I recently became squad leader along with Aly Beeler and
Sydney Sample. Last month in Ireland
I felt heavy with a weight of responsibility. I signed up for this thing just
like everyone else did, so I was not expecting to be in the position that I am
right now, trying to cast a vision for not just a team, but an entire squad. I
guess I am fully starting to grasp the gravity of what this race means, and
sometimes it leaves me feeling heavy. Not anxious, or worried, or stressed,
just a little heavy.
This world race isn’t just travel voyeurism.
This is about making an impact through casting a vision for
our squad and hopefully our generation to be men and women that stop reading
about Jesus and begin to go bring Jesus.
When I was younger I used to have pastors, deacons, and
elders of the church come and pray for me in the hospital. Some of them even
prophesied over me. I always believed in the power of prayer when I was
younger, but was reluctant to accept people telling me I would be this, or I
would be that, or I would go here or I would go there.
I didn’t want to be a missionary.
I didn’t want other people to define or tell me who I am.
Shoot I still think the term missionary sounds stupid. The term missionary
reminds me of home school kids with little house on the prairie outfits on,
whose parents don’t let them use electrical outlets, who hand out tracts with
crusade pictures on it asking people if they like the sound of hell. It sounded
like a model for conversion rather than a model of how to love in a world that
has lost its way. It sounded a lot like being in seclusion and living in legalism
to me.
Some of this stuff I have talked about before but I’m hoping
to tie it in better to how I have been feeling lately or to quell some myths of
missions and evangelism.
The Bible talks about going to all the ends of the earth and
prophesy in his name. Well technically, ‘everywhere’ is the ends of the earth?
So why do I have to go somewhere else? The point isn’t the ends of the earth.
You could argue Fort Collins
is the ends of the earth. Denver
could be the ends of the earth. The commission then wasn’t as much a call to go
to Africa or Asia, as it was a call to ‘go’
and ‘proclaim.’ I hate when people narrow missions work down to one verse in
Matthew that talks about going to the ends of the earth, but forgets to mention
the part about why we ‘go’ and ‘proclaim.’
Friendship at the Margins talks about how “evangelizing
comes from the Greek word ‘evangelizo,’ which is translated as announcing the
‘gospel’ or ‘good news.’ It had primarily been used in a political context.
Before Jesus announced that the kingdom
of God had come,
evangelizo referred to the overthrow of an established government, the
proclamation of a victory in battle or the return of the emperor. The concept
conjured up images of a regime change.�
That’s what I want missions to be about. That’s what I want
evangelism to be about.
A change in regime. A change from religion to Freedom.
This year is about declaring freedom, redemption, and
restoration in the lives of world racers. Once that’s done, it’s much easier to
bring freedom just like a waving flag to the lives of Africans when freedom is
present in our own lives. In the absence of freedom love cannot be verified.
For me this isn’t as much about going on a “missions trip�
or being a “missionary� as it is about bringing freedom to the captive and
setting the slave free.
Being Stagnant Blows Be a Leader of a Movement,
Mzungu
