Why Missions Has to Change

Either we adjust or keep talking to ourselves.

Some things will never change about missions:

* The pathetic condition of an unreached person searching for meaning and hope without finding it.

* God’s love for the lost.

* His determination to reach them with his offer of adoption and forgiveness.

* Our clear marching orders from Jesus that reaching and discipling the lost is to be the primary focus of the church and of all individual believers.

Being a Bible-believing Christian means committing ourselves– time, talent and money– to all of this.

BUT the world has greatly changed in the past 40 years.   This demands a re-designing of the church’s mission to the nations.  Here are a few of the changes we must address:

Where the unreached live. We have very clear sociological data today and we know that 95% of the world’s unreached people live in Asia and the surrounding nations.  Still, we continue the 100 year old habit of sending no more than 5% of missionaries and money to this region.  Churches, missions agencies and individuals need to prioritize the unreached above those who have abundant access to the gospel (85% of all missions work is done in nations four hours from the USA due to convenience and long-term relational ties.  The simple fact is that these nations as a whole have 300 years of Christian witness while much of Asia has never seen one missionary).

How young the unreached are. The average age in many Asian nations is less than 25 years.   The harvest is young.  Seventy percent of all conversions occur by age 14, ninety percent by age 25.  Does your church or mission spend the majority of its funds, staff and energies reaching those under 25?  All over the world we need to make a serious commitment to younger forms of communication and community.

Where cultural influence now originates.  Question, “What is the most powerful force in shaping the lives of even the people of God?”  Answer: Secular media.  Even in the church, a pastor gets 45 minutes once a week.  Then we all tune into media for hours every day.  It teaches us our values, feeds us our opinion and influences our beliefs about politics, marriage, work, money, power, sex-you name it!  This is even more apparent in those who are unreached.  For them, media is the only voice they are hearing.  The church has to get in on the conversation that is taking place all over this world on TV, radio, books, film and in the most important place of all-the internet.

How Poor and Urban the Harvest is.   Today for the first time in human history, more people live in urban centers than in the countryside (up from only 10% in 1900). As Sherry and I travel through even the most remote places we find youth dressing and acting as urbanites despite being from tribal societies.  Urban areas are places of great opportunity and great poverty, disease, crime and oppressive labor practices.  Many of Asia’s great mega-cities have hardly any Christian witness.

Pornography 101

I was introduced to porn at nine years old. I still remember the day. My best friend, Jake, and I were pretending to be Billy and Jimmy Lee from Double Dragon. We ran around the house kicking and punching stuff and looking for more guns (boys never have enough guns) so we could save our sensei. That’s when Jake led me up to his driver’s room and said, “I wanna show you something cool.” He walked up to the closet doors, grabbed the handles and threw them open with the flourish of a practiced magician. And viola! Playboy bunny after Playboy bunny magically appeared posted on the inside of the doors. Expecting a display of armaments to make Rambo jealous, I was disappointed. On top of that, it was gross.

Nevertheless, that first exposure sparked my fascination with women and sex. A fascination that would lead me down paths good and bad over the next decade and a half. On one hand, it instilled in me an awe with the mystery and beauty of a woman and sexuality. On the other, it embroiled me in a battle with pornography and lust that can never be won on the grand scale.

Most every guy has a story like this. Statistics put the average age of first exposure to porn at 11 years old. It’s a 97 billion dollar industry with 28,258 people viewing porn sites every second. 70% of Christians admit to battling pornography daily. Reuters in Ontario, Canada reported that 87% of university students are having sexual encounters over the internet or telephone. As you can clearly see, this is a problem that a majority of the population of this planet deals with. So what do we do about lust, porn, and illicit relationships? How do we successfully guide our sexual desires and develop control of lust?

I don’t want to rush through this topic. It’s important enough to take our time through it. Let’s make this a discussion. Share your thoughts on the matter; things you do that are helpful in cultivating purity. I’ll be putting up the continuation of this post on Wednesday. I hope these questions stay with you until then and that you take the time to pray and meditate on them. Looking forward to hearing what you come back with!

Your transition moment

David spent his youth taking care of his father’s sheep in the outback, but on the day when he visited the battleground during a time of national crisis, he didn’t take his sheep along. He didn’t bring his shepherd’s staff either. He only brought his weapon.With it he engaged the challenge facing his leaderless people and led them to victory.From that day on nobody thought of him as a shepherd. He was David, the warrior.

He used this transition opportunity to completely reorient and relaunch his life.After that day he never went back to tending sheep.

Message: Life presents us with these transition opportunities and sometimes there is not much time to decide whether to go for it or not. You have to have thought all that out before and know who you are in your deepest heart and what your core values are. When these moments come to you, there are some things you need to stop doing immediately if you are going to get to the future that’s knocking on your door. It won’t take a number and wait. You have to be ready to go “all in” and let go of the vine you have been swinging on to take hold of a new unknown that is full of potential…..or not. It all depends on you really.

The Power of Media in Rural Communities in Asia

Here is an interview I did in Manila about my experience with using Steve Cadd’s movie, “Snatched from the Darkness” in an occult center in a remote region of the Philippines. Media is even more powerful in rural areas than in the media saturated urban world.

Hour of Power Community Prayer

The Emerge Network is a community of young leaders, passionate about the advancement and strengthening of the Kingdom of God throughout their nations.This June 27 we met online to pray for each other. Here’s my short promo video for the event. We’d love for you to join us next time. Just join the network by signing up at emergenetwork.org.