Go, Send, or Disobey

These are John Piper's three behavior categories of Christians when it comes to missions: we can either go serve and take the gospel to Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8); we can support, encourage, pray for, and send others (Acts 13:1-3); or we can disobey the Great Commission entirely and so reject God's grace shown to us.

This past week the Lord has been heavily emphasizing missions in what He has been teaching me.  It started with hearing about Athens Launch a couple weeks ago, which is a mission-oriented community group that is being set up here for the upcoming school year.  Launch has several sites across the country, and now Athens will be added to that number.  The purpose of Launch is largely for networking and encouraging "go-ers" and mobilizers.  A go-er is just what it sounds like: they are the people typically identified as missionaries, who go overseas as laborers in the harvest.  Mobilizers are those who make people aware of the urgent need for missionaries in all six areas (learning, going, praying, sending, welcoming, and mobilizing) and who spur people on toward action for the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

Anyway, because I won't be doing Wesley leadership next year (God is leading me to start removing myself from the campus ministry setting and more into a church setting, so I plan to get more involved at Watkinsville First Baptist), it seemed like Launch was going to be what I'm supposed to do next year instead.  I was wrong.  Because of time conflicts with Redcoats, Launch is not for me.  But I like several of the ideas behind Launch, like the commitment to meeting with international students regularly, the desire for fellowship not only in a spiritual learning environment but also in a setting that fosters relationship building—specifically, sharing meals together with the intent of carrying that time over into Bible study time.  So I want to live out what Launch will be doing without officially being a part of Launch.

Enough about that.  Following the whole ordeal with Launch, I went to Perspectives this past Thursday, which drove home the idea of missions even deeper.  My friend Jessica had an idea that got us both really excited about the learning and mobilizing areas of missions, and that set the ball rolling for even more ideas.  In addition to that, Chris Fitzgerald, the missions director at Watkinsville, spoke at Perspectives and talked about the importance of having a solid home church that will wholeheartedly support missionaries so that they are not cut off from their church family while they are overseas.  Then Chris spoke again at church this morning, as well as a couple that will be moving to Boston to minister to college and university faculty.

All of this has culminated for me in the last couple days.  What I said earlier was exactly completely true: this didn't really start with Launch.  It started with me not going on a mission trip this year, which was a change for me because I've gone to Jamaica over spring break two out of my three years at UGA.  Instead, God called me to help send people on mission trips rather than actually going on one myself.  So I've been supporting people financially and in prayer this year, which has been an incredible opportunity to see how God uses the people I am investing in.  He also showed me how Moses was a mobilizer to Aaron, and because of other similarities I noticed when comparing my own life to the life of Moses, I took that to mean that I'm supposed to be a mobilizer too.  So the culmination of all of this came when my friend Shelby shared that she is still raising her last $700 of support for her trip to Southeast Asia through Adventures in Missions (http://www.adventures.org/give/donate.asp?giveto=partFund — choose Passport under Program, and donate to Shelby Burnam), and I wanted to give more, but God gave me a different idea.  After hearing Chris speak at Perspectives, the Lord hinted at the idea of setting up an organization, probably starting locally here in Athens but possibly expanding, that would connect go-ers with senders and pray-ers.  We hear a lot about people who are raising support to go on mission trips, but what if there was a group of people who know that their calling at this point in time is not to go but to send and pray, and that group was filled with a passion and desperation to support people going on mission trips?  What if people began to say, "I wish I knew someone that is going overseas that I could invest in through prayer, encouragement, and financial means"?  And what if there was someone that could connect those senders and prayers with the go-ers who are still raising support?  This idea is still in the formative stages, but I think this is where God is leading me in the relatively near future.

The last thing the Lord told me yesterday was on the issue of praying for missions.  I was reading The Complete Works of E.M. Bounds On Prayer, which I've been reading on and off since summer 2011, and conveniently, the chapter that I had left off on was on Prayer and Missions.  The point Bounds made in the chapter was that too often we give financially toward missions but we don't pray.  Missionary support without prayer is just like sending someone on a fully funded vacation or community service project.  What really sets missions apart is the prayer that goes into it.  So God challenged me with a challenge for all go-ers, prayers, and senders.  To the senders, pray!  Pray first before you donate.  And don't let it be just a one-time thing, when you pray for God to bless your donation, and then you give your money.  Really pray over an extended period of time.  For example, for a week-long mission trip, assuming the one going has given you advance notice, keep the trip in your prayers at least as long as the trip will last before you give any money toward it.  If you know for certain that you are supposed to give toward a trip before you pray about it, tell the person, "I'm going to give financially toward your trip, but I want to pray for you and your trip before I give you the money and send you off."  And to the go-ers, encourage your supporters to do this.  Rather than asking for money right off the bat, if it's early November and your trip is in March, ask your supporters to pray for the entire month of November before sending any money.  And when sending updates during the support raising period, remind your supporters to keep praying, an give them something to pray about rather than just giving financial progress reports.  Bounds states that too often we ask for money and assume that prayer will inherently be given along with the money.  But we need to start thinking the other way around: a spirit of prayer for missions will naturally give rise to a giving spirit.  So that's my challenge: In supporting missions, don't give money until you have actively prayed for the trip.  A lot of times our prayers regarding missions are confined to the shallow "Should I give, and if so, how much?" kind of prayers.  But we need to actually pray for missions, not simply about them.  And in seeking support, trust God to give you the money you need when you need it; instead, let your main request be for prayer.

Westboro Among Us

It's been a long time since I've written anything, but I've felt like I haven't been retaining much of what I've been learning since I stopped posting in my blog, so I figured what God showed me today was worth posting so that I would remember it and also because it needs to be shared.

I haven't been very consistent with attending church this year (I've partially justified it by my attendance and leadership position at Wesley, but I've genuinely missed being at an actual church rather than a campus ministry.  The last couple months I've also had several gigs that have interfered with me attending my usual church.  But today I finally got to go back, and I was taken aback by just how guarded and borderline critical it seemed, not of me but of other denominations and specific controversial preachers.  While I do agree with some of the points made and that the controversial statements of said preachers quite obviously contradicted my own understanding of biblical faith, I felt offended on behalf of the Church as a whole because of the attacks being made against individuals and their followers.

Maybe the criticism stood out to me just because I've been noticing my own tendency to be critical of the majority of Christians.  But regardless, I think the overall skeptical nature of this generation has become one of the biggest downfalls of the Church because it has caused us to turn against each other.  We put down the teachings and beliefs of other Christians just because we happen to not be learning the same thing at that point in time.  We question everything anyone says, and while I admit that we are told to test the spirits and not take everyone at their word, if straightforward skepticism becomes the identifying trait of Christians, then something is wrong.  The line of distinction between us and Westboro Baptist Church is starting to fade.  We boldly point out the faults of anyone who claims to be Christian but has even one differing opinion from our own, and we pronounce them condemned for it.  That may be a harsh way of putting it, but I believe it's true.

Now, I realize that this post is pretty ironic because I'm criticizing the Church's tendency to criticize the Church.  But I think it's time for us to focus less on the flaws of the whole Church and turn our examination inward to recognize and correct our own individual flaws.  As Alan, my high school small group leader said, part of what goes into fearing God is acknowledging how we have wronged Him throughout our lives so that the wrongs others do to us don't seem like that big of a deal in comparison; and it's time for us to start fearing God.  We need to be so repentant of our own sins that we can't help but be forgiving to others because of the forgiveness God has shown us.  We need to learn to love despite our disagreements.  I need to learn to love.  Of course, love does not condone views and actions that are clearly out of line with God's will, but it most definitely is not founded on criticism.

May we learn to be humble in our faith while remaining firmly rooted in the Truth.  May we learn to encourage others while not neglecting to promote the Truth and dismiss lies with gentleness and respect.  And may the Lord grant me the privilege of being the first to take my own advice and fall in line with His will, to love the Church as He does.


In keeping with seeking humility, I invite anyone who disagrees with me on any point to say so, as well as anyone who would like to comment or who would like me to elaborate.  This goes for this post as well as any past and future posts.