Hey guys! I’ve been off to the races since I left home on January 18th. I pretty much hit the ground running, and there has already been so much fruit already! It’s true what they say: there is LOW-HANGING fruit in America. Everywhere you look, the fruit is ripe and ready for harvest.
To start off my time with World Race America, I found myself in Roswell, Georgia. I finally joined my team after 3 months apart. Finally our team was complete, and not a moment too soon! The same day that I flew in, we also received our ministry partners for the week: a team from AIM’s ministry base in Guatemala.
Wow. I loved working with them. They came in and started teaching us some pretty fundamental things about what it means to live our lives on mission. The truth is we never stop being missionaries. The setting changes, but we are still that: ambassadors for the Kingdom. If I’m going to the store to buy groceries, I’m a missionary in the checkout line. And if I work as a nurse, I’m a missionary who just so happens to be working as a nurse in that moment. My identity and all that I am is wrapped up in a phrase: I am a child of God, and as such, I BRING KINGDOM all the time, on and “off the clock.” And that is true for you just as much as it is for me; the setting doesn’t exclude you from the Great Commission or the call to missions.
Part of their focus was helping us understand how prophetic gifts and evangelism go hand in hand. Our gifts flow from our intimacy with the Lord and our identity as His sons and daughters. So really, ministry is supposed to look like this:
FIRST, we have intimacy with God. We spend time getting to know Him and His heart. We dive into intimacy when we pray, read our Bibles, meditate, and ANYTHING ELSE that shows us the truths of who He is.
SECOND, we have a deep understanding of who we are: our character that flows from a renewed and pure heart. You can’t know who you are outside of Jesus; we are called to reflect Him, so you can only know your true self when you know Him. If you don’t UNDERSTAND who you are, STAND UNDER the shadow of the Almighty God. He doesn’t just reveal Himself to you. He reveals YOURSELF to you.
Last (and it really has to be LAST) is our gifts. We may be evangelists, pastors, teachers, prophets, worshipers, administrators, and so many more things. BUT those aren’t the core of who we are. They are tertiary. If we start to believe we are only worth what our gifts are, then when we make a mistakes (inevitably), we fall apart. We must be GROUNDED; we must live off of the Vine: Jesus!
Once we got a hold of that, we kicked it into high gear: activation! We were sent out into the city with only one objective: bring Kingdom to earth by letting the Holy Spirit guide you and your conversations.
One of the days, we decided to go to a mall and see if the Lord had anyone there for us to minister to. When I closed my eyes, I instantly saw an older woman sitting down at a table with another person (spouse?). In the vision, I also saw that me and my teammates for the day were talking to her. One of the girls I was with saw a vision of a white beard. As we walked around, we saw the couple: an older woman at a table and her husband (who had a white beard). After a few seconds, we felt the confirmation: this was who we needed to talk to.
Now I should preface this by saying that my team didn’t really have an objective. We were just trying to talk to someone the Lord led us to. As we talked, we discovered that her name was Barbara, a name the Lord had given me a few months prior. I had not met another Barbara, and I had almost forgotten about that name until she told me. I almost lost it right there. What were the odds? My team got to pray with her and talk to her a little bit about our mission, and I got to share a few stories from my Race last year. It was truly awesome.
That’s what the culture is like here in World Race America— we are just missionaries living for Jesus. We have no objective other than being a reflection of Him, but in doing so, we bring Kingdom wherever we are. We don’t ever know how God is going to show up; we just trust His process. He will always work in the perfect way for His perfect plan. We just need to be obedient. We must continue to spend time resting in His presence and in our true identities as sons and daughters of the King. The gifts and the “powerful encounters” flow out of that.
In all things, be blessed!
AG
