The (not so?) Great Commission

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  The great commission.  Jesus' final words before he ascended into Heaven.  The objective of the Christian church; to finish the work that Jesus started of establishing the Kingdom of God through his church, by being the hands and feet of Jesus on earth.  So.  It's been 2000 years.  How are we coming along? 

Well, 42.1% (3 billion) of the world's population, 6,900 people groups, are still unreached.  There are 2.2 billion Christians in the world, 550 million of which are evangelicals.  There are 78,000 Evangelical Christians for every one unreached people group.  So how many missionaries are currently among the unreached?  13,315 or 0.0005% of Christians.  

The annual income of all church members in the world is $42 trillion.  Of that, $700 billion is given to Christian causes - church, missions, etc.  Of that, $45 billion is given to missions (which is $5 billion less than is embezzled annually by the church).  And of that, $45 million goes toward unreached people groups.  That's only 0.001% of Christians' income.  For every $100,000 earned, $1 goes toward reaching the unreached. 

Evangelical Christians could provide all of the funds needed to plant a church in each of the 6,900 unreached people groups with only 0.03% of their income.  The Church has roughly 3,000 times the financial resources and 9,000 times the manpower needed to finish the Great Commission.

Come on church!  What's going on here?  We are basically hoarding 99.99% of our income to ourselves and sending virtually nobody at all out to make disciples of all nations.  I will say though, as depressing as these statistics are, that God is still accomplishing his work, the mustard seed that Jesus planted in the garden is still growing whether people opt to help Him or not.  In the last 500 years Evangelicals have grown from 3 million to 550 million.  In the last century, the continent of Africa has gone from 9 million to 390 million Christians.  In 2006 alone there were 30 million new adherents to the faith.  Christianity continues to grow at a faster rate than ever before.  What an incredible opportunity there is to be a part of something so big and so important for the few who choose it!  Come on church, let's change those statistics!  We can finally be the generation that finishes the job and makes disciples of all nations!  I actually believe we might see it happen in our lifetime. 

statistics source: 

www.thetravelingteam.org/stats/

[1] International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 39, No. 1,  also World Christian Database, 2015,*Barrett and Johnson. 2001. World Christian Trends, pg 656, [2] Todd Johnson, Global Atlas of Christianity, pg 296, [3]. Baxter, Mark R. 2007. The Coming Revolution: Because Status Quo Missions Won't Finish the Job

How to Solve Racism

We, as Americans, have no power to solve our own race issues between blacks and whites.  In a court trial between an abused person and the abuser which person gets to determine the verdict? Neither, they are both intrinsically biased, the judge gets to decide.  When a football player stretches out for the touchdown and thinks he scores but the other team says it wasn't quite enough, who settles the ensuing disagreement?  Someone who is on neither team, someone who doesn't care who wins, someone who they both trust - a referee.  In a history as dark and convoluted as ours in the States who gets to speak what is true?  Who gets to decide what is just?  Who gets to voice the motives of the parties involved?  Well. How about Indian immigrants? 

Ajay on center stage

Last week I started tearing up (as in crying, not ruining a dance floor).   I was at a church planting conference in Orlando Florida.  I was one of a few white people among 70 second generation immigrants from India.  "We have this beautiful opportunity," said the speaker, "to speak truth into the race issues here in the States.  We are neither black nor white.  We don't share their history or their issues, we have our own set of different issues."  Thinking of people coming from a different country  with all the hardships of being a foreigner, taking on the responsibility and complexity of involving themselves in our personal disputes made me feel like crying.  How beautiful.  How selfless.  Sounds like something Jesus would do.  Sounds like something Jesus is doing.  We need them.  We need some Indian missionaries.  Because we can't do this by ourselves.

Chic-Filet catered our lunch

It gets me excited to be an American moving to India.  Who knows what kind of cultural issues and debates that I will have the privilege of being bi-partisan to, what kind of truths I will be able to speak that can only be accepted if it's me speaking them; just by living in a foreign country and getting to know those around me and seeking to love them.  Maybe I am the answer to racism in India. 

Happy Birthday Mom!

Ruth's.  Even now that possessive name instantly brings a sense of dread.  Ruth was this old lady from our church who used to give us the worst fruitcake ever made.  I would hide it in my shirt and then dump it in an inconspicuous place like behind a couch or dresser when I got the chance.  She was nice but her house was pretty much a tortuous jail cell for a 10 year old that had plenty of energy to spare until it was time to do chores. We would go over once a week or so and mow her grass and clean her house because she lived all alone.  She had the thickest grass I had ever seen.  I would have to unclog the mower every twelve steps.  The only upside was that it could conceal an incredible amount of fruitcake. 

And then there was Janet.  She smoked about a hundred packs of cigarettes a day and owned a whole generation of cats.  My nose is still recovering.  We would go over once a week or so and try to help clean her mobile home, but she mostly just wanted to talk.  She would send us home with Disney movies on VHS she had run off for us from a cable station.  I appreciated being able to watch The Swiss Family Robinson every day but it definitely wasn't worth the weekly visit. 

I also have a few suppressed memories from volunteering at the Salvation Army, which despite the perk of being able to price toys at an affordable rate and shelve them behind mounds of clothes for an improved shopping experience later, was mostly just two hours of mind numbing boredom.  And the food kitchen where I would have to carry boxes all morning.  And Pete's.  And there are probably more that are escaping my memory. 

Ungrateful as I was for these opportunities to grow in character and help the elderly in the process, I think something deep down knew that what my Mom was doing, entirely voluntarily out of the good of her heart, was inherently fulfilling.  It wasn't until much much later in life though that I could look back and see that it was shaping me into someone who had a deep rooted faith in God.  Because I saw that the Gospel made a difference, that church wasn't just a room of hypocrisy, that God did actively love his created beings.  It was showing me what true religion looked like.  So thanks Mom.  Thanks for following out your convictions with deeds.  Thanks for taking the time and effort on top of all your loads of responsibilities to esteem others above yourself.  Thanks for visiting Ruth and Janet in their afflictions.  And thanks for dragging along your whiny son, even when he carefully dropped his mouth of fruitcake into his hand and inconspicuously pushed it deep under the couch. 

 - Love Brant

Why I Choose to Live in a Trailer Home

Why would I, as a 29 year old retired engineer/missionary to India choose to live in a trailer park with 700 Mexican immigrants?  Good question, thank you for asking.  Given the choice between a big lake-house with a boat dock and manicured lawn or a dilapidated trailer in a claustrophobic trailer park, which would you choose?  Yeah, me too.  I'll take the trailer every time.  One our first days coming to see the trailer before we moved in, my roommate Drea met one of the neighbors, Carlos.  After a short conversation he looked at her with a kind of awkward expression on his face and said, "um, so this neighborhood is preddy much all Latino."  "Yeah I know," she responded with a smile.

Last night we hosted a house-warming party.  We had over a hundred people show up.  It was raining so you can imagine the kind of overwhelming amount of personal space invasion that was happening in our double-wide.  It was a mix of white privileged 20-somethings, middle aged stay-at-home Mexican moms, and wild middle-schoolers.  It was a party to remember.  At one point I was wedged between a few people, waiting for space to grab some nachos, and I saw right in the middle of everything, with blaring music and nay-nay dancing on one side and hordes of people shouting over the noise to have a conversation on the other side, one of my co-workers with her hand on an older lady's shoulder, her eyes shut tight in prayer.  This is the kind of beautiful thing that can happen when two cultures clash. 

Drea excited to move in

It's awkward when people don't obey the unspoken social norms.  In a small lake-town in Georgia white people generally live in large, spaced out double-story homes with beautiful trees separating them from their neighbors, and brown people live hidden in trailer courts and working in chicken factories.  Most people probably don't even know that hardly any of the people from the trailer homes will graduate from their segregated high schools; or that 700 people live in a 160-trailer community.  Alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, and hopelessness run rampant.  So when some of those white hipsters move into a trailer park it gets awkward for everyone.  Things can't change as long as they are ignored. 

Housewarming party

Do we really believe that all were created equal?  Do we really believe that race has no bearing on worth?  Do we really believe that our identity is unrelated to our material possessions and personal level of comfort?  Then why are we so segregated?  Shouldn't the fact that rent is cheaper be enough motivation to live in a trailer home?  Or the potential to have interesting conversations with people of a different culture?  Or to be able to help out a couple middle-aged moms with their English lessons?  I think those are all great reasons to move into a trailer park.  I moved here to play tag with Junior and shake hands with Carlos.