About the Author Jenny Noyes
Jenny is the Executive Director of New Wineskins Missionary Network. She is a passionate speaker, networker, and evangelist. New Wineskins “exists to advance the Kingdom of God by mobilizing Anglicans for authentic, cross-cultural partnership around the world. Through online resources, partners, networks, prayer, and mission conferences, we facilitate collaboration and inspire mission engagement.” We are blessed to have Jenny, Director of the ACNA's hub for world missions, right here in our diocese!
Jenny shares God’s faithfulness and provision in her story that has led her to serve in missions!
When I was 11, my dad took me to church to hear from one of our supported missionaries serving in Africa. As this young woman shared her stories and her photos, I was mesmerized by her fearless faith, her adventurous lifestyle, and the impact her witness was having on bringing the gospel to Indigenous people far away from Mebane, NC! I decided I wanted to do that one day.
Lesson 1: Expose your kids to cross-cultural missions early. It makes a lasting impression!
Fast forward 20 years to when I was 31. My husband Larry was a diplomat with the State Department’s Foreign Service, and we lived in Mexico and England and had 3 kids in 4 years. When we returned for a state-side tour in the Washington, DC, area, we moved out to the suburbs of Fairfax County and found ourselves involved in planting a new Episcopal Church.
After a couple of years, I felt the call to join the church staff coordinating evangelism (Alpha courses), outreach, and mission. Then, in 1997, our founding pastor encouraged us to take a big team to the New Wineskins Global Mission Conference in Ridgecrest, NC. Attending that conference was a catalytic experience for our little church plant! It led to explosive growth through our collective missional passion to not only impact our community but also to start sending short-term mission teams and hosting international partners. I remember one summer, 50% of our congregation, about 100 folks, participated in 5 mission trips on 3 continents!
Lesson 2: Send a big team to the New Wineskins Conference this September 17-20 (still held at Ridgecrest), then watch how God will turn up the missional fervor of your congregation for His glory!
New Wineskins Conferences offer great mission equipping for adults, missional training for kids and youth, glorious multicultural worship, and divine appointments with people from all over the world. They are also famous for deep prayer opportunities that bring healing, transformation, and callings for ministry. I went forward for prayer after one of the plenary sessions one evening. What God did next, I never saw coming.
The Holy Spirit came upon me with such power that I began weeping uncontrollably. I could feel his liquid love for all peoples pouring into my heart. He was breaking my heart for the nations – for people from every nation, all tribes, peoples, and languages (Rev.7:9). The prayer minister proclaimed that the Lord was anointing me for missional leadership, and said that I would one day be helping people to discern their calling to missions, and equipping them to launch into mission fields all over the world.
Wow! That was the most powerful spiritual moment of my life, but we had to come down from the mountaintop and go back to our church, community, and family life. God had planted something deep in my soul, but it would be years before the complete fulfillment of that prophetic prayer would be realized.
Lesson 3: When we put ourselves in places surrounded by people eager to hear God’s voice and obey his Great Commission to go make disciples of all nations, he will keep his promise to be with us to the end of the age! But, it always involves trust, and usually involves waiting…
Fast forward another 20 years to when I was 51. We had spent 12 years in Virginia, 4 years in Pittsburgh, and had been back in my home state of North Carolina for 6 years when the Board of Trustees of New Wineskins Missionary Network began looking for a new Executive Director. I got a call out of the blue from an old friend, Clark Smith, who was leading the search committee. He asked if I would apply for the position. At first, I declined because fundraising for a non-profit is really hard, especially for a mission-mobilizing ministry, not a relief and development or sending agency. After much prayer, I felt led to say yes and enter the process.
The Lord ultimately confirmed to me and to the board that He had been preparing me for this job since he planted that first missional seed when I was 11. He had watered and pruned the seedlings cultivated in the years I spent serving on a local church plant’s staff, training leaders to run Alpha Courses, and planning outreach events. God had even orchestrated having me help coordinate the Hope and A Future Conference that drew 3,000 people to Pittsburgh in 2005 to stand on the unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ and His word as we launched what is now the Anglican Church in North America. Only He knew that I would be coordinating mission conferences for thousands of people one day!
Fast forward another 10 years to now. I am 61 and have the privilege of doing what God created me to do through a mission-equipping ministry that helped to create the very World Mission Sunday that we are celebrating as a province next week on February 23. I’m teaching the new Anglican Introduction to Missions that New Wineskins helped produce and that hundreds of Anglicans are now using in their churches. I’m planning the next New Wineskins Conference, Hope for the Nations. We are praying that it will attract 2,000 people from around the world who are willing to hear God’s voice, allow Him to break their hearts for the 3 billion unreached people on the planet, and be empowered to obey His call to go wherever He leads until all have heard!
Lesson 4: God loves you. He made you uniquely you, and has purposes for you that fit into His wonderful plan of salvation for all peoples. He won’t waste anything that has happened in your life if you let him redeem it. Open your ears to hear his voice, open your heart to obey his callings, and open your eyes to see the fields that are ripe for the harvest all around us.