In the last ten days I have gotten engaged. I have been to a wedding and a funeral. I’ve participated in our first ever Stirred Conference. And I’ve driven, or ridden really, from Gainesville, GA, to Charlotte and back, twice.
Those are my poor reasons for not having made good on the commitment I made in my last post to blog twice in this last week. The better reason is that I’ve been wrestling.
In that last post I asked you all to give me requests as to what I should write about. I listed a few of the significant revelations I received from the Lord over the last several months. A couple of my faithful encouragers/supporters from home said they would like to hear how the Gospel is changing the lives of folks I encounter in the nations. One of the comments spoke specifically of folks who are new to Christ.
I’ve got to say, the comments snapped me back, in a good way, to a place I think I left a long time ago. I was processing with a friend how I should respond to the requests I received. He said, “Oh, they want to hear about some orphans.” While that assessment may not be specifically true, I think it could be generally fair. That’s what we all want to hear isn’t it? The blogs that get circulated through our little World Race community most often are the stories folks write about radical experiences on the field. Most of us want to hear about God doing the kind of things we haven’t seen in the kinds of places we can only imagine.
It’s tough for me to write about the power of the Gospel to change the lives of those who have never heard. There’s a couple reasons for that. The more general, complicated reason is that I’m not really, strictly speaking, an evangelist. Evangelism doesn’t wind my ministerial clock. I’m more of a discipling pastor kind of guy. I like walking with people through the seasons of life, applying the Gospel along the way. Helping them identify how Christ’s love and victory is still true and powerful long after they have responded to the altar call and recited the sinner’s prayer.
The other reason it’s tough for me to talk about the way the Gospel affects new believers is that I don’t encounter many of those stories. And when I do, they often leave me scratching my head more than running to praise. On my original World Race, my team spent a month pretty far into the Bush in Kenya. While we were there we traveled with some of the youth who lived out there on a one-week missions trip. We traveled with them from “deep in the bush” to “deeper in the bush”. In all of these places the name of Jesus was already known. I don’t recall ever speaking to someone personally who said they hadn’t heard of Jesus or had never been to church. While we were on this missions trip to “deeper in the bush” we led Crusades 4 or 5 days out of the week. We would pull up a truck. We would stand on the back of it. The white people would sing some songs and then someone would preach a sermon before asking the crowd if anyone wanted to accept Jesus Christ into his or her heart. One woman responded, under the heavy influence of alcohol, every time we asked. I heard she had done the same thing the last time this group was in the area.
So we begin to wonder. And we say, “What’s really going on here?” “Does she really get it?” “Is this thing ever going to take?” And we do rejoice. And we thank God. And we try to declare in faith, “Next time we come back she won’t be drunk. She won’t respond to the altar call. She’ll understand that she is actually already Saved. In fact, she’ll be a strong member of a church, influencing the community around her for good. The Gospel will have truly changed her life.” And until then we continue to receive her. We continue to tell her that she is loved and accepted by God. And until we see a changed life we continue to wonder what’s really going on there.
And here’s one of the scariest and most astounding things I’ve realized over the last couple years: We all know that lady. We all have someone (or a few people) in our life whose faith walk leaves us scratching our heads. Every time they reach a victory we try to rejoice with them, but really we’re wondering how long it will last.
So maybe all this makes me cynical. Maybe I’m a pessimist. But I think the Church, with its huge focus on evangelism over the past 40 years or so (to the point of many people identifying themselves as “Evangelical”), has really missed the boat. It’s not that I don’t believe God can do big things in an instant. In fact, most of my current experiential theology is based around that premise. However, I think the real work, the literal “works” without which faith is dead, happen over the long haul. Deliverance is proven true as we resist the temptation that comes after the moment that freedom was claimed.
As for the original question of how lives are being changed by the Gospel. I have seen God do big things in an instant in the World Racers I led from June through October of this year.
Nathan Boaldin experienced a divorce that left him confused and heart-broken. I prayed over him at Training Camp. I felt the Lord say “the God of Love is returning to your heart”. So I laid my hands on his chest and repeated those words again and again. As I did I saw big, wet tears roll down his face. In the Spirit, I saw something break. I hugged him. He squeezed me tighter than I would expect from a person who had known me all of 36 hours. In that moment, the Spirit broke off the crust that had formed over his understanding of “love” and he began to feel new things again.
Ashley VanHouttum turned 21 when we were in Ireland — in the third month of her Race. We had been struggling to get her to speak up. She wasn’t all that confident and was easily intimidated. She wasn’t sure of her identity and had a hard time articulating herself. The day before her 21st birthday she pulled me aside. She told me this whole story about how she was learning more about herself and how God was becoming more real to her. At the climax of the conversation she said “I mean, I’m usually a happy person, but I’ve never felt this way before!” Honestly I was excited, but not all that surprised. The Lord showed us who she was before she knew it. Somehow, in a moment, everything we had been speaking into her clicked.
And then there’s Nathan Salley. Nathan is a passionate activist built for great things. He has struggled through illness in his life. Through all of it people have been telling him how great he is and that he is made for incredible things. But, like a lot of activists, he is a bit of a cynic and I’m not sure he ever believed the things people said about him. Then one night we promoted him into a place of leadership. The whole squad prayed over him. People said they believed in him and they would follow him anywhere. Through tears he said that for the first time in his life he felt like he was walking into the person everyone had said he was all along. In a moment he got a picture that his identity was true.
I believe the Lord does big things in a moment. I believe new definitions of love, of happiness, and of identity are going to carry these folks to higher heights and to deeper places with the Lord. But we won’t really know what that looks like for a while now. I was with these people in some of their moments of greatest triumph, when the Lord did things they never thought possible. But I’m more excited to be connected to them when the weight and potential of those revelations begin to come to fruition. When we see what Nathan B. does with true, wholesome love; when we see who Ashley V. really will become; when Nathan Salley starts a fire and brings a whole generation to their feet to combat injustice around the world. These are the victories of the Kingdom.
And so we get to what this blog is about. When I was on the Race from October 08 to September 09 I received big revelation in moments like those above. God broke off pain and hurt and confusion that had been lingering for years. The weight of those moments and the subsequent revelation has played out over two years. And that’s the miracle I’m trying to share.
And I understand that many of you want to hear about how God is meeting people in the darkest of circumstances. You hear of injustice around the world and you want to know how God is meeting the need.
A lot of folks in our culture today talk about how we have insulated ourselves from suffering. We have relegated darkness and despair to “over there”. I think, in the same way, we have relegated God’s miraculous power to something that is far from us. We believe God can make a change in a moment, we’re just not sure if we’ll ever get to see it happen.
People: I am living proof that God is changing the lives of ordinary people every day. The Life Abundant is within your reach. And that’s the truth I want you to know more than any other. I love to serve our ministry partners around the world. They are doing great work. But my heart is for you. I want to see a change in your life. I believe in you more than you do yourself.
And that’s why I share about what God is showing me in my own faith life. Because I think you can relate to me more than you can the average Kenyan whose main source of income is raising goats. I think that maybe if you see a part of yourself in my story it will disturb you. It’ll give you a fresh perspective. When you see that the Lord has been faithful to me over the long haul, you will believe that he can be faithful to you in the same way. And you may have a few more moments of your own.
If this blog leaves you scratching your head about what your role is in my ministry moving forward, please email me. [email protected] I will, in fact, be raising support do continue working with the World Race from an office in Georgia. I think moving forward together with an understanding of what I’m saying above is crucial to all of us staying on the same page in the next season.
