Sovereignly Situated

We (the other pastors and I) have begun a 6 week training program through a ministry called the "Crescent Project." The Crescent Project's mission statement is to "inspire, equip and serve the Church to reach Muslims with the Gospel of Christ for the Glory of God. It is our vision to see a day when fear is replaced with love and millions of Christians are actively sharing the truth of Christ with millions of Muslims for the glory of God. We do this through prayer, training, local outreach, and short-term trips." We are excited about the things we are learning, and feel burdened to build relationships and share the love of Christ with the men and women who attend the mosque, which is located at the other end of the street our church is located on.

As we began this training I was reminded of a message shared by a missionary in Chicago that connected God's sovereignty in bringing "the nations" to the US with the incredible opportunity we have as the church here to have "beautiful feet" in our own cities and neighborhoods. This message became vivid to me once again last week. Let me explain...

On Wednesday mornings we go to Richmond HS to prayer walk there before the school day starts. We have made it a routine to drop in on a Christian teacher there to pray with him and seek to be an encouragement to him. Last Wednesday we shared with him about this new training that we are undergoing at the church (Crescent Project). He shared that there are new students at the high school who are from Muslim families and who recently moved here from a country in the middle east. I did some research on that particular nation in my "Operation World" book. It is 99% Muslim and is closed (and even hostile) to the Gospel! The amazing thing is that God, in His Sovereignty, moved families from a "closed" country in the middle east to Richmond, CA! It is not illegal for us to share our faith here. It is not illegal for us to offer Bibles to our neighbors here. So God has given us an incredible opportunity to reach out to our new neighbors!


Do you see the connection between Acts 17 and Romans 10?

Acts 17:26 "And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward Him and find Him..."

Romans 10:14 "How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?"

The great thing is that this doesn't just apply to those whom God has brought here from around the world. God has sovereignly placed us all in unique families, work environments, neighborhoods, and cities. He has given us all opportunities to have beautiful feet. The question is a simple, yet challenging one: do we love our neighbors? More specifically, do we love them enough to share Christ with them?