Something happens when you start ministering to the people around you. When you turn yourself over to the Father’s purpose, His Spirit flows through you. You see His love and affirmation light up the eyes of the person in front of you. You feel the fulfillment that comes when you are living out the gifts and talents with which the Lord has blessed you to be a servant in His Kingdom. Your God leans over the railing of heaven and proclaims to those around “This is my son, this is my daughter, in whom I am well pleased.” He turns to you and says, “Well done good and faithful servant.”
You find life. You find purpose. You find adoption into the things of God. You breathe deep His breath and it animates your soul.
When you start ministering to the people around you, you have been mobilized. You have been mobilized up off the couch of your own existence and into the fast-flowing river of God’s plan. You have been mobilized into God’s plan for your life and the lives of the people around you. You have been mobilized into God’s plan for the redemption of a world that has been crying out for His salvation and His return since Adam’s first day outside paradise.
Mobilization is My Bigger Dream. I believe that if we can get people set up to be ministering to the people around them they will see more clearly God’s plan for the world, God’s plan for their lives, and they will see more clearly how the two fit together. And when that happens, those people will find life. They will find peace and fulfillment they had no idea existed. Much of this clicked for me on the World Race.
Now on this point I must be very clear: The World Race is a ministry to people in other countries. For eleven months, the young people who call themselves World Racers are connecting with, and loving on, local ministries and local people all around the world. The World Race is missions. World Racers are a part of seeing people come to know Jesus and seeing people discipled in eleven different cultures and environments in as many months.
I also believe this point is just as important: The dream of the World Race was birthed out of a vision to see a generation of Kingdom Leaders rise up and take their place in a global revival. The World Race is a dream to see a generation mobilized.
The first squad of World Racers launched in January 2006 in a program that was, speaking generously, a precursor to what we see today. In January 2007 the World Race took on an organizational structure that would more resemble what I experienced, launching in October 2008. In just a couple months the January 2010 squad will launch. Just four years after the birth of a dream, over 110 World Racers will visit eleven countries in eleven months and see God’s people all over the world. They will bring light to the darkness and sight to the blind. They will bring life to the dying, a word of hope to those in despair. And those World Racers will taste a life fuller than they knew possible. Those World Racers will be mobilized.
The fact that the World Race has grown from squads of 25 and 50 to a squad of over 110 is a testament to the life Racers are finding around the world and in the heart of God. The fact that we have contacts ready and willing to receive 110 Racers is a testament to the ministry Racers have done and are doing in every corner of the globe. Few contacts receive a World Race team and do not ask to receive another. Few Racers come home and do not tell their friends to go on the Race themselves.
I don’t think the World Race is God’s final answer for the
mobilization, the rescue, of his Church. But I do believe the World
Race is a great piece in the puzzle. I think it’s a good start. I
know this because the World Race is producing fruit.
mobilization, the rescue, of his Church. But I do believe the World
Race is a great piece in the puzzle. I think it’s a good start. I
know this because the World Race is producing fruit.
These are all reasons why I am going to continue to work with the World Race for the next season of my life. I have been asked to join World Race staff for a six-month commitment. At the end of those six months I will sit down with World Race leadership and we will discern together whether the Lord is leading me to continue to work with the program or to move on to a new season in my walk with Him. I believe the World Race is a fire burning out of the heart of God to see His people mobilized for His purpose. I hope that by sitting under the program for another season I can dip my torch into that fire and be prepared to share it with people wherever the Lord calls me.
This next season of life will be different than the one that is now being completed. As a World Racer myself my primary ministries were to the people we met in other countries and to my teammates. Now my primary ministry will be to World Racers themselves. I will helping to disciple people who are walking through their own life-changing experience. At times I may be helping to set up their ministry experience before they arrive in a country. Other times I will be helping them discern what the Lord is doing in and through them as they are awoken to their own purpose and calling. I may even help to recruit new radical missionaries to join the movement called the World Race.
In all of this I will need your continued support. I would love for you to join me in prayer for the hundreds of young people who are seeking the Lord through the World Race. I would also greatly appreciate your prayers as I continue to follow the Lord where He calls me and where He opens doors for me to seek His Kingdom.
Like everyone who works for Adventurs In Missions, including all World Race support staff, I will be raising my own support for as long as I am working with AIM. For the first six months I need to raise $9,000 which will come back to me in bi-weekly paychecks, less taxes, to cover all living expenses. If you know already that you would like to support me financially you can do so by clicking the “Support Me” link in the upper-left of this page. If you supported me previously on the World Race, you should already have an account with AIM that you can update and extend for this new project.
Over the next several weeks I will be in constant contact with all of you, my support system, to keep you posted on how this process continues to evolve. Many of you will be receiving letters in the mail, to help wrap up my World Race experience thus far and to share a little more about what I will be doing as part of the World Race staff. I also hope to be able to share pictures, video, and stories in relaxed forum at my home church, Holy Cross, in the very near future. If you want to be sure you are kept in the loop feel free to subscribe to this blog by typing your email address into the “Subscribe for Blog Updates” section on the left side of this page. You can also send me an email by clicking the “Send Me a Message” link in the upper-left section of this page.
I feel as though the Lord as blown open the scope of possibility for ministry in my life. I would love to talk more with any of you about what the unfolding story looks and feels like. In my next few blogs I will be sharing more about how the World Race is touching the nations abroad as well as the new generation of leaders that discovers a calling as they follow their God all around the world. I will be sharing more of my heart for this ministry and for where I am finding life and excitment within the ministry.
You all have been such a huge encouragement to me over the last two years and that is a piece of this puzzle that cannot be undervalued. I look forward to continuing to partner with you in God’s Kingdom wherever and however leads all of us to do His work in the future.
