Last January some of our Adventures in Missions staff members attended the Passion 2013 conference in Atlanta. They worshipped alongside 60,000 college students from around the world and learned about practical ways to fight against modern-day slavery and human trafficking.
Passion 2014 starts tomorrow, and we’re excited to hear what this year’s group of students learns and see the impact they make in the world in the next year.
Today we’re pulling a post from the archives from one of our staff writers, Emily Tuttle. At Passion 2013 Emily learned how important short-term missions are to the long-term goal of social justice.
I sat in my seat in the Georgia Dome wondering what I could do as one person to make an impact in the lives of the 27,000,000 people enslaved around the world today. I’ve gone on lots of mission trips, but do those really make a difference?
And then Louie Giglio walked onto the stage and opened his Bible to my favorite chapter, Isaiah 61 – the passage that sums up my life calling and is forever written on my wrist.
But this time I heard it with new ears and understood it like I never had before.
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
If we are in Christ, we have the Holy Spirit in us. Like the field of dry bones that came to life in Ezekiel 37, we were given life instead of death. God forgave us, restored us, and breathed his Spirit into us. As Louie said, “it’s not a matter of if we’re called to missions – we are missionaries if we’re filled with the Spirit.”
God raised us up out of our sin and called us to action. We’re an army of the Lord’s, and he appointed us to do the things in Isaiah 61 – proclaim good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, free the captives, and release the prisoners from darkness.
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
Louie said something else that stuck with me: “When the world asks, ‘Where is God?’ they’re really asking, ‘Where are the people of God?'”
We’re the instruments God chose to do his work on the earth. It’s our calling to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and to look around at the poor and mourning among us and reach out to comfort them.
God already did the work of salvation. He sent Jesus as the sacrifice in our place and gave us life. Now when the world cries out for God to step in and do something about atrocities like modern-day slavery, they’re crying out for the church to stand up and take action. They’re crying out for rescue, comfort, reconciliation, and restoration. They’re crying out for us to move.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.
God promises to not just raise up the poor and oppressed – he promises to make them like giant oak trees to show his greatness.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations…
He says if we liberate and comfort them, they will be the ones to change their nations. They will do the long, complicated work of restoration in their cities and families.
Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.
And they will do it in a way that lasts.
The most common thing people ask me about the World Race or Adventures in Missions is whether I believe short-term missions has anything of lasting value to offer people. What sustainable change can come from a weeklong mission trip or 11 months spent in 11 different countries?
As Louie spoke, something clicked for me. I realized our ministry of reconciliation and restoration starts with offering people the gift of salvation and helping them be filled with the Spirit. Then they can be commissioned and sent out to do the long-term work among their own people.
Social justice and sustainable development don’t always require spending years somewhere or doing all the work ourselves. But they always require the Holy Spirit. And we can reflect his light and speak his truth in any amount of time God calls us to – a week, 11 months, or a lifetime. We can love someone, show them the truth of God’s love for them, and watch as he changes their life and the lives of those around them.
Isaiah 61 was the passage Jesus read from the synagogue in Nazareth the day he began his three years of ministry. It encompassed his life calling, and as his heirs we have the same call on our lives. And it’s simple:
Accept life through the gift of salvation. Be filled with the Spirit. Be commissioned to do ministry. Go and restore the poor, oppressed, and downtrodden. Offer them the life we have received. They get filled with the Spirit and commissioned. They restore their communities and change their nations. Generations become known as the people the Lord has blessed. Generations united for his renown.
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