READ Acts 17:16-35...
So ahead... I'll wait.
Paul in Athens. It is so moving to me when Paul says, "Now, what you worship as something unknown, I'm going to proclaim to you." I believe the paragraphs that follow those words are some of the most beautiful in the bible as Paul explains that God wants to be found.
Found.
Which means God is there... they just can't see him or don't recongnize him.
Now, read this...
Missions..."is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there. It is almost as if being a good missionary means having really good eyesight. Or maybe it means teaching people to use their eyes to see things that have always been there; they just didn't realize it. You see God where others don't. And then you point him out.
Perhaps we ought to replace the word missionary with tour guide, because we cannot show people something we haven't seen.
Have you ever heard missionaries say they were going to "take Jesus" to a certain place? What they meant, I assume, was that they had Jesus and they were going to take him a place like China or India or Chicago where people apparently didn't have him.
I would ask them if people in China and India and Chicago are eating and laughing and enjoying things and generally being held together? Because if they are, then Jesus, in a way that is difficult to fully articulate, is already present there.
So the issue isn't so much taking Jesus to people who don't have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people there the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst. It is searching for the things they have already affirmed as real and beautiful and true and telling them who you believe is the source of all that. "I'm here to tell you where It think that comes from."
And if you see yourself carrying God to places, it can be exhausting. God is really heavy.
Some people actually believe that God is a absent from a place until they get there. The problem with this idea is that if God is not there before you get there, there is no 'there' in the first place."
Rob Bell
Velvet Elvis
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2 comments:
and bloggingpaul returns...
welcome back. great post. that really is a beautiful passage... and appropriate on so many levels.
I really appreciate the missions quote. In less than 20 days I'm going on a missions trip to Guatemala for 11 months and while I understand everything you included, it's nice to hear it again. So, nice reading you and thanks!
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