As a missionary family on deputation, one of our goals is to help people see the need of the field to which God has called us. It is always exciting to see others catch a glimpse of the vision we have for the field to which God has called us. People are often surprised at the great need of our field. The fact that approximately 4,475,000 (assuming that each of the 25 independent Baptist churches has an effective reach of 10,000 people) of the 4.59 million people in the city to which the Lord has called us are not being effectively reached with a clear presentation of the Gospel, often comes as a shock to people who pass three or four other good churches during their ten minute drive to the church which they attend each Sunday. These kinds of statistics are even more shocking to people as our field is in the United States.
Initially, I was caught off guard as we went into churches and people didn’t seem to have much of an understanding of the need of the U.S. for church planters and missionaries. In the news we often hear statistics about the decline of church attendance in America. We see the moral decline in our country all around us. Yet, for some reason, many of us have not seen this country in need of missionaries. It seems reasonable and even biblical that churches would be frantically sending church planters and missionaries to “reclaim” this nation that was once considered “Christian” but is now as pagan as many of the foreign fields that fill our churches’ mission’s programs.
There are several reasons I believe we have trouble seeing the United States as a real mission field for this post we will only look at one:
1. Ignorance of the need
In our video presentation we have included a listing of the 6 least-churched cities in the U.S. (according to a Barna group survey). Most of us wouldn’t know the top three least churched cities in the U.S. (I had to go back and check myself). The fact of the matter is that if we were truly concerned about the spiritual state of our nation and seeing the Great Commission fulfilled in our “Jerusalem and Judea”, wouldn’t it be reasonable for us to know the neediest areas so we can focus our energies on reaching the unreached with the Gospel and planting churches to disciple those who are reached? Sadly, we are content to complain about the wickedness of our country but aren’t even willing to educate ourselves enough to pray intelligently for it’s neediest cities, let alone be actively involved in reaching them with the Gospel.
In John 4 Christ took an unusual route through the city of Samaria. In fact, Scripture states, “he must needs go through Samaria.” Those of us who are familiar with the passage know that Christ needed to go through the city of Samaria, because there was a woman there who needed to meet Him, who would believe on Him, and in turn point scores of lost Samaritans to Christ. We are told that many believed that day as a result of Christ going through Samaria. We know that Christ went to Samaria because He knew (He is all-knowing) that He would find a multitude of people who needed Him for salvation. In this passage the disciples were too worried about physical food and why Christ wasn’t separated enough from the immoral, Samaritan woman to even notice, let alone care for, the multitude in need of salvation. I fear that we have become too much like the disciples in John 4. We are so consumed with our own self-righteous comfort zones and physical appetites to take the time to notice or even care about the multitudes in need of a Savior right in our own country.
It was Christ’s knowledge of the need in Samaria that caused Him to take that unusual route through the city that resulted in multitudes being saved. It was in the context of Christ’s knowledge of another multitude in Scripture, that Christ said, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” We understand that God expects us to pray for laborers to be sent into the harvest fields of the world and reach the multitudes of otherwise unreached people. Christ knew the need of the unreached multitudes because Christ is omniscient. If we are going to follow Christ’s command to pray for the Lord to send forth laborers into the harvest, we are going to have to take the time and energy to find out where those harvest fields are. (Oh, and actually pray for God to send laborers there)
If we are going to be obedient to the Great Commission and Christ’s command to pray for laborers to fulfill that Commission, we are going to have to educate ourselves and our churches on the needs that exist, not just all around the world, but in our own country. Proverbs 29:18 tells us, “Where there is no vision the people perish. . .” Scripture is clear on what the results will be for America, if we do not take the time to get a vision for the neediest mission fields in the U.S.
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