January 01, 2008 by Steve Shadrach

Afew months ago I was standing in the middle of a 60,000 student campus called Sichuan University in Chengdu, China. Every student I talked with knew English, wanted to meet Westerners, and talk about any subject we wanted. They were especially fascinated with this person named Jesus and, as a result, large numbers of students were believing and receiving Him as their Savior. I was told I could move my family into an on-campus high rise for just $75 a month, obtain visas as long as it took me to learn Chinese (I’m sure decades!), and have almost absolute freedom to befriend, witness, and disciple these influential students from all over this elite province.

My heart was pierced. I looked up into the heavens and almost audibly asked God a question, “Lord, now, tell me again why I am living in Fayetteville, Arkansas where there are hundreds of churches and boatloads of campus ministries desperately trying to get people to even listen to the gospel? Instead, why am I not here, at Sichuan University, where there are virtually no groups reaching out to the thousands of students who are desperately trying to get people to even tell them the gospel?”

I could only think of one word: Mobilization. The only way I could justify living here and not there is that I believed that somehow, someway God is using me here in a greater way to mobilize believers to strategic opportunities like Sichuan University all over the world. The only way I can sleep at night is knowing that raising up 100 workers might be more impactful than just me going myself. But as it relates to God’s call on every Christian’s life, don’t you think we should have just as strong a call to stay as we do to go?

So, we stay for now, but as Director of Mobilization for the U.S. Center for World Mission, I am not trying to get every believer to become a cross cultural missionary. Instead, our team is focused on recruiting, training, and connecting a mighty band of Christians to their most strategic role in completing the Great Commission. Consequently, every one of our programs, courses, seminars, resources, and publications needs to somehow help us accomplish one or more of the following:

1. Recruit believers to begin this World Christian journey
2. Train them to be more equipped to find and fulfill their God given calling
3. Connect them to the right information, people, and opportunities where they can maximize their life in bringing glory to God in all nations

Over the years the Lord has brought along hundreds of staff and thousands of volunteers to help us create and implement some life-changing mobilization tools. Yes, Perspectives has been our highest profile offering, but there is also:

• The INSIGHT program for high school grads around the country who want to build a biblical and missional world view
• The new Collegiate Mobilization strategy where we are placing full time Campus Mobilizers on key state campuses across the U.S. to serve the church and para-church ministries in their mission mobilization efforts
• Unique and insightful publications like Mission Frontiers, Global Prayer Digest, International Journal of Frontier Missiology and, of course, hundreds of excellent mission titles from William Carey Library Publishers
• Regional offices spread around the U.S. with representatives ready to serve and resource churches, agencies, ministries, and individuals in their World Christian journey.
• There are many other visions and strategies the Lord has given us and, as always, the greatest need is for laborers—men and women who will step into the gap (either as staff or volunteers) and work with us in our effort to recruit, train, and connect believers to their most strategic role in completing world evangelization. Finally, two examples to motivate us to give ourselves fully to this World Christian effort and the spiritual battle the enemy is waging against us:
• There are now 2500 Muslim mosques around the U.S. Many times Muslim leaders will take millions of dollars of their oil money and offer to endow a Department of Middle Eastern Studies at a university. Next they purchase land and build a mosque right across from the campus and begin services there. Over the last ten years, these Muslim activists have come to understand that American college students are some of the most recruitable, trainable, and sendable categories of persons on the planet. They believe that if they can win the American college student today, they can win the world tomorrow. We must do battle right here in our own backyard for the hearts and minds of our own students to win them to the person and purposes of Jesus Christ.
• Reports have been circulating that the Coca-Cola International Corporation has a business plan with a goal of being able to get a cold Coke within one mile of every person on earth by the year 2020. Wow. That is impressive! Some of my co-workers want to use this company’s goal to motivate Christians to get the gospel within a mile of every human being. A legitimate question can be asked of us: Although God has supplied us with infinitely more resources (than Coca-Cola has) to get His message out, are we as committed to seeing our job finished as they are?

Friends, if there ever was a time when we must have a “Kingdom Perspective” and work together to help bring Jesus to the outer edges of this final frontier, it is now. It has become painfully obvious that our Muslim friends are committed to reaching the world. Even Coca-Cola has a plan to cover the earth! So join us, would you, as we band together in the power and unity of the Holy Spirit, to take the pure, unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth? Shoulder up with us as we recruit, train, and connect myriads of believers to their most strategic role in completing this Great Commission.