Shifting Paradigms

Another week has gone by at YWAM Louisville...Last week we listened to a series of lectures about Effective Personal Ministry. It was a good teaching concentrating on the fact that ministry is service--meeting people's needs through the strength and power of the Holy Spirit. We also talked a lot about Paul's life and how he really lived out his teaching. It is actually kind of difficult for me to sit in class and learn about ministry. I want to be out in the world doing it; so it was somewhat of a struggle this week for me to engage during class. But God is faithful and always provides His grace even in small things like paying attention to lectures :) I am reminded often that this is a time of preparation and I want to make the most of it.

We also started a study on missions through a teaching called Pathways. It is a collection of articles on various topics but this week we read about how God from the very beginning has been a missional God. One that spoke to me particularly was from Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper. Piper talks about how the purpose of missions is worship and that "missions exist because worship does not."

Piper says, "The ultimate foundation for our passion to see God glorified is his own passion to be glorified. God is central and supreme in His own affections...God is not an idolater...With all His heart and soul and strength and mind, He delights in the glory of His manifold perfections. the most passionate heart for God in all the universe is God's heart... Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God's delight in being God...The gospel demand that flows from such a God to the nations is an eminently shareable, doable demand, mainly to rejoice and be glad in God."

This thought was a new thought for me--that God is by nature missional. He desires to share Himself. For us we start to see this at creation and it continues through His covenant with Abraham, David and ultimately through Christ.

God is showing me more and more that He has put His heart for the nations into my own. I am realizing how deeply I desire to be a part of God redeeming peoples from every tribe, tongue and nation to gather around His throne in worship. I already knew this a bit but the longing is deeper than i knew. i will go, but not yet...(and for the time being--let us bring His kingdom in America as it is in Heaven)

"Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples!" Psalm 96:3


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