Why Not Here?
By Wayne Williams --
I’ve been taking the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course for the last few months. It’s an important part of becoming competent in my new role as Global Partners Director for our church. One of our beloved Global Partners told me I had to take it. I’m glad she insisted.
The course is about the spread of the story of Jesus (a.k.a., The Gospel) throughout the world, which we church people call Missions. It’s about the biblical theology of missions and the biblical mandate for global evangelism. We talked about a variety of mission strategies and about communication necessities. We looked at the history of missions from the early days of the church until now.
All that I have been learning has been good but, not surprisingly, the things that have impressed me or moved me the most found their way into my last couple of sermons. For example, the truth that our God is a missionary God and that 4000 years ago he declared to Abraham that he was on a mission to bless all the nations and families of the earth and that he intended to use Abraham’s descendants to distribute that blessing. “You will be a blessing” was a command, not a prediction! The apostle Paul said that we Christians are descendants of Abraham by faith. As such, his command to be a blessing becomes a powerful motivation for telling people about Jesus, who is the blessing, both globally and locally.
Another thing that has both impressed and moved me is the explosive growth of the Church in the last few decades. South America, Africa, and Asia have become the centers of world Christianity. The Chinese church, which is mostly underground, is expected to send out 50,000 missionaries in the next few years. The country where the Church is growing the fastest is Iran. Iran!
Around the world, it is estimated that almost 16,000,000 people are becoming followers of Jesus every year. This is the Age of the Harvest! Our Lord Jesus is now populating his kingdom with people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.
All of this leaves me with a troubling question, though: Why not here? Since the Holy Spirit is drawing large numbers of people to Jesus in other parts of the planet, why not in Portland, the Northwest, or the whole US for that matter? I’m sure there are many reasons we could identify, but there are two characteristics of “Jesus movements” that are not yet present in our church or town: extraordinary prayer and abundant evangelism.
Won’t you join me in asking Jesus, the Lord of the Harvest, to make these two characteristics become evident in our church and in his whole Church in the greater Portland area?
See you Sunday,
Wayne