I LOVE CRAZY MISSIONARIES....

We are fools for Christ's sake ....(1 Corinthians 4:10)

I love folks who are so consumed by the love of Christ that their pride and self-consciousness is buried and buried deep.

Earlier I wrote about that "crazy Christian" Robert Park who barged into North Korea with the stated intention of taking the Gospel to the leadership there. He's back in the U.S. and silent....I have no idea what happened to him or what his heart is.....but his actions were crazy! In the eyes of the world "crazy" that is.....

David Brainerd was crazy like that. He devoted the last 4 years of his short life to preaching the Gospel to Native Americans in New England, living among them and suffering with them. This was a guy who could have had a cushy life, going to Yale (from which he was expelled) and living in "civilized" America, but he chose to act like a crazy man.

Next century we find a guy like C. T. Studd.....heir to a fortune, sports hero of the British Empire.....gave it all up and spent the rest of his life on the mission fields in China, India and Africa, eventually dying in the Congo. They all told him he was crazy! I suspect he told them a thing or two since he was notable for very "plain talk" (a man after my own heart....lol)

E. P. Scott was a missionary to India. Despite warnings to avoid the area, he was traveling inland to evangelize a warrior tribe when he found himself surrounded by spear-toting, aggressive men. He figured he was a goner, armed only with his violin......he closed his eyes, tucked the fiddle under his chin and began to play and sing "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" Those warriors were captivated....rather than kill him, they took him to their village where he lived and preached to them for a couple years, seeing souls saved. The man was "crazy"!

We have some crazy missionaries on the fields today, too. Sadly, not enough of them. I am blessed to know one personally who is really "crazy"--he is in the Middle East, preaching the Gospel of Christ in the streets of places where Christianity is "outlawed"--Christians are under death threats and certainly subject to physical abuse, imprisonment and other persecution. He is undeterred, by the grace of God.

Too often missionary work is presented as a "tour of duty" like doing 3 years in the Army or something. Some churches promote these so-called "mission trips" which are nothing more than exotic vacations for folks who want to say they were on a mission field. They'd be better off taking the two or three or five thousand dollars they spend on these shallow endeavors and supporting a real missionary. I know indigenous pastors in Cuba who could live for a year or two on the amount of money some fat-cat American Christian spends on his glorified, "sanctified" mission trip to Costa Rica.

Real missionaries go where God sends them and they stay there til God calls them out (or Home). They do not go to take American culture to the "natives"--they go to carry the Gospel to the lost. They live with the "natives"--they live like the natives. It's incredible to see that there are still so-called missionaries in primitive cultures who insist upon having western-style housing, conveniences, and benefits, living far above the people to whom they supposedly care so much for.

In my wildest dreams, to show how "crazy" I am, too, there should be a way for missionaries on my field to "go native" There should be a way for prison missionaries to go into prisons and stay.....live as an inmate, live in a cell like any other inmate, eat with them, work with them, be one of them. He should stay there til his work is done. He should be subject to all the restrictions, rules and regulations, deprivations and degradations as his people. I speak from experience when I say it's easy to go into a prison and preach to men about the great blessings of Christ when I know in an hour I can just walk out the gate and return to the comforts of my home, family, plentiful, tasty food, and the freedom to do what I want.

Can you imagine how few candidates the NAMB would have for such a field? Naturally, this is for single men. No married man could abandon his family for this field where it would be impossible for them to accompany him. It costs about $30,000. annually for a state to maintain a prisoner. So, the NAMB could offer to pay the state that cost each year its missionary was in the prison. Of course, there would be a million waivers of liability involved should the missionary be hurt or killed or suffer from the lame medical care which most inmates get. But the IMB sends dozens of missionaries into dangerous places every year without a second thought.....why not into the danger zones of the U.S.?

I know there are a lot of practical complications of monumental proportions in this "modest proposal".....probably never happen, but it should happen--somehow. What passes for "prison ministry" is in many ways lame: give it a lick and a promise, make the gesture. We are weakened by chaplains who are drawing a check, mere bureaucrats with no heart for the inmates; we are weakened by Big Show performances by traveling circuses who think mission work is putting on an afternoon's entertainment for the inmates--a motorcycle jump and a couple songs.....we are weakened because the lack of sincerity on the part of some is discerned by the inmates who are then suspicious of all ministries.

How few Christians are willing to even look foolish for Christ! We have our pride--indeed we do. Just the idea of being rebuffed in efforts to make a Gospel witness at work or at the grocery store is intimidating most people into silence. How few there are who will really risk anything, let alone everything--or more than "risk" it, to forsake it! How we struggle to dilute this passage of scripture in order to continue in our self-justified inaction--

And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
(Luke 9:23-24)

CRAZY CHRISTIANS!

Robert Park, a man from Arizona who is of Korean ancestry, walked across the frozen river which divides South Korea from the totalitarian, Godless North Korean police state. Apparently he is now in custody of their state police. How crazy is that?


Why did he do this?


Park reportedly carried a letter addressed to Kim and other leaders calling on them to repent.

“I proclaim Christ’s love and forgiveness towards you today. God promises mercy and clemency for those who repent,” Park said in the letter, which was made public Saturday.

Reaction from around the world is nearly unanimous: Park is "stupid"--he is "deranged"--he is "suffering from a martyr complex"

I've not seen any positive view of his actions, even from the "church world" Understandable, in that his actions certainly are not in keeping with the methodology of the modern "church"

Now, I do not know Park at all; never heard of him until he did this deed. I have no idea of his mental state; I have no idea of his theology. He might be a deranged person. He might be a heretic. He might believe in common-cup communion or trine immersion. It's possible that he's on the wrong side of the "supra vs infra" argument.

So, I'm really not talking about Robert Park, per se, but more of Robert Park as a "type" of Christian. This type is so rare as to be unrecognized by the very church which he serves. Allowing that there are a few exceptions, I stipulate that, he is completely out of character for a 21st century Christian.

He is a throwback to the Book of Acts. He is behaving as if he takes literally the commandments of Christ: things like Luke 9:23. He has read Matthew 24:9 and is undeterred. He acts as if Paul's stirring declaration that "to live is Christ, to die is gain" is literally true.

Why does he not just settle down in Arizona and act like a normal Christian? You don't see the rest of his congregation jumping on planes and flying to Korea to join him across the river, do you?....or Christians from any other congregation. Well, they're different.....they're not like him.

The difference is: he has a burden. Burdens are something normal Christians take great pains to avoid. Those things are not called "burdens" for nothing.....they are a real nuisance, a disrupter, yea a destroyer of our comfortable life. Congregations love to sing "Jesus Saves"....."we have heard the Macedonian call today...." Singing it is fine....just don't get carried away!.......like Paul did:

And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. (Acts 16:9-10)

See, when Paul heard the Macedonian call, "immediately we sought to go...." That's where the "crazy" part comes in. Paul and his team went...they didn't just make up a song about it......they went! They went because they had a vision, a burden; they went because the love of Christ constrained them. They went because the knowledge of perishing souls was more than an intellectual concept to them; it was a matter of heart.

So, Robert Park has a burden for the people of North Korea. He has gone. He might lose his life in the bargain. Just for a moment, let's imagine what could happen if the church had a burden. Imagine now that 100 Christians were burdened by God for North Korean souls......and they followed in Park's footsteps across that river.....and the authorities take them and do whatever they do to folks who come into that country with Bibles and Gospel tracts and the Word of God in their hearts.

And 100 who heard the call are swallowed up......but God is not finished. Following the 100, come 1000 or 10,000 with a burden for lost souls, led by the Spirit of God. Imagine an Army of God marching across that river singing "Jesus Saves"...sung by those who have really heard the call! Imagine a local congregation, maybe like yours, with a $3 million budget and a thousand members, responding to the call by saying: We'll go! Three chartered 747's filled with all the membership, flying to Seoul, busing to the river bank, marching across under the Banner of the Gospel......

Yeah, wild idea......vivid imagination. Never happen. Why? Is God not calling? Does He not care for North Korean souls? ...or those in another equally "dangerous" place? As Spurgeon said, He called. He called, but men ignore Him. We don't want to hear it. We do not care for their souls. We love to make the appropriate noises, to go through the motions, but when it comes to laying our life on the line, we are staying here where it's safe and comfy and warm.

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. "
(Mark 8:34-35)

"WE'RE A MISSIONARY CHURCH"

In a comment on my previous article, Brother Mike said "There seems to be a lack of "go do" in our churches today. At least there is on the local front.

Now if you call for a 'mission trip' to some country whose name is difficult to pronounce everyone seems to jump on board. Why? Because it's the trendy and popular thing to do."

This is an excellent example of the mind-set I am at war with. We have church members allowed to "fall through the cracks" right in front of our eyes because we can not or will not expend the effort because it's laborious, mundane, and (publicly) unrewarding. Fact is: our hearts simply are not in it.

But let come the announcement of that "mission trip" to Mexico, Costa Rica, Alaska, etc, and it's "Sign me up, brother! I want to reach people for the Lord!" (I know in advance that this is a real "rant arena" for me and I'm trying to stifle myself....a bit) Maybe some good comes of these things; I'll allow that I am probably not 100% right on this.......however, I am probably never going to be convinced that in most cases these things are not simply glorified vacations which serve further to assuage the consciences of church members who have never lifted a finger on the home front. Their neighbors are untold; their family is untold; their work associates are untold.....but they want to spend $6000. to go to Timbuktu for a week and "win souls"

And this can be extrapolated (with some loss of accuracy, I'm sure) to entire congregations which "Go For The Glory" They have elaborate, well-promoted, well-funded foreign missions programs. Most all this involves supporting financially men and women already on the field, around the world. The maps are up in the hallway and reports are received regularly. Missionaries on leave come by the "supporting church" and do the slide show....."We're a Missionary Church!"

This same church, it might be noted, has no prison or jail ministry; they have no nursing home ministry; they have no food pantry, kitchen, clothing supply, disaster work crews, homeless care ministry, etc, etc, and ETC. None! Fact is, they have no local outreach at all. This "Missionary Church" says to the community where it lives: "We don't have time or patience to deal with you; we're involved in the Lord's work all over the world."

Please correct me here.....but it looks to me like it boils down to this: "We're a Missionary Church" ain't hittin' a lick except to write the check once a month to fund someone else to do the dirty work....and that does not translate into anything local. I mean, it's hard to send out a missionary to your own town, right? So, we can have this big budget, big annual meeting, and big map on the wall, and we can look really good! The idea of actually gettin' off the pew and out into the streets and talking to real people, even dirty, uneducated, uncouth, people not of "our kind"......now that's a bit much. Don't even talk about going into a nursing home to those smelly, pathetic, mindless old people....or a jail or prison and associating with those people!

"We're a Missionary Church" all right.....just so we can keep it convenient, clean, with lots of acclaim, and maybe even get some time on the beach, huh?