By Donnie Scearce

Donnie is the executive director for Pioneers Canada and currently lives in London, Ontario, Canada.

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of an exceptionally difficult and dangerous circumstance?  It presses in on you, your heart races and palms get sweaty each time you reflect on the situation.  Well, this is actually the context of a famous passage.  David was on the run from Absalom.   His son had betrayed him and he and his army were on the retreat, trying to regroup and figure out what was next.  They were hungry, tired, and concerned about their future or if they would have one.  In this context, David sits to write in his journal: “The Lord is my Shepherd.”  This psalm is so familiar that we overlook its implication for us who sense His leading into mission involvement.

Often when we sense His leading beyond our controlled and comfortable environment, we are struck by the enormity of the situation.  Our internal voice asks:  What will my parents think?  What will my boyfriend/girlfriend think?  Do I really have what it takes?  I don’t want to raise support and after all, I wonder who’d support me anyway?  I have a hard time sharing my faith next door much less in a new culture and language?  Emotions swarm and fear grows to tsunamic proportions with the too frequent result of paralysis.  We don’t move ahead because we fear too much.

There are three particular phrases from Psalm 23 that are critical to our moving forward with God:

“The Lord is my Shepherd” - This Psalm is extremely personal.  David refers to himself 17 times in only six verses.  And he refers to God 13 times.  David views his relationship with God and God’s action on his behalf as central to his very existence.  It is important and I believe, accurate, to read it this way: “The Lord is MY Shepherd.”  Let’s face it.  We all too often think that while God may care for the world, we have a serious doubt if He cares for us.  And for too many workers already in the harvest, there is the danger of laboring to try and earn their own, others, or God’s acceptance (often leading to burn out and a premature returning from their place of service).  David believed God was personally interested in him and the rest of the Psalm reaffirms this.  What do you believe?

Some little children in a church program were all trying to memorize Psalm 23.  One boy was having a particularly hard time.  The night of the presentation arrived and each child got up and quoted the psalm.  Though the little boy had worked hard, when it came his turn, he became nervous and flustered, stood to the microphone and said “The Lord is my shepherd … and that’s all I need to know.”  Maybe it’s all we need to know too.

“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies” - Most of us when struck with gut-wrenching fear, anxiety, and grief do not think of eating.  It is the last thing we want to do as the emotional impact of the time is so great that our appetite disappears.  Yet David says that God actually prepares a feast for him and in the presence of his enemies?  David had learned a secret.  Maybe it began with the lion, or Goliath, but somehow this lesson had settled into his heart.  David did not view himself in light of his circumstances; rather, he viewed his circumstances in light of his sovereign and loving God.  Paul later reminds us of a similar truth “What can we say about such wonderful things as these?  If God is for us, who can ever be against us?”  (Rom. 8:31)

One of our partner missionaries was in a Muslim country and this particular man is a bold witness for Christ.  At some point, he had come across someone who was very antagonistic to his message.  Within hours, he knew he was in trouble and caught a van to return him to the airport.  On the way, a small group of extremists chased the van down and ended up T-boning the van at a high rate of speed.  All were killed except for this missionary and one other person in the van.  Distraught and seriously injured, he had the presence of mind to call his wife, who was in their home country, with his cell phone.  The embassy was able to get involved, find this man, and evacuated him to Paris to receive much needed medical attention.  Though the entire situation is sad and the loss of life great and difficult, it is a great reminder that our Shepherd sees us, protects us and cares for us in the middle of sometimes extreme circumstances.  Our enemies will not always be physically trying to harm us like David and this missionary, but they are equally as real and we, no less, need His provision of peace.

 “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

David was not in a physical “house of the Lord” when he penned these words but we get a glimpse of David’s perspective in Psalm 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.  The world and all its people belong to him.”  David saw himself dwelling in the presence of God. 

On February 27^th of this year at 1:30 in the morning I felt a pain in my chest.  I logically concluded from the Taco Bell meal I’d earlier eaten that it must be heartburn.  I took something and went back to bed.  But at 2:30, I again felt the pain, went to the kitchen to get something to drink and felt a deep and sudden  “whack” in my chest.  I fainted and awoke to vomit twice and I knew I was in trouble.  My wife called 911 and within minutes I was in the hospital.  As it turned out I was having atrial fibrillation (an irregular heartbeat) as a result of a more serious condition with multiple blood clots in my lungs, likely caused by extended international travel.  While lying in the hospital, this passage came back to me over and over again.  My granddad had quoted this passage to me when I was a boy.  “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life” not because of me but because of His great love and faithfulness.  I could do nothing “for God” in that place and His presence was as real and comforting as I’d ever known it.

The key to moving on with God’s leading in our lives and to overcome paralyzing fear is to know Him and to know that He knows us.  We are not hidden from God.  Even when we go through the “valley of the shadow of death,” He is with us.  We know He is powerful and most of us embrace this at least cognitively.  But as He has demonstrated enough times that we should get it by now, He not only has power but He consistently uses it to demonstrate His fantastic love for us.  It is only in the context of His presence that we dare move out but we should because He is with us.   And He is more than enough!

By Floyd McClung

Floyd is the international director of All Nations and currently lives in Kansas City, MO.

As we look to the twenty-first century, we see a new generation of message bearers being sent into the fields. To equip this new generation we need to have a new definition of church for the new believers that will be added to the Kingdom. Though this is a different way of thinking about church the concept is quite old and very biblical. In order to truly see the church expand to its God-given potential, the definition, concept, and practice must change.

What is the Church Supposed to Look Like?

The ecclesia of God is an army, breathed on by the Spirit of God. When God’s Spirit breathes, things begin to happen. The dry bones start to get up and dance. We know it is the ecclesia we read about in Acts because of how it dances and battles and lives life.

Ecclesia is committed community. It is doing life together with others. It is about shared meals together, telling friends and neighbors about Jesus together, hanging out together, laughing and crying together, and growing together through transparency with others committed to love and follow Jesus.

Ecclesia is family. We are the family of God on earth, the overflow of the family of God in heaven. The trinity is family. The church is family: the Father sent the Son and the Spirit to create on earth what they enjoyed in heaven. As the family of God, we are named after the Father, “from whom every family in heaven and earth is named.” Family may not be a positive word for those who had negative experiences growing up. We have the opportunity to change the word and make it positive. We get to enjoy family at its best: we belong, we are unconditionally accepted, we know with certainty we are loved, we receive a new identity, and we learn to receive loving discipline and correction. Jesus did not die for the idea of world evangelization, He died for people, He died to create a family of sons and daughters.

Ecclesia is an army. It’s an army of dry bones come to life. God’s Spirit can turn a disconnected, dead and lifeless bunch of bones into a cohesive army, marching in unison. Armies are for war. God’s army is at war. But our fight is not against people. The “bad guys” we war against are not terrorists, or abortionists, or liberal politicians or seminary theologians who deny the virgin birth of Christ. Our war is not a culture war with the right or the left, nor is it a war against fundamentalists or racists. God’s army is an army of love, empowered to fight against poverty, injustice, corruption and greed. God’s army is held together with kindness, not hate. The focus of our battle is against spiritual forces of evil, sometimes embodied in evil people, but they must never become our focus lest we become like the ones we resent.

I had a good experience of church in Afghanistan. I didn’t go there to find church, but you could say it found me. We rented a big house in Kabul and opened our home to anyone in need. We were there to help foreigners, people who got sick, who lost their passports, or worse, got strung out on drugs. We ran a free clinic and teahouse downtown, and took in the homeless and strung out “world travelers” as they were called. Kabul, Afghanistan was not a good place to get sick. You could catch more diseases in the local hospital than you got rid of. Soon, we had twenty to thirty people living with us at a time. We rented more houses to take everyone in. Hundreds of foreigners got to know Jesus over the few years we lived in Afghanistan.

We shared our meals together, played soccer and developed a routine of prayer and Bible study before we did work projects or visited people in the prisons and hospitals. We didn’t ask people to believe what we believed to live with us, but we did ask them to follow our routines of prayer, work and common meals. We put a lot of effort into a caring, personal mealtime. We took turns serving each other so the meals were not too chaotic. It was not unusual to have twenty or thirty guests eating with us. At the end of the meal we read a few verses from the Gospels and discussed the words of Jesus. We welcomed anyone to make a contribution. Then we sat around the table afterwards, drank chai and talked. People were fascinated with our life together. As I said, many of them became followers of Jesus simply by observing our lifestyle of community and care for each other. 

What is the Church’s Purpose?

Church was conceived in the heart of our Father as his way offering forgiveness to those who are blinded by the gods of this earth and justice to the oppressed. We are here for God. We will not fulfill our purpose on earth by escaping from the world; we are called to invade it, not escape from it. We are here to turn dry bones of broken people into a living army of Jesus lovers who have the life of God breathed into their being.  

God planned and created the 24,000 languages and peoples of this planet, and He will not be satisfied until every one of them love his son Jesus. He longs for them to be with Him in heaven. There are languages on earth that have never been heard in heaven. He longs to hear His name worshipped by all the peoples of the earth before He wraps up history and brings us home. The book of Revelation paints a picture of a great party at the end of time when all nations and peoples gather around His throne and worship the Lamb of God. Father yearns for lost sons and daughters to share in the party. That is why we are here.

Abandoned Devotion Gatherings
Abandoned Devotion Gatherings are 5-8 hour gatherings, on campuses and in local churches, for the express purpose of seeking God through extended worship, uncompromising challenges, and radical prayer to see the message of Jesus spread globally in our lifetime. These gatherings have been catalytic on many campuses to stir a new hunger for more of Jesus and a new passion for reaching the forgotten globally.
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Haystack Nights
In 1806, God used a Haystack to change the world!  It began with a group of five college students that gathered for prayer and had read the great commission and believed that the words were for them. SVM2 is celebrating the 200 year anniversary of this great event by sponsoring a united initiative to tell the Haystack story on campuses, at conferences and in churches in 2006 - igniting prayer for our generation to bring the gospel to the forgotten.
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Ignite Training
A training weekend designed to bring together like-minded student leaders from schools across North America for spiritual formation, leadership development, receiving practical, effective ideas and strategies to take mission vision in their community to the next level, and the opportunity to broadly connect with one another and form relationships. Host an Ignite Training

ABANDONED DEVOTION BOOK

Making Jesus Lord
By Loren Cunningham

Cunningham examines the power released in the lives of believers through the laying down of rights. It is easy to possess our own rights, especially when we live in a culture that highlights our rights as the most important thing. Will we lay down our rights and truly make Jesus the Lord of our life?


GLOBAL PROCLAMATION BOOK

Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours?
By Roland Allen

Roland Allen was a missionary to China and he has incredible insight into the complex realities of the missionary journey. He critiques the Western missionary methods and emphasizes the problem with finances and the method of church planting efforts.

Are you committed to serving Jesus cross-culturally in the nations when you graduate? If so, join with hundreds of others in today's united student mission movement by clicking here.