Why are we here?

My younger son has changed careers more frequently than many of us change shoes.  I don’t mean to say that he is flighty or irresponsible.  All of what he has done can be filed under the same heading—Serving the Lord – Making a difference for Jesus!  Under that heading, though, there has been pastor, youth pastor, driveway-sealer-applicator, janitor, missionary, student, and Great Commission-people-mobilizer.  From the perspective of a guy who spent all his career pastoring the same church that’s a lot of movement.  A few jobs ago my son was in a position in another country.  It was one of those situations in which if he said, “I’m coming here to do ‘X.’” the country wouldn’t let him in.  So, he decided to do “Y,” and he really did “Y,” but the reason for doing it was so he would have an opportunity to do “X.”  “X,” of course is telling people about Jesus.  Chris has learned a lot about combining X and Y since then, and he’d love to talk to you about it.  Let me know and I’ll put you in touch with him. 

To get back to my point, back when Chris was in that former position, I used to refer to the job that gave him standing in the country where he was serving as his “front business.”  He preferred the term, “platform.”  Here in the part of the mission-field (There is an old term we don’t see much anymore) where I’m currently serving I don’t need a front, or a platform.  I am welcome to be here as a minister of the Gospel of Christ.  Officially I’m here to help run a tiny extension of a small Christian University.  Most of my time is consumed preparing for and teaching a couple of classes.  If it weren’t for one important fact, one could make the case that what I am doing is the most inefficient way of delivering Christian Education to this part of the world that one could imagine.  Somewhere there is a group of internet engineers, and venture capitalists, who have a plan that would lead to the opportunity for the people here where I am teaching to be able to tap into incredible college, university, and seminary programs.  Instead of a few students sitting across from me, those same students could be a part of a vast group, cyber-sitting in front of some incredible teacher, interacting with other incredibly bright students around the globe.  Instead, I sit in a room with a broken air-conditioner, preparing to teach students who will sit in the three chairs at the table in front of me.  Ask people about the part of the world where I am and they won’t get very far in their description before they tell you, “The internet is really slow, there.”  Yep.  It is really slow in those places where it works, and right now the place where I am isn’t one of them.  We are on a waiting list.  We hear stories of personnel being elsewhere and there being no equipment available to install. 

The one fact that makes it make sense for an old preacher to be here teaching a small group of people is this.  If I don’t do it, it won’t get done.  Don’t get the wrong idea.  I don’t have an over-inflated view of who I am.  I know that when I pull my foot out of the water I don’t leave a hole.  The fact remains, though, lots of the whizz-bang solutions that are working other places don’t work here—at least not right now—and I checked the line of those waiting to do what I’m doing.  No one else was queued up. 

So, Chris, go ahead and ask me, “Dad, what is your front business?” 

Thanks for asking.  My front business is I’m a teacher/administrator in the extension of a small college. 

But somebody else asks, “I thought you said you were welcome to be there as a missionary?  Why do you say that is your “front”?

It’s because of what happened last night.  It had nothing to do with my job description.  Kathy and I were doing our thing, when all of a sudden lives began to intersect.  A process of touching lives in a way that could last for eternity began, while we were doing something else.  My front is Christian Education.  My real reason for being here is Impact for Christ.  I think that is in line with that greatest of all missionary scriptures.  In Matthew 28:19-20 the main thrust of the passage is not going.  It is making disciples.  Wherever we are, and whatever our reason for being there, as God’s people, that is our primary task.  Likely, there is some part of that work that needs to be done, that for the here now, can only be done by you.