We Must Go!

Every now and then something comes up in my life that quickens this thought - "Am I going where God has called me to go?" From my teenage years I have had a focus on bringing the reality of the Kingdom of God to wherever I happen to be. Sometimes that has been more successful and diligent than others, but when I was a young man God planted that desire in my heart. It still burns strong today and I pray that that fire never goes out.

Recent events with Lindsay being at Invisible Children, with StreetReach looming large on the horizon, and with my cousin in Belfast launching a new charity to reach and rescue young children taken into prostitution have caused me to ask that question again.

"Am I going where God has called me to go?"

We are all called to "GO" - somewhere. At the end of Jesus time on earth, right before he ascended to the Father, he gave his disciples this command found in Matthew 28:19 'Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,' The final order from our commander-in-chief was to go and make disciples. There is more contained in these verses that I will unpack at a later date, but let's just hover over these few verses for a while today.

We were told to go - just like the disciples were told, we are also commanded to go and make disciples. As I have thought about this for the past week or so I have become acutely aware that we have taken this active word and turned it into a passive term. When Jesus told us to go He wanted us to, well, GO. We have an activity to do. We need to move from where we are to where He sends us. We have turned this around to mean that we will provide the best events, programs and/or services that we can so that the non-believers would be the ones who 'GO'. We somehow expect the non-churched to see some exciting piece of advertising that we produce and them to be so drawn that they would be the ones who perform the action of 'GOING' - right into our church. Why have we got this so backwards?

Jesus commands us to GO, so why do we sit? Jesus commands us to GO, so why do we open our doors and hope someone might stumble in? Jesus commands us to GO - why do we disobey by staying stationary?

We started StreetReach last year because of this very desire. Jesus commands us to GO - yet he has placed us here in this city. God has brought me to Bowie, for His purpose - and I am sure that His purpose will not be fully achieved unless I am GOING into the city to reach the lost. Through StreetReach we have an opportunity to do what our commander-in-chief has asked us to do - GO into our part of the world to make disciples.

We have tossed around the idea of taking the whole church out on a Sunday morning to reach out to this city. That would certainly be a start. And the best thing is that we need no special training. We do not need to be super Christians to walk through a neighborhood, to knock on a door and ask people if we can wash their car or cut their grass for them. We just need to be willing to GO.

Tim Hughes wrote a song with this chorus, "We must go, live to feed the hungry, stand beside the broken, we must go. Stepping forward, keep us from just singing, move us into action, we must go." This past week Pastor Charlie talked to us about worshiping with our whole bodies. What greater form of worship is there than to reach out to those in need, to follow the last command that Jesus gave.

We must go!