I was regularly challenged to consider what role I might play in God’s global plan. However, the roles that I heard about seemed limited to those of a pastor, or a missionary, or something in alleviating poverty. Those are all clearly important roles, but for some reason those roles just never appealed to me and I felt guilty about it.
In 2009 Claudia’s InterVarsity staff member encouraged her to attend Urbana. "Urbana was a switch for me," Claudia said. "It made me realize that not only do I want to missionary work in the inner city in my home, but eventually I want to work overseas."
Since so much of my life has been invested in travel, much of it international, I’ve observed something about those of us who possess the power, privilege, and money to travel overseas; sometimes we end up treating the world like a product to be consumed.
If you are a TCK yourself, know that you are not alone. You are uniquely gifted as a bridge-builder in God’s global mission. You can see, interact, pray, mourn, and make peace in ways that no one else can. We need your voice in our faith communities so we can learn how to be better witnesses cross-culturally!
Back at the end of March, we mailed out a print publication called Testify to all Urbana 15 participants. While we don’t have anymore Testify’s in print, we have been we publishing posts from Testify here on urbana.org. Here they are all gathered together for your reading pleasure.
What if we don’t really love the Bible because we don’t really know the Bible? Or rather, what if the Bible we know isn’t what the Bible was inspired to be?
God is not seeking so much to use us as to love us. Our participation in his work comes out of his love for us, not the other way around. If we really want to be a part of God’s work we must first linger in his love for us in the present.
During the course of the 2010 Lausanna Congress, those present were asked what they thought were the key missiological issues which faced the global evangelical church at that time. Many of their responses are summarized in the actual document which came out of the Congress, the Cape Town Commitment. Amongst the thirty-two areas of need listed, these 10 were perhaps the most important.
Micah Albert knows a thing or two about discomfort. In his photojournalism career, Micah has collected nearly as many stories of peril as he has awards for his work—which is to say, quite a few.
There’s quite a bit out there regarding short-term missions, including quite a bit right here on this blog. Here are the best posts: