* Heart for Missions Speech

This is a speech I gave a couple years ago. Funny how I would change/add to this bit after a having another year's experience overseas. Anyway, here's what I said:

There is a child in Africa who is starving and rotting in filth, whose father is dead, and whose mother is dying of aids. All this child wants is to know there is something/someone greater than his circumstances that is watching out for him and loves him. Yet he does not know where/what to go to—all he knows to do is to try to please the gods of his tribe through disturbing, unfulfilling religious practices, always living in fear.

There is a little girl, about 9 years old, in India whose father sold her into captivity where she lives a slave—as a child prostitute. And there are thousands of little girls living in the same situation in Congo, Indonesia, and many other countries. No one truly loves them—they are alone.

There is a Burmese woman enslaved in Thailand where she is forced to prostitute herself daily. There are millions and millions of people around the world who live in such seemingly hopeless conditions that our western mentalities cannot begin to fathom—all longing for something or someone to hold on to, to give them meaning in life, to give them hope. Yet the majority of these people are forgotten.

As a cross-cultural missions major, I feel very strongly about this issue and I feel a heavy burden for these people—to reach them, to show them love, that they are not forgotten, and that there is hope, both in this life and especially in the eternal life that is to come.

You see, I believe that there is a heaven and a hell, and upon death believers in the Jesus Christ will go to heaven while unbelievers are damned to hell. While there is a huge mission field even in our own neighborhoods; in America, the information is readily available to all people in this country. Every individual has the opportunity to research the different religions and weigh the evidences of each and decide for themselves what they choose to or to not believe. However, how may one choose whether or not they believe in the Jesus Christ when the Gospel has never been presented to them?

According to Joel Watson, the missions chairman at Southwestern Assemblies of God University, 67% of our world’s population are considered "un-reached people." Many of these people are living in what seems hopeless conditions, searching for something of truth to hold onto, something to give them hope for the future. I believe that the comfort and hope they need can be found in a belief and even a relationship with God if they choose to embrace it.

As Isaiah chapter 61 says, "God gives beauty for ashes, gladness for mourning, peace for despair, and strength for fear." Yet these people remain un-reached. Why are the majority of those with any kind of religious faith, not just the Christian faith but people of all religions, not going out and presenting the hope and joy they have found to the lost and hurting people of the world? Why are Christians isolating themselves in the Christian community, only participating in Christian activities with Christian friends, not getting out of the four walls of their church? I do not believe this is acceptable religious practice.

Christians are commanded to go, to get outside the walls of the church and reach out to the people who need it the most—which are not other Christians, but those who are not believers both in our nation and other nations where is the Christian message is not heard.

Matthew chapter 28 says, “Go and make followers of all people in the world...and I will be with you always, even unto the end of this age.” There are people who need to hear the message of a powerful, loving God, people who need to be shown love, and Christians are called to an active faith and an active sharing of that faith. In John 4:35 Jesus uses an analogy when He says, “Do you not say, ‘Four more months and then the harvest?’ I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” We can learn from Jesus in Matthew 9:35, “When he saw the crowds, he felt sorry for them because they were hurting and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus said to His followers, 'There are many people to harvest, but few workers to help harvest them. Pray to the Lord, who owns the harvest, that He will send more workers to gather His harvest.'”

We are innately selfish beings—but one thing we are all capable of, regardless of religious faith, is love, and through of love comes compassion. Reaching people of other countries and cultures with the Gospel is not standing on street corners in third world countries preaching at people—how does that show love? How can Christians convince others of God’s love and the Salvation and freedom available through Christ simply verbally, without action? We cannot. Love is a verb, and Christians are commanded to love. 1 Peter chapter 4 says, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another...each one should use whatever gifts he has to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”

People of other cultures need more than to be told the evidence of why one believes what they believe, they need to see the evidence. Reaching the hurting people of the world with the Gospel is about servitude, about meeting peoples’ needs, about showing them compassion—it is about showing them God’s love, about showing them what they can have through faith in Him. It’s about getting your hands dirty and meeting people where they are.

Mark 10:45, “For even Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve;” and 2 Cor. 1, “The Father of compassion and the God of comfort; who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” --That may be doing village work in Indonesia, it may be going and hanging out outside the whore-houses and building friendships with the women enslaved in Thailand, it may be holding a crying child at an orphanage in China, it may be handing out food to hungry people in Africa, it may be inviting someone to a missions crusade, but ultimately, it is about living out and sharing one’s faith in Jesus Christ to people, giving them hope for eternal life in Christ for them to accept or reject, while impacting peoples’ lives for the better in the process.

Like I said, reaching out to the people of other nations who have not heard the Christian Gospel is truly about meeting people in their culture where they are at, not expecting them to conform to our culture. One thing easy to get caught up with in missions is confusing cultural norms with spiritual principles, and many try to import our cultural customs into other societies as part of salvation. A speaker I once heard from India told of a Christian church in India her family pastored. This church was evangelical Christian, yet the women still sat at the back of the church and kept their faces covered, like in the Muslim mosque. This has nothing to do with being a Christian believer or not, it is simply cultural.

According to Richard Zanner, some important things one must remember when going on a cross-cultural missions endeavor include:
Understanding one’s role as a servant
Taking the time to learn the culture
Adjusting to the new cultural environment and identifying with the people
Affirming a call to serve
Not forgetting the ultimate goal of presenting your faith to the people

What I ultimately believe is that there is joy and peace, satisfaction, comfort and strength to get through trials in life, hope and assurance for the future, and love that is found in a personal relationship with the God who created the universe—and I have found that and am not content to sit within the four walls of my church and not share that love and joy with the suffering people of nations who have not heard of this faith that has the power to change lives and ultimately provide eternal life in heaven.

My personal burden for cross-cultural missions stems from an unexplainable love and compassion for other people and my motivation for reaching them can be summed up in a passage from Romans Chapter 10:
“For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'... Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

This is what I believe.
This is why I believe it.
This is why I have a burden for cross-cultural missions.