(Lord willing) This Friday I will be leading a group of young adults from our church on a two week mission trip to Kampala, Uganda to partner with a church there in campus outreach and to help put on a retreat for their college ministry. It will take us around 25 hours to arrive. In other words, we will have PLENTY of time to fill.
What should a Christian fill that time with?
You’re heading into a culturally complex, spiritually intense, physically draining, emotionally charged situation away from all your usual coping mechanisms and comforts (known to you and not). You may be listening to and learning from and sharing with brothers and sisters from a radically different context. You may be setting up a medical clinic. You may be sharing the gospel with a Muslim student on a college campus. You may be hiking into the mountains to assist with engaging an unreached people group. Or countless other possibilities
Knowing this, what do you fill the hours headed there with to prepare yourself?
You require Spirit-wrought humility, patience, boldness, trust, love. You are absolutely incapable of accomplishing, in an eternally significant way, anything set before you. You bring with you total inadequacy for the task and utter inability to produce fruit. Everything you have set out to do is a miracle you lack the means of manufacturing.
Feeling the daunting weight of this, what should you fill your hours upon hours of flight time with?
I feel the weight of this going into our own mission trip. And so, to help myself and our team, I pulled together some of the best resources on world/global missions that I’ve come across. And I felt led to post them here.
Maybe you are going on a mission trip or leading one, my prayer is that the Spirit would anchor you through them as you go. Maybe you are a parent or friend dropping a loved one off at the airport and fear and anxiety grips you, my prayer is that the Lord would meet you through these to assure you of the worthiness of your sacrifice of saying “see you soon, if the Lord wills it.” Maybe you are a pastor at a church trying to ignite a passion for missions in your elders, my prayer is that these would do just that.
Whatever the case, my ultimate prayer is that they might ignite and keep aflame a passion for God’s global glory through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Whatever the case. Whether we go or we send. They did so for me about 6 years ago and the flame has yet to go out.
Sermons:
John Piper, Let the Peoples Praise You, Oh God, Let All the Peoples Praise You!
John Piper, Undaunted by the Darkness: Invincible Joy for the Sake of the Nations
David Platt, Undaunted by Resistance: Sustaining Missionary Zeal for the Sake of the Nations
Mack Stiles, Clever Missionaries Need Not Apply
John Piper, The Role of the Holy Spirit in World Evangelism
Trip Lee, 1 Corinthians-Jude: The Significance of the Church
John Piper, It Will Be Worth It: Overcoming Obstacles to World Missions
Thabiti Anyabwile, Hell is Real. Time is Short. Jesus says, "Go."
David Platt, The Glory of God, the Lostness of Man, and the Gospel of Christ
John Piper, Doing Missions When Dying Is Gain
Mack Stiles, The Call of Christ: Inspired, Informed, Confirmed
JD Greer, Go, Send, or Disobey
John Piper, All Authority on Heaven and Earth: The Sovereignty of Jesus and His Unstoppable Mission
Kevin DeYoung, Should I really just do something? Discerning a call to missions
Mack Stiles, What Cultural Habits are You Packing?
John Piper, Prayer: The Work of Missions
Trip Lee, A Call to Holiness (1 Cor. 6:12-20)
Kevin DeYoung, Do the nations really need our gospel?
John Piper, Doing Missions as Joyful Sojourners (1 Cor. 9)
Matt Chandler, The Life Worth Living for Christ Is a Life Worth Losing
John Piper, The Global Glorification of the Merciful God
Biographies:
John Piper, Missionary Biography: Hudson Taylor
John Piper, Missionary Biography: William Tyndale
John Piper, Missonary Biography: John G. Paton
John Piper, Missionary Biography: Adoniram Judson
John Piper, Missionary Biography: David Brainerd
Interviews:
Audio Books:
John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad (11 hours)
Nik Ripken, The Insanity of God (10 hours)
Elliot Clark, Mission Affirmed (6 hours)
Kevin DeYoung & Greg Gilbert, What is the Mission of the Church? (9 hours)
Denny Spitters & Matthew Ellison, When Everything is Missions (3 hours)
John Piper, Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ (3 hours)
David Mathis (editor), Finish the Mission (6 hours)
Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor (6 hours)
Elisabeth Elliot, A Chance to Die (12 hours)
May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth. Selah
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
The earth has yielded its increase;
God, our God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us;
let all the ends of the earth fear him!
-Psalm 67
zch