Two months ago today I came back from a missions trip. That trip rocked my world. To quote from Kisses from Katie, "In the beginning, I would have described it as God turning my world upside down, but now I know that He was actually turning it right side up!" My world was turned right side up. Today I wanted to share a small part of what I learned about world missions.
Most Christians consider missions to be just one thing the church does – have a church picnic twice a year, do a VBS, give money to the missionary. They would say there is missions because there is the Church; but I'd like to suggest that maybe it'd be more correct to say there is the Church because there is missions. If God didn't want us to reach the nations, why wouldn't we all go straight to Heaven after becoming Christians?
With that in mind, I'd like to address one of the main objections Christians have to going overseas to be a missionary (certainly one I would have said before going on this trip).
I would have said, "There are needs at home; there are hungry, poor people in America and my grandma and some close friends aren't Christians. I need to stay here to reach and care for those people."
It it so true that there are needy people here. I do not in any way want to discount that. It is one of the duties of the church to care for the widow and the orphan and the hungry people, and it is a tragedy when that doesn't happen and little girls go to be hungry even here in rich America.
But the simple fact of the matter is that there is no church in Guinea-Bissau (that's a country, in case you've never heard of it). Who will care for the hungry and orphaned people there? Who will speak of Christ and love to the grandmas and best friends there who've never heard of Jesus ever and may not have even a single verse of the Bible in their language?
Revelation 7:9 says that in Heaven there will be people worshiping God from "every nation, tribe, people and language". There is no Bible at all in the Kulisusu language. The task isn't finished, because there are not yet people worshiping him in Kulisusu and Kanembu and Mandar.
Your grandparents or your aunt or your best friend aren't one tiny bit less important than the Guinea-Bissau people. God wants them to come to know him every bit as much as he wants the hearts of the Kulisusu and Kanembu and Mandar people, every bit. He doesn't love them any less. But the point is that there are literally no Christians among the Kanembu. There is no one to show them God's love, and today, today, literally millions of people are living and dying without any bit of true hope. Isn't that the greatest tragedy? There are 6, 974 unreached people groups (clarify, a reached people group is one that has the resources for the people to become Christians even if they aren't all Christian, and an unreached people group is one that is less than 2% Christian and usually has very little Christian resources available in their languages). There are 2.1 billion Christians on this earth. 600 churches for everyone one unreached people group. 600!! What if every church sent 5 missionaries? That'd be 30,000 missionaries for one people group! Granted, some people groups are huge - billions - and might need more than 30,000 missionaries. Well, some churches are huge - and some are small. The point is not the numbers but that every Christian is called to be involved in world missions, even if not every Christian goes. But don't let "there are needs at home" or "someone else will go" be your excuse to not go. How do you know that anyone else will go? The harvest is plentiful but the workers are indeed few. The time to serve God is now.
Most Christians consider missions to be just one thing the church does – have a church picnic twice a year, do a VBS, give money to the missionary. They would say there is missions because there is the Church; but I'd like to suggest that maybe it'd be more correct to say there is the Church because there is missions. If God didn't want us to reach the nations, why wouldn't we all go straight to Heaven after becoming Christians?
With that in mind, I'd like to address one of the main objections Christians have to going overseas to be a missionary (certainly one I would have said before going on this trip).
I would have said, "There are needs at home; there are hungry, poor people in America and my grandma and some close friends aren't Christians. I need to stay here to reach and care for those people."
It it so true that there are needy people here. I do not in any way want to discount that. It is one of the duties of the church to care for the widow and the orphan and the hungry people, and it is a tragedy when that doesn't happen and little girls go to be hungry even here in rich America.
But the simple fact of the matter is that there is no church in Guinea-Bissau (that's a country, in case you've never heard of it). Who will care for the hungry and orphaned people there? Who will speak of Christ and love to the grandmas and best friends there who've never heard of Jesus ever and may not have even a single verse of the Bible in their language?
Revelation 7:9 says that in Heaven there will be people worshiping God from "every nation, tribe, people and language". There is no Bible at all in the Kulisusu language. The task isn't finished, because there are not yet people worshiping him in Kulisusu and Kanembu and Mandar.
Your grandparents or your aunt or your best friend aren't one tiny bit less important than the Guinea-Bissau people. God wants them to come to know him every bit as much as he wants the hearts of the Kulisusu and Kanembu and Mandar people, every bit. He doesn't love them any less. But the point is that there are literally no Christians among the Kanembu. There is no one to show them God's love, and today, today, literally millions of people are living and dying without any bit of true hope. Isn't that the greatest tragedy? There are 6, 974 unreached people groups (clarify, a reached people group is one that has the resources for the people to become Christians even if they aren't all Christian, and an unreached people group is one that is less than 2% Christian and usually has very little Christian resources available in their languages). There are 2.1 billion Christians on this earth. 600 churches for everyone one unreached people group. 600!! What if every church sent 5 missionaries? That'd be 30,000 missionaries for one people group! Granted, some people groups are huge - billions - and might need more than 30,000 missionaries. Well, some churches are huge - and some are small. The point is not the numbers but that every Christian is called to be involved in world missions, even if not every Christian goes. But don't let "there are needs at home" or "someone else will go" be your excuse to not go. How do you know that anyone else will go? The harvest is plentiful but the workers are indeed few. The time to serve God is now.
I love your heart.
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