21 Jul Proclaim the Gospel
A week here feels like a month. ?A day feels like two.
In South Asia, everything is backwards, upside-down, and done three times over.
Still, beyond the heat, auto-packed streets, and slow-paced culture, we have one clear mission: Tell every mall-goer, taxi driver, village worker, and shop owner about our one true King Jesus (John 14:6).
To do this, our process looks something like this:
- Ask, ?Where are the fewest believers??
- Go there
- Share the gospel
- If they reject Jesus, pray for them and ?shake the dust off your feet? (Luke 10)
- If they are interested, follow up
- If they accept, follow up
- Repeat.
We spend everyday either doing this work or training nationals to do this work. Through this process, one conversation at a time, I would estimate that God has given his gospel to an estimated 400-500 people. Likely 300+ of these conversations took place between nationals and other nationals that we trained (and are continuing to train).
Once enough people accept Jesus, we teach them to obey Jesus, form churches, train leaders, and repeat this process.
So, after 17 days in South Asia, my belief is that, as a whole, our team?s questions and struggles are found to be the greatest not with life here, but with our lives and the lives of every American church at home.
Habakkuk 2:14 says, ?For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.?
Revelation 7:9-10 says, ?After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice,
?Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!??
For this to happen, gospel sharing must be the mission and burden of every person in the church. It must not be relegated to pastors and elders, evangelists, and other ministry workers. It must be the God-given, humble task of every follower of Jesus.
Seventeen days into this trip, I can say that I am exhausted. I slept for 17+ hours yesterday to thwart off a sickness. My roommate was not so lucky and spent the night throwing up. Yet, I do not regret for one second what we are doing. Not because it has been easy. Not because it has not been trying. But because for perhaps the first time in our lives we know we are being fully obedient to the call that God has given each of us as believers: to actually share the gospel everyday.
So often calling is relegated to a theological degree, a comfortable ministry position, or even a missional, relational bivocational job utilized to advance the gospel. I am not saying that these things are not crucial to our church and our mission, but what I am saying is that these things without gospel sharing is no mission at all. These things without gospel sharing is disobedience.
My prayer in India is first for the Indians and our team, but it is second ?for our lives when we return. For our church to stop debating which songs to sing on Sunday and to start equipping people to go into the streets Monday through Saturday in order to share the gospel.
If you are reading this, please pray for our team, the work here, and most importantly for believers in America. Pray for believers all around the world to be put on mission wherever they are in whatever they do for our King: Jesus.
At the end of this age, one thing will matter. If we love our brothers and sisters, this one thing will be present at least once, prayerfully many times, in our conversations.??
SLINK India