I am sitting here at my favorite coffee shop, Peet’s coffee, right off the campus of ACU. In the booth in front of me is a group of girls—they look to be late college age. There are 3 of them and they all look to be pretty much your typical Christian college students—upper middle class white kids (that is another post!). They are talking about a desire to do missions and to travel to far away exciting places and to work with kids. I make no attempt to judge their motives. I have no idea why they want to do what they are saying that they want to do. But, I do know that they have no idea how to do it. They have all of these great, youthful ideas and absolutely no idea what to do with them.
How embarrassing that Churches of Christ have nothing with which people can be involved on a large scale as far as missions and social justice is concerned. This has got to change. Perhaps they represent a large group of the youth within churches of Christ. I think they do. It is time that they find a way into the wide world of missions—beginning in Mexico. These people bring desire, heart, and money into a ministry that needs all of the above. Is it about a desire to feel useful? Probably. But that doesn’t mean that it is bad. God help us to organize these thoughts and to provide a way that people can help the impoverished of Latin America.
What would it be like if we were known as “that group that is so involved in helping poor and powerless people” instead of being known as “that group that thinks they are the only ones going to heaven”? If anything were to be my call in life, I think changing these stereotypes is it. I think—no, I know—that we can do it. God is alive within us and he can actualize any reality within us. Will we let him?
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