Our Marching Orders - How are We Doing?

I have come to a stark realization. God has blessed the peoples of this great nation that we live in TO FULFILL HIS GREAT COMMISSION -- that is ONLY reason that He would ever make a people this prosperous if He is only into the business of making much of His Great Name throughout the nations. Think about it. The United States is the most prosperous nation in the history of civilization AND there is a church on every corner AND Jesus gave us our marching orders, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” When you put those things together, God has blessed the US with the resources to accomplish his marching orders which is to make disciples that reproduce disciples in ALL nations. It appears to me that we doing lots of other things with the resources. So, that begs the question, “How are we doing?”

Let me personalize this because if there is failure in this endeavor, it is due to bad leadership, so I need to seek my own failures to model this as a leader. I met a young man that does not attend The Bridge (the church that God has challenged me to lead) a few nights ago who was wanting to go to India to teach the Gospel to unreached people groups. So, if I am of God’s Kingdom, is it not a legitimate question to ask, “Is it acceptable for this young man (who is willing to risk his life to do what we have been commanded to do) to maybe have to turn down the opportunity due to lack of funds while I pay for cable tv and wireless internet in two different homes?” You can plug your own idolatry into that equation. First, this young man needs to dig deep into his own world of western materialism and fund as much of his trip sacrificially as he can, but then the richest nation needs to step in. What the western church has done in the past is force this young man to spend 18 months going around begging for money or throw 20 ‘chicken & dumpling dinners’ to raise money for HIS mission trip. Whose mission trip is it? Well, first it is God’s and then God charges you and me to understand that it is ours. God doesn’t directly fill this young man’s bank account with resources to go do what he has asked him to do. And, it is no more the responsibility of the local church that this disciple attends to send him than it is that of The Bridge. God asks ALL of His people to send this young man -- generously, cheerfully, and sacrificially. God says, “Get him there. People are dying and going to hell.”

The challenge to all local churches is this: “Are we developing the kind of disciples that will go short term, intermediate term (Platt calls this the Mormon-length mission of two months to two years), or long term to people who have not heard the Gospel, and are we, as the richest civilization in history, funding these folks?” I don’t want to seem dismal; there are great things going on out there. The sovereign God is working. I recently told The Bridge about bumping into a set of newlyweds who were on their way to plant churches in Iraq to spread the Gospel among the Islamic people. The young man, (24 years old and his beautiful 23 year old wife may die doing what God has asked them to do) said to me, “Your church sounds like the kind of place that is developing people that might join us,” and he gave me his card. I asked the folks of The Bridge, “Well, are we? Will we raise up people whose lives are so caught up in the glorious Gospel of Jesus that they will go and will the church properly fund them?” I don’t know about Iraq, but I think so; however, there are next steps to take. We have had many, many people now go short term. And, these accumulate and multiply over time. We had a family ready to go Mormon-length (trust me, that is just a term of mission length, the Mormons do not have the correct Gospel of Jesus Christ and we are sending folks who do) into Africa, but instead God directed them to move their family to the Arnold church plant to raise up more disciples for now. The Buckinghams show a nice balance between global and local missions. We raise up disciples locally to fund and send them globally. And yet, I bet they end up in Africa at some point. Also, we see Michael and Melissa Goldsmith now going to Haiti for two months this summer and bringing down short term teams to work in CHURCH PLANTING AND DISCIPLE-MAKING there AS they take care of widows and orphans as well. Who is next to go from short term to intermediate or from intermediate to life-long?

Here are a couple of facts from David Platt and, in closing, a couple of thoughts from me. The average church member in America supposedly gives 2.4% of his gross income to the local church. Besides the fact that that is the joke of all jokes and must grieve God, I believe the figure is probably more like 1.5%. Then, if you figure that the average local church only gives 1% of their budget to world missions, and probably only 1% of THAT goes to places where the Gospel has NOT been proclaimed, and then when you figure that 70% of THAT goes to administrative costs to the organizations that are supposed to get disciples on the ground, my rough math skills tell me that about 3-5 cents out of every $1000 that a Christian makes actually get missionaries face to face with unreached people groups. America may have missed its God-ordained call. Think about this - the fastest growing disciple-making in the world is going on in China. Is it coincidence that China is also one of the fastest growing economies in the world? This may clue you in. A huge contingent (HUGE) of Ugandan/Chinese Christian missionaries have landed in New York / Los Angeles / Boston in the last two years. Is it possible that things have shifted to where God considers the US to be the unreached people group?