Reflections After Being on the Road

Along with a seminary student from our church, I was out of the country for 17 days speaking and visiting friends in Dubai and Turkey. I’m glad I went. Parts of the trip were challenging (e.g., food, travel, illness), but the people were wonderful and the opportunities to understand Christian life overseas was well worth the journey. Thanks to Jason Helopoulos for guest blogging. Thanks to any dear saints out there who prayed for our trip. Thanks to my church family and family family who sent me off. I hope it’s okay that I came back.

I intentionally refrained from blogging while I was gone, both because I didn’t want to make my blog a three week travel journal and because I wanted the freedom to be “fully present” in new places far away from home. But now that I’m back, I would be remiss if I didn’t share a few reflections from my time on the road.

Here are ten thoughts, in no particular order of importance or spiritual depth.

1. The importance of the local church cannot be overstated. Good churches–the kind with good preaching, membership, discipline, thoughtful worship, capable leadership, strong elders, robust doctrine, warm fellowship, gospel-centered passion–are needed everywhere. And possible everywhere. Wherever Christians are doing ministry they should put the church at the center of their strategy and energy. Don’t think good churches can’t be insisted on overseas. Don’t think God can’t build them up wherever he wants. And don’t expect ministry to flourish without them.

2. There is a need for strong international churches. In our globalized world, most major cities will have expatriates from all over the world. Many (most?) of these expats will speak English. Some of them will be Christian. If anyone reading this blog is thinking about pastoral ministry, think for a few minutes about the possibility of serving an English speaking congregation somewhere in the world. Talk to John Folmar at the United Christian Church of Dubai about the opportunities such a ministry can afford. There are churches all over the world that could benefit from humble English speakers eager to do pastoral ministry in these unique, multicultural, gospel hungry environments.

3. Why don’t I evangelize more? Why aren’t the members of my church sharing their faith more relentlessly and consistently? I was challenged to meet so many believers in hard places who make evangelism a way of life. If they can do it through cultural, religious, ethnic, and sometimes language barriers, why don’t we do it more often here in the States? I engaged in more personal evangelism in 17 days overseas than I’ve done all year back home.

4. If you want to serve the Lord overseas it helps to be flexible, outgoing, and somewhat adventurous. It’s an absolute must to be humble, teachable, prayerful, and patient.

5. Blogging matters, but it was nice to be away from it for three weeks. I believe in blogging. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be back at it this week. I met many Christians overseas–some Americans and some not–who follow TGC and other prominent Christian blogs. The impact of blogging is vast. And yet, it was freeing to read something about Kony 2012 or Rush Limbaugh or Bill Maher or Travyon Martin and think, “I don’t need to say anything about that.”

6. The Insider Movement is a bad idea. Admittedly, my evidence in this paragraph is anecdotal, but I only talked to one Christian who was excited about the Insider Movement, and he was an American. One Turkish pastor passionately explained to me–and I saw this firsthand many times–that Muslims are convinced Christians changed the New Testament. This is Apologetics 101 for Muslims. When they find out (and it isn’t hard to notice) that a new translation leaves out “Son of God” they aren’t duped. They only feel confirmed in their belief that Christians change the Bible to trick Muslims. Likewise, an Indian Christian lamented that the Insider Movements tend to be exported by Western Christians who don’t have a theology of suffering.

7. If you want to have any real impact in another country, you have to learn the language, settle down, and stay for as long as you can.

8. As much as we lament cultural Christianity in America, it’s still better than cultural Islam. The number of Christian churches, resources, books, and resources in this country, not to mention the cultural legacy of Christianity in the States, is staggering. There are fewer leaps necessary to become a Christian and more opportunities to hear the gospel here. We should be thankful.

9. Judging from my experience and from talking with those who know much more than I do, it’s safe to say that most Muslims are very nice people, most are happy to talk about religion, most are nominal, and most have profound misconceptions about Christianity. They need to hear the gospel. Most will listen. A few will believe.

10. Dorothy was right: there’s no place like home.