Many people look at the World Race and get the wrong idea. We believe that it is one of the most powerful missions mobilization tools to come along in years!
Here are a few questions that we’ve received about The World Race:
Why do people sign up for the World Race?
Everyone wants to find their place in the world. They want to better understand what God is doing in it and how to join Him. And many want to go on a journey and pit their wits against a challenge that asks more of them than they’ve asked of themselves. They are hungry to measure themselves against that challenge.
They have a well of compassion that has barely been tapped. They want to be poured out as they see and touch the world’s needy.
They are already on a pilgrimage to understand what God made them for, and they understand that the metaphor of a journey, especially a long one, fits the traveling and searching that they’ve been doing.
They are representative of an entire generation that has a sneaky suspicion that maybe they’re on a path that is too easy. Maybe they’ve been tempted to sell out to a career track and a lifestyle that doesn’t or shouldn’t define them. Maybe the versions of themselves that the world is starting to see is not the best one.
Not just a few wild eyed adventurers are looking at this and thinking, “That’s it, that’s what I need to do!” Thousands resonate with the idea, maybe dismissing it as impractical, but secretly wishing they could say goodbye to society’s expectations for a year and go on a pilgrimage.
Why “The World Race”?
What we’re offering is not just another mission trip. The World Race taps an ancient human compulsion to take a spiritual pilgrimage. Aussies have their walkabout and Muslims have their Haj. American college students have an abbreviated bacchanal – a week’s trip to Ft. Lauderdale in the spring that barely gives voice to the urge to go somewhere and do something different.
A whole new rite of passage is waiting to be born and a million young people are waiting to respond. They are under-challenged and ultra-coddled. They didn’t sign up for the future they’re being handed.
Once the World Race is broadcast to a broader audience, this generation will respond in numbers that overwhelm us. We owe it to them to gear up and do it right. We owe them not just this experience, but the opportunity it represents to tap their deepest yearning to not sell out, at least not before they’ve given a wild alternative their best shot.
