I am just a few days home after an accumulated 16 months on the World Race. We went to church this morning and heard a great sermon. Participating in the service today helped me understand one of the biggest changes in my perspective and the lens of my soul as a result of the World Race and a life of missions.
I never wanted to be a missionary, by the way. My brother was called to all that. I liked the idea but I knew it absolutely wasn’t for me. I wanted to be a youth pastor in Texas for my whole life.
Then, in 2007, I went on a trip to Uganda with the same church we attended this morning and it forever changed my life. I was blown away by the familiarity of The Divine in such an unfamiliar place. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was living in the New Testament. And I was addicted, called, in love.
My first stint on the World Race felt very much the same as Uganda. I felt like a New Testament disciple – helping the poor, preaching the Gospel to unreached peoples, healing the sick, and even casting out demons! My faith was activated and enlivened while on the field in a way I could never put into words.
But listening to that sermon today and looking around at the beautiful congregation of what has become my beloved home church, I felt some of the same joys and sorrows, knew similar longings and passions, saw fervent need and incredible faith. I realized an important fact – serving in Midland, TX is part of the New Testament church. And feeling like a New Testament disciple is about my identity, not my situation or my setting. Why should that feeling of being deeply alive, walking as Jesus did, awestruck by the flow of the Gospel, be unique to the trails of Africa or the remote villages of Southeast Asia?
Jesus (and certainly Paul) didn’t just preach in the remote villages with a crowd exclusively of mud-faced newbies or demon-possessed foreigners. They preached to the learned, the ‘wise’, the rich, the popular, the religious, the ‘important’, and the familiar. Looking around my home church, for the first time in my life, I realized that I am a New Testament disciple… at home. I realized that the invigorated revelation I got in Uganda is no more true in Uganda than it is in Midland, TX.
This is maybe the most important change that the race has brought about in me. I no longer applaud the New Testament church, I participate in it. The biggest obstacle to participation has been that it felt far away. But the lie has been exposed. New Testament living is not a church exclusive to third world countries and extravagant spiritual manifestations.
I know in my heart that I have always, or very nearly always, been a New Testament disciple. I just haven’t been aware of it. It feels a bit like when my wife tells me about some thing I have done that she really likes. Although I did it on accident before, being made aware of it awakens me into even deeper commitment and sustained action. I know I’ve served the church for a long time, but how can I stumble into the revelation that all of the world, every corner, rich and poor, remote and renowned, are fertile settings for a vibrant New Testament Church and not be more deeply activated?
I don’t know if I needed to travel the world… twice… to realize that being a New Testament disciple is not about the kind of work that I am doing or the kind of setting I am in, but is about the universal need and the universal application of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven. But that is the path the Lord has taken me on.
I’m sure there are many more revelations to come, but one thing that is dying as my world race tenure ends is the idolization of certain ministries and certain roles of ministry and certain settings of ministry. The Lord is everywhere! In them all! In essence, this is why we keep traveling. We are delighted with seeing the same Lord uniquely manifested in each setting. He doesn’t have to be new because He always is new. And that includes home. It includes the places familiar to me, the places that annoy me, and the places I had given up on a long time ago.
Thank the Lord for His living, breathing, catholic (universal) New Testament Church. And for His relentless inviting of this one stubborn disciple.
