Mission Possible
May 10, 2002Colossians 1:6 says, “All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing.” All of us suffer from tunnel vision to one degree or another. We lose sight of what God is doing outside “our Jerusalem.” This evotional will open your eyes so you can see what God is doing in “the uttermost parts of the earth.”
In Mark 16:15, Jesus said to his disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the good news.” The average person in AD 30 never ventured outside a 30 mile radius of their home! We need to put the Great Comission in historical context. Jesus issued his challenge fifteen hundred years before the age of exploration! His disciples accepted the challenge. Peter traveled to Italy. John went to Asia. James the son of Zebedee made it to Spain. Even “doubting” Thomas ended up in India. By AD 100, 2% of the world population claimed to be followers of Christ.
Fast forward 2,000 years. At the turn of the 21st century, 33% of the world population is Christian. Far and away, the 20th century was the church’s greatest century. According to George Otis, Jr., 70% of all evangelization has taken place since 1900.
In 1900, Korea didn’t have a single protestant church. A hundred years later, Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea is the world’s largest church with nearly a million members! And that’s only one church!
In 1900, there were only 10 million believers in all of Africa. At the turn of the 21st century there were 400 million. Every day, 20,000 Africans put their faith in Christ.
In 1900, there were 62 million Latin American Christians. In 2000 there were 571 million. For what it’s worth, more Christians speak Spanish than any other language!
For forty years, the church in China went underground. It was a capital crime to be Christian. When the country opened back up, no one knew what to expect. On October 22, 1992, the South China Morning Post cited the state’s statistical bureau which stated that the Chinese Protestant church numbered 63 million! Every day, 28,000 Chinese put their faith in Christ.
In 1967, Albania declared itself the first atheistic nation in the world. They closed every church in the country. Those who failed to comply were sealed alive in barrels and thrown into the Adriatic Sea. In 1992, Radio Tirana, the station that was used to broadcast the government’s propaganda started broadcasting three hours of Christian programming to 100 million people! In 1993, the annual growth rate of the protestant church in Albania hit 37%. Not bad for an atheistic nation!
By the most conservative estimates, 70,000 people put their faith in Christ every day! In reality, the number is probably closer to 100,000! Luke 15:10 says, “There is rejoicing in Heaven over one sinner who repents.” The celebration never stops! There are only 86,400 seconds in a day. Someone somewhere is saved every second.
All over the world the gospel is bearing fruit and growing, but the comission continues. That’s where we come into play. We have two opportunities: we get to go and/or we get to give.
Going
In 1260 AD, Kublai Khan asked the father of Marco Polo to send 100 Christian missionaries to share the gospel with the Chinese people. His request was never granted. The missionaries turned back when they ran into high mountains and harsh conditions.
There is a branch of history called counterfactual theory. It asks the “what if” questions. What if those 100 missionaries had made it to China and shared the gospel with them? How would that have changed the course of China’s history? We don’t know the answer to that question, but we do know that when we don’t go there are opportunity costs.
Jesus said, “Go.” That’s where missions starts: someone who’s willing to go. Around the turn of the 20th century, a group of missionaries became known as “one-way” missionaries. When they departed for the mission field they packed all of their belongings into a coffin and bought one-way tickets because they knew they’d never return home. A.W. Milne was one of them. He felt called to a tribe of headhunters in the New Hebrides. All the other missionaries to this tribe had been martyred, but Milne found favor. He lived among the tribe for 35 years and never returned home. The tribe buried him and wrote the following words on his tombstone, “When he came there was no light. When he left there was no darkness.”
One of the most amazing missionary movements was inspired by the Moravian’s 100 year prayer meeting. Their prayers were answered in thousands of missionaries going to the mission field. Some of them even sold themselves as slaves in order to reach the far ends of the earth. Missions starts with the willingness to go.
Giving
In 1905, John Mott said, “We have a choice in America. We can give from our abundance and make an investment by sending 1,000 missionaries to Japan, or within fifty years we will be forced to send 200,000 of our boys with guns and bayonets.” America sent fewer than a dozen missionaries to Japan and thirty-six years later, the US sent a million young men and they took guns, bayonets, and the atomic bomb. Just as there are opportunity costs when we don’t “go,” there are opportunity costs when we don’t give. We can’t afford to not give!
NCC currently supports forty ministries and missionaries in Washington, DC and around the world. From an orphanage in Egypt to a seminary in Russia, from medical missionaries in Asia to church planters in India, from a campus ministry in Tokyo, Japan to children’s ministries in Latin America, from a Christ-centered drug rehab center in Jamaica to riverboat pastors in the Philippines, our investment in missions is bearing fruit and growing. The sun never sets on our missionary family!
But we can’t afford to stop giving. One of NCC’s three-year goals is to give $300,000 to missions. That is the only number goal we have! We don’t set attendance goals. We don’t set income goals. The only number goal we have is how much we can give.
The Acts Experiment
Acts 4:32-35 says, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostle’s feet and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”
Here’s a “crazy” thought. What if we did this? What if every NCCer sold something and gave the money to missions?
James 1:22 says, “Don’t be hearers of the word only. Be doers of the word.” The word “hearer” is where we get our word “audit.” Think of it in academic terms. All an auditor does is “listen.” They don’t get any credit because they don’t do any work. James is saying, “Don’t audit Scripture.” Our greatest need is not knowing more! We just need to do what we know. If we put into practice everything we know, we’d turn the world upside down.
One of NCC’s buzzwords is “experiment.” Our next experiment is an Acts experiment. We’re going to do what the early church did. It’s as simple as this: sell something and give the money to missions! It doesn’t matter what you sell. Sell some stock. Sell a secondhand car or computer. Sell something you made. Sell something you bought. It doesn’t matter how you sell it. Sell it online. Sell in a yard sale. Sell it on the road show. Sell it in the classifieds. Sell it in a pawnshop. Sell it to a friend or sell it to a stranger. It doesn’t matter how or what you sell. Just sell it! And give the money to missions.
Why not just give it? It’s a lot easier to just write a check. But that’s the problem. We write a check and never give it a second thought. It’s too easy. Don’t get me wrong--keep writing checks! But the “Acts Experiment” is about selling something and giving the money to missions.
Have you ever thought about how the Jewish farmer got his tithe of grain to the storehouse? There’s a big difference between writing a check for a few hundred bucks and getting a few hundreds pounds of grain to the storehouse, especially in the pre-automotive era. Old Testament offerings weren’t easy! It was time consuming. It was back breaking. Part of the offering was just getting it there! Offerings weren’t mean to be “easy.”
I realize we’re taking a risk. This experiment hinges on your willingness to talk and think and pray about it. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take because our giving needs to be more thoughtful and prayerful. Glenn Droomgoole says, “Maybe we should look at our meager resources as minifoundations.” I want us to approach this experiment like trustees of a foundation. The truth is that we are trustees of everything God has given us
The early believers had the right mindset. Acts 4:32 says, “No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything.” We need to be reminded that we don’t own anything! Everything belongs to God. God is ownership. We are management.
It is tough for 21st century Americans to understand the 1st century Jewish mindset. We have deeds and contracts and certificates and patents and copyrights and receipts. All of those things prove ownership. But I Corinthians 6:19 says, “You are not your own.” You don’t even belong to you! When you put your faith in Christ there is a transfer of title. You sign over the deed to your life. Denny Bellesi says it involves “consciously transferring the title on everything you consider yours so that it now becomes His. It’s a subtle shift, but a profound one. No longer is it “my” house or “my” car or “my” money or “my” stuff…it all belongs to Him.” Os Guiness says, “Behind everything is the ruling principle that God, as Creator, owns absolutely everything. We humans are always and only stewards.”
A few years ago I was visiting one of our community groups and we broke off into smaller prayer circles to share needs. One of the guys in the group said he needed a computer for the ministry he was working with. I started praying that God would provide and God interrupted me! It was one of those moments when I heard what I call “the inaudible, but unmistakable voice of God.” He said, “Why are you asking me?” Here I am praying that God would provide and the truth is that I had an extra computer that I wasn’t using! I think sometimes we ask God to do something that He wants us to do ourselves! Don’t take this too far, but sometimes prayer is a cop out. We don’t want to do something so we ask God to do it for us. I think we can answer many, if not most, of the prayers we pray. We just need to quit auditing and start experimenting. One of NCC’s core values is work like it depends on you and pray like it depends on God. We need to do both/and.
Acts 4:35 says, “From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it all at the apostles feet.” Let’s not “audit” Acts. Let’s not just talk about missions or pray about missions. Let’s do missions.