Should I Stay or Should I Go?
I have long asked this question, “Should I stay or should I go, now?” Many a time, as I hear the Clash belt out this song, my heart sings out and yearns to go. At other times when no one is around – I shamelessly yell out the lyrics imagining myself on the pinnacle of decision. I find myself shouting, “GO, GO, GO!”
I have often wondered if Steve and I have made the right decision – if we should have tried harder to get “it together” so that we could have gone to the mission field to serve at the side of our long time friends, the Gibson’s. At times I still wonder, “Should I stay or should I try to go, still?” Even now I am tempted to find a way to go, especially when Amy expresses her inner desire to have me at her side -once again. I too desire to serve at her side.
This morning at the missions’ prayer meeting, spiritual warriors gathered together to carry on the fight. As every good soldier knows, strategy is the key to victory. Soldiers need to be equipped and the troops need to be rallied. Today we discussed mission mobilization. I decided to share an article that I read in Mission Frontiers from the January – February 2008 issue.
In the article, Find Your Role In Mobilization, Steve Shadrach asks the question, “Are we all called to missions? Or is there something the Muslims and Coca-Cola know that we don’t?”
In this article he recalls a time in China where students from an elite university were clamoring to hear of Jesus. These unreached people were eagerly seeking to hear of salvation and hundreds were accepting Christ as their personal savior. Yet here in America it is difficult to even broach this topic with even your closest friends and neighbors.
Shadrach (Not associated with Meshach or Abednego) realizes that he has a greater purpose – he realizes that he has been “called to stay.” He is called to serve as a missions’ mobilizer.
He says,”But as it relates to God’s call on every Christian’s life, don’t you think we should have just as strong a call to stay as we do to go?” So the answer for Shadrach is that all are called to missions, but some are “called to stay.” Have Steve and I been called to stay as well? Could our mission’s call be as part of a team of mobilizers? Have you been called to stay as well?
Mobilization includes the following three aspects:
- Recruiting believers to acquire this world focus.
- Training believers to be more equipped so that they can fulfill their calling.
- Connecting people with the right resources and information so that they can do their part in “Great Commission.”
The article listed some excellent equipping resources that are readily accessible to anyone desiring to build their “Kingdom Perspective.”
- The Perspectives Course.
- The INSIGHT Program, geared towards high school graduates.
- Publications like, Mission Frontiers, Global Prayer Digest, and International Journal of Frontier Missiology.
The article concludes with some amazing insights that we can glean from the world. Muslims are investing huge sums of cash at American Universities and offer to endow these institutions with Departments of Middle Eastern Studies. They build mosques across from these universities and are winning American college students to the Islamic faith.
As we know, college students are at universities to learn. They are more easily won at this time in their lives than at any other. With our new college ministry taking off now, we have entered into the territory of the enemy. Satan does not want to give Christ a foothold in his territory – the college campus. These students too have been called to stay and fight here at home on the college campus.
Coke Has A Plan. Do You?
A rumor has been circulating that Coca-Cola has a business plan to get a cold coke within a one mile reach of every person on earth. Do we as believers have such an industrious goal for the gospel?
Christ said that “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” That means if Coca-Cola has the resources to get a coke within one mile of every person by the year 2020, then should we as Christians not also have even more resources to get the gospel to those who are as yet unreached? The answer should be “Yes!”
Just imagine if the college ministry is able to reach those international students who have come here to learn. Many of these students, like the Chinese Steve Shadrach met in China, are clamoring to learn of Christ. They are looking for answers.
In the 90’s Steve and I were actively involved in International Student Ministries. International students are here for four or more years and most never see the inside of an American’s home. Most are open to bible studies in order to both improve their English and to learn about Christianity. This is frontline warfare here in our own country.
So should I stay or should I go, now? Stay – the answer is stay. I have been called to serve at the side of Amy here in Northeast Ohio. For who knows, this little Saturday morning prayer group could move many to go – even thousands!