smith's story confirms the effectiveness of the Bethel Theological Seminary in Jakarta, Indonesia, where hundreds of pastors have been trained. These pastors in turn mobilize their laity to reach the harvest. This mobilization has now grown to nearly 3 million Church of God members. We have 107 schools and training ministries around the world preparing more than 21,233 workers for the harvest. Our national leaders, missionaries and laity in 161 countries outside the United States and Canada have a passion for global evangelization. Daily they touch millions of lives spiritually and physically through the gospel and life enhancing humanitarian outreaches.

A Part to Play

Every Church of God congregation here in America is also a vital part of reaching the global harvest. Through prayer, financial support and personal involvement, each one impacts the harvest. Stateside churches and individuals have made possible the Eurasian Theological Seminary in Moscow, the Asian Center for Christian Ministries in Manila, and churches in the Ukraine and India, to name just a few. The building for the Eurasian Theological Seminary in Moscow is now complete and equipped. Dozens of students are trained in this new facility to reach the expanding harvest across the former Eastern European and Soviet Union nations. From 16 nations, 230 students gather at the Asian Seminary for Christian Ministries in Manila, preparing to reach the greatest harvest field of souls across Asia. China and a majority of the 10/40 nations, plus most of the unreached people groups of the - world, are located in Asia. Churches reaching their local harvest around the world are so numerous it would take several large books to describe them all. Two examples are the church of Pastor Alex Demidovich in the Ukraine and the church in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India. Pastor Alex Demidovich's vision of a thriving church in the city of Slavjansk in his native Ukraine, formerly controlled by the communists, has blossomed into a congregation numbering between 700 and 1,000 members. Their new church building not only houses a worship center and the Ukrainian national offices, it is also the site of a training ministry for reaching their local and national harvest. In the city of Mumbai, India, Overseer A. Mathai has his division offices in the new multistory youth center on the old site of the YWEA center in the city once known as Bombay. Within this building, a growing local congregation meets for worship and another of our 107 Bible schools trains workers for the harvest across India. God works around the world through dedicated, passionate individuals and congregations called and empowered to reap His harvest. Where do you fit in His plan of global evangelization?

“Dr. Grant McClung reminds us in  Globalbeliever.com  that

from the very first verse and chapter in Genesis to the last

chapter and verse in Revelation, world evangelization is at

the heart of God’s revelation of Himself and His Son. I urge

believers to read this book. It will broaden their vision and

increase their burden for the lost of this world, particularly

those in the 10/40 Window who have not yet heard the good

news that Jesus is both Savior and Lord.”

Lovell R. Cary

Church of God World Missions

Lovell and Jennie Cary

Lovell R. Cary was born in Logan, W.Virginia, and his early ministry was as an evangelist and pastor in West Virginia and Florida. He and his wife, Virginia, began their missionary service in 1954 in Hawaii, which was not yet a state. The Church of God appointed him as overseer of the Philippians in 1959, and superintendent of the Far East in 1967. In 1984 Cary was elevated to assistant general director of World Missions and four years later to general director of the department.

Tenure limitations led to a change in 1992, but Cary was returned to the office again in 2000, making him the first person to serve as general director on two different occasions. He served for a total of 16 years as assistant director or general director of the department.

Dr. Cary has given his life to the work of reaching the world, having served as a missionary in Asia/Pacific for over 32 years. As general director of World Missions for four separate terms (1988, 1990 and 2000, 2002), his combined years in World Missions culminated to more than 51 years of fulfilling the Great Commission. In recent years, he and his lovely wife, Ginny, evangelized in Asia, Africa, Mexico, Eastern and Western Europe, and anywhere else the call to share the Gospel might be propagated.

Lovell Cary remains true to his calling – a calling since 1944 that has produced many, many souls for the Kingdom of God. Let each one of us be true to the call to prayer for this beloved leader.