With 10 days of ministry left on my year-long journey, one big thing comes to my mind that sums up a lot of my observations I’ve made regarding ministry.
We overcomplicate everything.
I’m not one to get into any sort of theological or Holy Spirit debates with anyone.
I also have no desire to debate moral issues like gay rights, Christians and alcohol, or keeping “Christ” in Christmas.
And I’m especially not one who wants to be known for or defined by what I stand against, but rather what I stand for.
And adding onto that, I don’t even want to be known what I stood for. But for what actions I actually took and what I did with the platform I stood on.
I don’t want to be a Christian who simply says “I am” but has no fruit on the tree.
The Bible even warns against being in such a complacent “idle” place and to have nothing to do with idle believers. (2 Thessalonians 3:6)
I want to be a man of action!
The World Race can be an exciting time to see new places, become immersed in different cultures, and meet extraordinary people who will forever change the way you feel about “ordinary” life.
And it doesn’t end with the World Race.
The World Race is only the beginning.
There are so many testimonies I’ve encountered in this past year and I want to reveal one misconception through this blog to encourage any fearful hearts out there.
In Cambodia, I taught a class at a seminary on Public Speaking and shared how public speaking ranks in the top 10 in the most common fears.
Personally, I’m all about speaking, preaching, and all that outreach business. Count me in!
On my race, I only had 1 month where we were able to actually preach…
Bummer…
Other teams had many opportunities of preaching and doing door to door ministry.
But even though we didn’t always get to be up in front of people, shouting the name of Jesus, and spent more time teaching English or teaching ABC’s and 123’s to children (which absolutely terrified me), we still preached Christ in indirect ways.
The love of God transcends human language.
This is something I did one of my first blogs on in the Philippines actually so it’s rather amusing this is coming around full circle.
My overall message is this:
YOU DON’T NEED TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL
Jesus has a clever way or showing himself through our lives whether we keep our mouths open or closed.
In the past year, I look back on a few moments which meant a lot to me and taught me what it means to do as Francis of Assisi says:
Preach the Gospel always and if necessary use words
Back in the December, before I left for the race, I spent a week in the Dominican Republic. One afternoon, we had just finished running our daily medical clinic in a village in the outskirts of the city, and decided to go skateboard in the town square.
We jumped down the stairs, entertained some passerbys, fell on our faces, and let a lot of the local kids roll around on their bellies on our boards for the next hour.
Super tired and beat, I made my way to a bench to catch a breather and met a man named Luis. Luis and I attempted to make conversation with each other in Spanish. I was able to tell him that I was there because of Jesus and asked him if he wanted prayer. He gladly accepted but I could feel there was something more pressing about why I had crossed paths with this man. Jesus didn’t just want me to give Him some lip service, but some hands-on service to his son, Luis.
I discovered it had been a while since Luis had anything to eat, so I gathered our team together as we ransacked through all our bags and collected an assortment of snacks and water for Luis. We handed them over which he received thankfully.
Then he said what I least expected to come next.
“I like your shirt”
“Thanks man, I like it too!”
I didn’t get it at first…
He was telling me he liked my shirt because he wanted my shirt.
Once the lightbulb went off and the thought registered, I glanced him over and noticed how ragged, torn, and dirty the shirt was on his own back.
“Well, my shirt is also very sweaty and dirty…are you sure you want it?” I attempted to say one last time on account of it being my favorite shirt I had.
He nodded.
So…
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
(Matthew 25:37-38 & 40)
I still can’t forget the look on Luis’ face from such a simple act. He followed us around until the moment we drove off, waving goodbye until we were out of sight.
I still wonder if he fully understood words I was attempting to tell him about Jesus. But what I DO know, is that he definitely understood the language of God’s love through the gift of clothes, food, and water.
And lastly: a tale from the race.
In Thailand, our team received an out of the box request to leave the rest of the squad for a few days to teach English to police academy students in a city two hours away.
Totally random.
This was the official Tourist Police Academy and not a Christian expedition on our end by any accounts.
During our time there, we had three incredible hosts who took us all over the place to experience the local side of Thailand that typical tourists or travelers do not get a chance to see.
P’Oie, P’Jimmy, and P’Lucky would take us on tours to all sorts of local Buddhist temples and share with us what exactly they represented and how they worshipped (all men being Buddhist of course).
We asked questions and respectfully listened to everything they had to share with us.
They never really asked us too many questions about our faith and Jesus wasn’t necessarily brought up much to be honest.
Our goal was to do life with these men, to be generous, to be servants, and to walk in such a manner that they may see Christ in us.
No joke, these men became like family to us.
Before we left Chiang Mai, we wanted to take our hosts out to dinner so we may honor them for a change. They flipped it AGAIN on us and decided to treat us to a night we would never forget.
After dining together at a traditional dinner theater, having a private police escort through the city to the police headquarters, visiting a temple on top of a mountain, and seeing the city from a rooftop party, our friends dropped us off at home for a goodbye I won’t soon forget.
As we said goodbye, P’Oie asked for something that’s permanently ingrained in my mind.
“Will you please pray for us? I can tell that the God you serve is powerful”
Again, we hardly mentioned our faith, in order to being sensitive and respectful in the context of where we were, and here he was asking for prayer.
He was asking to have what we have.
This was such a humbling moment and…crap I can’t even think of a better word except: amazing. Because this came out of seeing solely our personalities and how Christ came out of our actions and interactions with each other.
Since praying that night, it’s been incredible to keep in touch with these guys and you know what the coolest part is?
Hopping on Facebook and seeing posts from P’Oie about Jesus! And not only that, receiving messages from him, telling us how he is praying for us and wishes he could travel with us in order to share God’s love.
“Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:12)
Preaching the gospel may mean exactly that:
PREACHING
Preaching the gospel may mean not giving into the contradicting flow of culture around you respectfully.
It may mean standing up for what you know is right.
It may mean giving up your money for a cup of coffee to sponsor a child.
It may mean giving your extra food (or only food) to that homeless man on the street.
It could be holding a door open and smiling at that stranger.
It could be paying for the groceries of that single mom with the screaming children in line.
Or it may look like giving up your time to people who feel unworthy.
Such as men in prison in Malawi who I had the opportunity to spend an hour with every so often for Bible study. We shared a message with them, but the gospel was heavily reinforced by the most simple of acts:
Just being there.
This words always go with me from that time:
“People come to Africa to see Lake Malawi, to go to the Falls, or go on Safari. They can do many wonderful things they can’t do in America. You have all this time to do whatever you want, but you come here. You come to prisoners who have made wrong decisions and deserve consequences. You come to us and you make us feel important. Thank you.”
Don’t overcomplicate things.
It’s not about all the words you can or can’t say.
Sometimes all you need to do is be present.
But my challenge is this:
BE WILLING
So whether in speech or in action, preaching the Gospel boils down to what I always say:
LOVE GOD
LOVE PEOPLE
