Tico Tuesday, March 9th

Thinking big

Yes, this is a ridiculously huge aguacate (avocado). Such are the delicious joys of living in tropical paradise. We also have overzised cantaloupe, a certain variety of monstrous limes, big mangos, etc. And you thought everything in the States was big! Ha ha ha!

But anyway, speaking of big, I have been continuing to work on my Perspectives class and was again reminded this week of the bigness of the remaining task-just how many thousands of people groups have never heard the name of Jesus, and how only 2.5% of the missionaries in the world are working to reach that quarter of the Earth's population. Pretty sobering. How big is our vision? How big is our faith? Further contemplations and pictures of large fruits on the blog!

First of all, I've become a lousy 2 posts a week blogger. My apologies.

Second of all, I'm running out of time to finish my Perspectives class, so I'm having to dedicate a lot of time to that. But oh is it worth it!! I'm currently learning about the historical perspective on missions. (Part 1 was the Biblical perspective). It's fascinating stuff. I wish I could go into all of it, but that would take too long. A lot of people have gone before us pioneering and mobilizing people for missions. We protestants (even though I'm Anglican I still consider myself a protestant. That might not be technically right, but let's not get fussy about that) have been slow on the uptake when it come to missions and evangelism. It wasn't until the 18^th century (a couple hundred years after the Reformation) when Mr. William Carey came along and turned on the light-showing that the Great Commission is indeed still applicable and wasn't just for the apostles. In the last 200 years we have indeed made up for our earlier laxity, but there is still much work to be done. It started in the coastlands, move to the inlands and now there are Christians in every country in the world. But Jesus didn't say that was the goal. The goal was every nation, every tongue, every people group. The Greek proves it, and we know that there are plenty of people groups within every country. Even within the US. Stingy old farts from New England aren't the same as prim Southern belles. And that's ok. God created diversity. Another wonderful, but important thing that Perspectives points out is that the Gospel is for every culture. It can't be chained to or dressed in only one. And there are a lot of difficulties when one tries to present the Gospel along with a culture. The Gospel must be proclaimed as pure Gospel. Human baggage only gets in the way and creates problems.

But anyway going back to what I mentioned in Tico Tuesday, it's true. 27% of the world today remains unevangelized and only 1 in 40 missionaries goes to an unevangelized place. Yes, I openly acknowledge that I am serving in a largely Christian country. God isn't calling all of us to go where none have gone before. But, we all need to be willing to do whatever He says and go wherever He leads.

The last section of the article I am drawing by stats from (by Jason Mandryk) asks the reader a few questions. What are your priorities? Are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to partner with those who pray, send, train and go? It is essential to note that this task of world evangelism is directed equally at every believer on the planet, not just the white English speaking ones. The majority of the church is no longer part of the Western world and we need to respect and work with our brothers and sisters in the global south. The last question is, will you pray? The guy who did this article also works with Operation World and their motto is “When man works, man works, but when man prays, God works.” I like that. And I believe it is true.

Over the last several years I have come to realize that BEING A CHRISTIAN IS NOT ABOUT BEING COMFORTABLE. I grow most when I am in tough situations, when I'm out of my comfort zone, when I don't know the people around me very well, when I have to do something I have never done before and don't really know how to do, when I don't have the greatest relationship with my boss, when I need to raise over $1000/month. Why? Because in these situations I HAVE to trust God. How much do I have to trust Him when I have a steady income and am surrounded by an amazing community of strong believers and have a great church? We were called to make disciples, not complacent bubbles. Community is VITAL to the Christian walk, I'm not downplaying that at all, but we need to be united in our community and have an outward and an upward focus. Inward focus only creates complacency and exclusivity-things which should NOT be characteristic of followers of Christ. Jesus wasn't like that, so we shouldn't be either. I think a lot of followers of Christ need a kick in the seat of the pants. If Jesus is who He said He is and who the Bible said He is, we'd better take Him seriously. Otherwise, what/who are we really living for?

(for further thoughts I recommend reading Philippians and taking the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement class put out by the US Center for World Mission)