As I write this, I’m sitting on an empty exit row on one of Deltas 319s at 30,000 feet above the planet flying home from an overseas mission project. I’ve made journeys like this one at least annually since 1997; and everytime I go, God does a new work in me that far exceeds any work He does through me.
So why are these projects so important to me, and why should they be important to every Jesus-follower? Very simply, short-term projects are more than trips. We take trips to the beach. We make a trip to the store. The nations wait, but trips will never change the world. Here’s why:
The nations are Jesus’ focus.
Jesus knew we were bent to be homebodies. He knew we would not naturally think of people we did not know or understand. He knew we would instinctively gravitate toward the familiar. So voila, the Great Commission where Jesus clearly called our disciple-making to be global in its focus, reaching beyond national borders, ethnic boundaries, or language barriers.
The nations wait from home.
As we plan a mission project, we recruit believers who want to make a difference. And so we get our shots, buy our hand-sanitizer, and secure our passport. After months of preparation, we board an airplane and arrive on the foreign mission field.
But as foreign as it may be to us, that city, that neighborhood, that village is someone else’s home. Most of the people I meet around the world are working hard to simply feed their families, maybe educate their kids, and make it through one more day. Not only do they live in profound poverty and in many cases, isolation, but their hearts are spiritually darkened to the gospel and the effects of lostness are real. This is no trip for them.
And when we walk away, buy our souvenirs, and check our luggage for the homebound flight, the sun will set on them again. But perhaps this sunset will be different than any other because the light of the gospel has come and penetrated darkness and Jesus has transformed hearts forever. That’s not a trip. That’s a gospel movement.
The nations awaken our consciences.
Everytime I take people with me to far away places, we are all overwhelmed by the spiritual and physical despair of the nations. God has favored America, and that favor helps us carry the gospel around the world.
But the comforts and ideology of the West often sear our consciences and dampen our compassion for people who are beyond us. So when we break out of our familiar environments, the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the vast need of others. We see the faces, we smell the poverty, we hear the stories, we touch the pain, and then God produces in us a love for others we have never known before. Trips don’t do that.
The nations simplify our lives.
The call of God, the mission of the church, the mandate for the every-day Jesus-follower has grown a bit complicated over the last 2000 years. We attend conferences, we read blogs, and we develop ways to brand slogans and statements that will motivate people to follow Jesus. And hopefully God uses some of these efforts.
But it just seems that simply obeying Jesus makes everything better. In only a few words, Jesus defined the scope of our life’s work in Matthew 28 giving us a clear mission to make disciples of every people group on the planet. As much as we attempt to baptize our activities and justify our behavior, much of our lives are consumed with priorities that are way outside of that mission.
So a disciple-making project to distant places reminds us of the everyday mission to develop growing, multiplying followers of Jesus in our own homes, neighborhoods, and cities. And if it doesn’t cause us to reevaluate our priorities and recalibrate our lives to join God’s global work, it was just another trip.
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