And if you are reading this, you probably already knew that. I do not believe that missions is primarily the call of the individual; it is primarily the call of the church. (I do not believe it is the church's primary call, and I'll go into that later.) A missionary or evangelist is merely part of the body. If you read Romans 12 or 1 Corinthians 12, you will see that the spiritual gifts are given to individuals so that we can bring them together and work as one functional body, carrying out Christ's work on the earth. I am young, weak, sinful, proud, lazy and unprepared, as I think will come out in this blog if I am as honest as I plan to be. God has saved me, given me new life and gifted me to do the work he has prepared for me, but I need the church to send me in order to fulfill my ministry. I know that without encouragement, direction, correction, prayer, financial support and love I'll fail. The first aim of this blog is for myself: I would like to connect you to what I am doing so I can get the support I need from my brothers and sisters in Christ. The second is for you, my brothers and sisters: I would like to connect you to the work God is doing in Utah for your encouragement and for the glory of our powerful God.
In the beginning of January I plan to move to Ogden, Utah to be a missionary intern for Joe and Jennifer Filer, a C&MA missionary couple who have been called to minister to people of the LDS church. They would like to start an evangelical church and to help them, they are bringing missions-minded college students to Utah to study, live as community and serve various Christian ministries in Utah. They have asked me to teach some of these classes and be a part of this program, called Adventure Discipleship Intensive. I need to raise the finances to go out there, which is $2,000 for three months. It is originally a three-month commitment (January 3-March 31), but it may be extended to six months or a year if God seems to be directing that.
My heart is a bit divided in this trip. There is a large part of me that is very afraid to leave what I know and love. It will be difficult to leave Southern California, because there are a lot of people I love there. I will miss my family and my home church. I do not want to leave them/you all. It will be difficult. I have some other trepidations as well, namely that I do not know very much about the subjects I will teach, I am young and immature and unprepared, and I do not do well in the cold. But these things are eclipsed by desire to glorify God. I was having trouble when studying missions to be able to teach it, because I have no real knowledge or experience. However, I turned to my buddy Pastor John Piper in his book on missions Let the Nations Be Glad! and pretty much immediately got excited for Utah. Piper reminds us that missions is not the primary function of the church, worship is. He considers worship to be the "white hot enjoyment of God's glory." Missions exists because this type of worship does not. I deeply desire to worship God by having such a passion for him. I want to enjoy him like that. I sometimes do but not often. I felt that passion for his glory when I was in Utah this summer, because it was so clear that the LDS church was not doing it. Missions exists because worship does not. Missions in Utah exists because worship in Utah does not. Now I am excited to be able to go to a dark place and be a light there. I look forward to being able to glorify the true God where he is not worshipped and to be the presence of the Holy Spirit where he is not manifested. This is a few months off, but writing about it is getting me really excited to be a part of God's work. I ask that you, my church family, be a part of this and connect with me to bring the gospel of the living Christ to Utah.
