Michael Ireland of the Assist News Service stated that Coffey had been speaking to several hundred Baptists from Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. He quoted Coffey as saying :
"There is a service we are called to give in the same way Jesus shared the joys and sorrows of family life and became the healing hands of Galilee, touching blind eyes to make them see, [and] embracing lepers to make them clean."
Michael Ireland stated that David Coffey described the privileges one might relinquish as being associated with 'worship', 'missionary activity' and 'fine living'.
Coffey explained: "The hands that filled the oceans with water became the serving hands in the Upper Room," the BWA leader declared, and "The hands that flung stars into space became the working hands in the carpenter's shop."
As an Australian Baptist Minister of 32 years' standing, Mark Tronson took up this challenge and considered what these privileges might be.
He therefore made a short list of everyday tasks that 'might' normally be referred to as both privileges and family responsibilities, where Coffey cast his net.
• caring for and raising children – from babies through their formal education to adulthood;
• maintaining family relationships – including marital harmony, care of close and extended family;
• earning a living to support a family - including the purchase of major or necessary items such as car, home furniture, food, clothing;
• ensuring adequate respite and recreation for the family – including family holidays;
• maintaining the social networks necessary for healthy modern living – including entertainment, cultural and sporting activities, private times with family and friends.
M V Tronson affirms that these are the most precious and sacred privileges and responsibilities every Christian parents hold dear. Children and the family are the backbone of the Scriptures understanding of any society's well-being.
Baptist history illustrates, M V Tronson noted, that many a Christian man believing he was called of God, has taken this privileged message of responsibility to the far flung corners of the earth in order that the others would hear and respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
"Yes, they have put aside their privileges of living in comfortable surroundings in which they were accustomed, as the responsibility of their conviction far outweighed such considerations," M V Tronson stated.
To the bulk of western Christians who are in comfortable surroundings, David Coffey is making the point, not to become complacent about feeling good about yourself.
Rather to re-evaluate ascertain upon which wall you've placed your ladder. Are you relying on your 'life' privileges? Can you make an opportunity to get down and talk to those less fortunate and help a little better, and thus 'serve' more effectively.
To this end, M V Tronson says that each new generation the Lord calls His people 'out of their complacency', whereupon the Angels in the heavenlies 'call them blessed'."