THE QUEST FOR PROFESSIONALS AT THE MISSIONS' FRONT LINE
Someone must simply go!
This was a strong line
of words that echoed through the quiet airs of the three halls packed with
hundreds of rapt students during the Professionals in Missions seminars we ran
in West Nile, Northern and Central regions of Uganda this year. The Seminars
are some of our platforms for mobilizing students and Christian professionals
for missions’ involvement and support.
My favorite period is
during the mobilization stages when we get to interact with vast number of
student leaders who hold very influential positions in their campuses. We get
to encounter the burning passion for God among them and work with student
organizations like FOCUS Uganda and Scripture Union and independent Christian
unions that are doing commendable jobs in ensuring these institutions have
Christian presence and viable discipleship and mentor-ship.
Little exposure to missions
Despite the great
Christian presence, there is clearly lack of adequate exposure to Missions in a
broader aspect among the students. We are encountered with the narrow view of Mission as only evangelism, the sad reality of the nearsightedness among some of the preachers
who regularly occupy the pulpits of these Christian Unions, and the growing
influence of the wealth, health and prosperity gospel and teachings which has
widely spread like Gangrene.
I remember attending an
evening fellowship with one of the Christian Unions where the preacher continuously
emphasized on the need to operate in ‘Spirit and freedom’. He went on and on
and on about prospering in acquisition of wealth, being sickness free and as
expected even to declare on the basis of Psalms 82:6 that the members were gods
and sons of the Most High God. I was then
to come and pass the announcement and invite them to come for a one day seminar
which has a small fee they will pay. I seriously wondered if I should borrow
the preachers’ powerful tones or simply go gently and say what I came to say
then just leave. Realistically speaking, from the looks on the audience’s faces, I was not
welcome. Gathering courage I went on to say there are two commands I want to
share with you all today. First, the Greatest Command to love our neighbors as
ourselves and second, the Great Commission to Go make disciples of all nations!
One guy at the front row immediately exclaimed “The Great what?”
I quickly realized I
was dealing with a fresh knowledge to some of the students. So I had to mention
in quick sentence those passages where our Lord Jesus explicitly or implicitly
commanded the disciples to go and proclaim the good news. I was like, “you guys
should know Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15, or Luke 24:44-48, John 20:21 and Acts
1:8 by heart. Of course I was enjoying the silence; yes it was time for the missionary
God to roar.
My point is that little
is being said in the pulpits about responding to the great commission and the
quest to forsake the world for the sake of the Gospel, follow Christ and
participate in His passion for World evangelization. A lot of sermon is aimed
at keeping the congregant comfortable, secure, uninterrupted, and thriving in
disobedience to the commands of the Savior we claim to proclaim and believe. Such
sermons seem to just reinforce the already selfish contemporary dreams of working
hard be all those people we dream to be, get those things we dream to own but
not what God is calling us to be, not what He is calling us to treasure most.
Call for radical obedience
So then, the quest for
someone to simply go in all sense becomes revolutionizing call to radical
choice to obey Christ and live for His glory at any cost. Someone must simply
Go! I first heard of this call in the very first seminar held in Kampala on April
2012. I was still a student Nurse at a college in West Nile. I remembered
traveling for this seminar with a colleague friend with whom we both ended up
signing up to serve in the mission’s field under Global Link Afrika. The call
to go came very clearly to me that only sheer stubbornness could define any
negative response to the message. I remembered just picking the commitment form
and ticking the part for long term missions only. It is today that whenever I
look at the files, I am reminded that it was all about saying Yes to the Lord
of the harvest. It was obedience, in simple sense, and that is what’s kept me
serving for the last three years. Indeed quoting Kevin Ombima a GLA missionary
from iServe Africa, in a sermon during the Bible exposition for this year’s
seminars teaching from Romans 10:14-15; He said; “Until the gospel of Christ
penetrates into our hearts that the authoritative commission of Christ will
become our consuming ambition; and it is until then that we will realize that
the great commission is not a choice for us to consider but a command for us to
obey”.
Many times we do not
obey because we don’t hear the command clearly enough. But most of the time it
is because we don’t want to hear the call to go. As someone said, we would respond
by saying, ‘Here I am Lord, send someone else! I have discovered that the enormous
pressures of this life have kept many of us from really stepping out of our
comfort zones, and getting out of the salt shakers to be at our very best for
the Lord our Savior. It is time, we wake up from our long sleep and take up our
crosses and follow the Son.
But really, why don’t
we go? I couldn’t give any better answer than Kevin, in the same sermon He
said; “Friends, many times we don’t go because we don’t want to get out of our
comfort zones, we don’t want to alter our priorities, we don’t want to
sacrifice our possessions, we don’t want to risk our reputations and we don’t
want to potentially lose our lives; yet these are what we are called to”.
The convictions for going!
Why does someone really
have to Go? What is it about going that makes this emphasis relevant? Why do we
take this message to the professionals?
First, why does someone
have to Go?
Need for worshipers: John Piper, the Director and founder of Desiring
God in an article on Mission said; ‘Mission exists because worship doesn’t’.
Mission is a call to declare and proclaim God’s glory in all the earth. It’s
joining God in the call to declare His fame and glory and love in the world.
1Peter 4:11
Redemption cry;
The words of our Lord Jesus and Master; “The harvest is plentiful, but the
workers are few” (Matthew 9:37-38, Luke 10:2). The Lord’s Assessment report for
the harvest field says that, the harvest is plentiful and ripe but the laborers
are few. The Lord, had come down from the Father (John 16:28) into the world
that needed deliverance (Romans 28:22-24) and a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). But He
only had to inaugurate His Kingdom and introduce a movement that would outlast any
empires in the world history and establish a Kingdom that would last for
eternity (Isaiah 9:7, 2Samuel 7:16, 1Chronicles 22:10, 2Peter 1:11, Revelations
1:6. This He could simply have done the easy way, but He entrusted us with this
task of making the good news of this Kingdom known. He saw the enormous need and
the loud cry of the whole world for a redeemer from the frustration and
oppression it has been subjected to and decided it would have to be done by
those He has called to be with Him whom He has discipled, and sent into the
world.(Mark 3:13-14).
How do we respond to
such a noble and enormous task? When we read about the ratio of the unreached
population to the reached across the globe, how do we feel about them? When we
watch in the news the sufferings and atrocities evil is causing this world, how
quickly do we arrive at a humanly possible solution.; “The Harvest remains
plentiful” and if knowing these figures is not compelling enough to cause a
flame inside a Christian to stand to be counted for frontline missions, then I
don’t know what possibly can.
Obedience to the Lord’s Command; These passages (Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15, Luke
24:44-48, Acts 1:8, Romans 10:14-15), clearly reveal a command to go! We can therefore
either assume we never read them and so stubbornly ignore them or twist them to
excuse ourselves from obeying the words of our Lord. If we are to be called
servants then, we are going to have to obey, submit, surrender and allow for
our Master to interrupt us in our busy schedules and lives and willingly lay
down our goals to pick up His, and to let go of our own purposes to pick up His
and to do so with joy and pleasure knowing He is a good Master.
But how do we go? Why
Christian professionals? We have insisted on recruiting young Christian
professionals in our one year missions’ exposure program and will continue to do
so for some of the reasons I will share with you.
The unique privilege of easy entry: The professionals have this unique privilege of easy
access to local communities and people groups simply because of the abilities
and the services they provide. I believe this concept of using our professions
as entry point or vehicles for the Gospel is something that has proven viable
in reaching the difficult and hard to reach places with the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. We have had missionaries who stayed among the Aringa community in Yumbe
District and have made families and friends with the Muslims because they were
appreciated for their professional services.
Exceptional witnesses for Christ; Well learned Christians with Gospel-centered
motivations and a cross driven lifestyles are an enormous source of attentions
and admiration by the growing generation of youth today and how badly we need
such men and women in our justice systems, academic and financial institutions,
Churches and government offices in Uganda. If our generation of Christians
could pick up this challenge and get to live out their faith within their
professional spheres of influence, they surely would shine like stars(Phil
2:14-15). And proclaim the glories and excellences of Christ their Savior to
this dark world without anyone questioning them (1Peter 2:9).
Enormous opportunities; The current refugee crisis in the world is quite
alarming and I feel sorry for these people who have lost families and relatives
and now are in foreign Countries, that are either receiving them or denying
entry for them into their boarders. But, Uganda is privileged to be a
hospitable Country and we are hosting over 1 million refugees from South Sudan
and other Countries like DR.Congo and Burundi. These people are primarily and
24/7 accessible to the professionals like; Doctors, Nurses, social workers and
government aid workers. The protocol to access them is tight, for the
unauthorized greater majority of Christians except for the professionals who
have such an enormous opportunity of access, witness and interaction that could
mean a lot in spreading the Good news. But to see these opportunities one has
to have been obsessed, consumed and overwhelmed with the passion to live for
the glory of God. Of course there are ethical barriers to consider especially
for the professionals but we have little excuse for not being good witnesses in
the way we handle the resources distributions, showing love, creating rapport,
and genuinely caring for these people.
The question remains if
we are willing to hear the Master’s commands afresh like the ringing tones of
our cell phones and respond with resounding yes to Go to the missions’
frontline and make disciples of nations for His Kingdom.
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