My Thoughts on Going and Staying

"The command has been to "go," but we have stayed - in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth…But 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland."
- Robert Savage

After having been back east for a conference, I have very mixed emotions. I was so very blessed by fellowship and by the many people that I met. I was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of able ministers and lay people that surrounded me. Their company and their ministering did me so much good.

But at the same time I was grieving my heart out. I haven’t been many places in the world. But I have been enough places and talked to enough people to find the contrast between the availability of the Gospel in the Bible belt and other parts of the world quite vast. Tribes that wait decades for a Bible in their language. Tiny villages that say to a missionary “We have prayed for many years to meet God.”

I can’t remember who said “No one has the right to hear the gospel twice while there are those who have never heard it once.” but it kept running through my mind.

To the best of my knowledge, Montana has one holiness Pentecostal church, and while I am not so delusional as to believe that this is the only denomination of merit, I do feel the lack of it’s influence in society overall when it is not present. South Dakota has none. Arizona has one. I sometimes feel selfish remaining in a state that has even as much access to the Gospel as that while many countries have never heard the Gospel at all. Yet, I meet some even here who know the name of Jesus as just a curse word. And I am asked a surprising number of times what a Christian believes.

Whenever I am in a group of people, especially young people, who appear to be ministry minded, I try to remind them of the places where need is great. I will encourage every last young person in every last church to consider the great commission beyond their four walls if they seem interested. I’ll encourage those who are older as well, but I find the young generally have less reservation about abandoning their lives. I love to encourage mission work and pioneer work. I like to remind those who feel the call of God of the places that have few or none to meet the need of spreading the Gospel. But there is always someone listening from a corner who interrupts my suggestion of “Maybe God is calling you to do this.” with “No. he isn’t.” or “Not everyone is called to do that.” or “We need them right here.”

The last comment is the most irritating to me. I have driven your streets and seen the churches on every corner. I have sat in your pews and know that some of the called have nothing to do. The churches and towns in the Bible belt are overflowing with ministers, workers, and competent teachers. As well as with those who will be such in the very near future. I wonder what is meant by “We need them right here.” To do what? Fill a pew so that the doors can stay open? It would not be a bad thing, in my opinion, if one or two holiness churches in a town closed down because it’s members suddenly took hold of the great commission and flooded the corners of the world that have not heard. What a great story that would be! And there would be plenty of room in churches still there to absorb those who God truly called to stay home and work. No, you do not need every last one of your members. Send the ones who can go and consolidate those who cannot into a better unified body. You have too many. Share with those who have none.

As for “Not everyone is called.” I like what Ion Keith-Falconer says "While vast continents are shrouded in darkness…the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by God to keep you out of the foreign mission field." Or without a call, a ministry, an outreach of some sort.

To those so quick to say “No. He isn’t calling her/him.” Why would that be one’s immediate response? Why would we begin with the assumption that one is not called? Why do we not say instead, “What a wonderful opportunity to serve God! Pray about that!” Hudson Taylor made this statement "It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home."

The call is not as hard to recognize as we have made it. Sometimes, recognition of a need and the realization that you can meet it is the call.

Isabel Kuhn said “I believe that in each generation God has called enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth. . . . No it is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond.” I believe it, too. Nothing else aligns, to my way of thinking, with Jesus’ command to “Go ye into all the world” (Mark 15:16) and His declaration that “ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) If God is not willing that any should perish, it follow that He has someone in mind to tell everyone.

Some are truly meant to stay at home. Good examples are needed at home. “God has called every Christian to international missions, but He does not want everyone to go. God calls some to be senders.” (David Sills) I know some excellent people who are meant to stay at home and are doing a tremendous job of it. They are senders, supporters, encouragers, just good examples of Godly living at their jobs and in their communities. I would not dream of trying to get them to leave. But far more, I think, are staying than should.

Every time I pray for my Sunday School class, I pray that God calls them and sends them. May their parents forgive me, but I do. Every week, we choose a country to pray for and these small children, when asked to pray in church, never fail to mention missionaries. The same desire that I strive to kindle in their little hearts, with God's help, to see all the world reached, I also hope is kindled in the heart of someone who reads this today.