A Closing Window of Opportunity?: Bringing Millennials and Gen Z into the Great Commission

(Hello everyone. I've been traveling a lot this summer, and have been able to spend a few weeks in the US for the first time in 3 years. My post today is on a topic which I feel is important for the North American Church, and very relevant to the future of Global Missions from this part of the world.  While there has been great concern over how younger generations now have largely stopped attending church, I submit that this is because attendance was indeed the issue of concern when leadership and ownership should have been. You may disagree with my analysis of how we got here, but we are here. I believe we don't have to stay here, however.)

Don’t Get Them Confused: Millennials vs. Gen Z

Every couple of decades, a new generational cohort comes along, with a fresh outlook and worldview, and sometimes very different assumptions and expectations from those of their predecessors. Millennials were the hot topic for years, with their marked differences from previous generations and defiance of many long-standing US cultural institutions. No longer now the college kids frequently targeted for criticism by their elders, even the youngest Gen Y/Millennials are already getting past their mid-20’s. The college students of today are not Millennials but Generation Z, who have already been exerting their own unique influence on society for years now, albeit to less media fanfare.

People tend to break down the generational differences between Millennial and Gen Z in certain ways: Typically Millennials are regarded as idealistic and concerned with the great events and causes of their time, while Gen Z are seen as more pragmatic and focused on their own day-to-day lives. Millennials have been slower at setting up their own households and pursuing a stable income compared to previous generations, preferring to invest their time and resources in other areas. By contrast Gen Z seem more interested in achieving financial independence, and even starting their own businesses. Most Millennials had the internet from a young age, with smart phones coming later, while Gen Z are mobile device natives who have grown up regarding wifi as a basic resource.

Some more comparisons of Millennials and Gen Z.
This chart was a better summary than most I found.

Rather than compare these stereotypes against each other positively or negatively ("Gen Z are harder workers" "Millennials are more relational"), I believe it’s more helpful to understand them as natural preferences developed at different periods of recent history:

Millennials were the first generation to have access to the online social world at their disposal from a young age, and so there is an innate desire to connect and unite. Inherited material resources and optimism from the Baby Boomer days also provided a context where society seemed to moving forward; Millennials understood their responsibility was to keep that going and make the world a better place, and a great many feel that this is indeed the purpose of their lives.

By contrast, Gen Z grew up in the post-9/11 era, more destabilized, pessimistic, and less prosperous. They feel the stress of financial anxiety more keenly and don’t consider society to be progressing forward. Thus rather than worrying about making the world a better place, they tend to focus on achieving personal security in the midst of uncertain times.

Personally I have experienced the sense that a certain large block of people used to have a voice and influence in the way society as a whole runs, but that it's a sort of privileged group that requires a certain level of social integration and sufficient personal resources, and as society fragments, that group has shrunk drastically and no longer speaks for the majority of society. (Although many senior Americans still imagine that this consensus exists, and try to fight political battles to regain control over it)

Growing up with mostly Boomer parents, many Millennials could at least have witness this world by proxy, and infer that top-down influence was the most effective way to steer society in a better direction. (An increasingly leftist progressive media also assume this as a first principle and communicate accordingly) By contrast, I submit that Gen Z, with mostly Gen X parents who were increasingly outsiders (both inadvertently and by their own jaded and system-weary choice) to that broadly influential social club of "people whose opinion matters". Gen Z also grew up in an increasingly fragmented society, and have little conception of that kind of social integration and inherited influence which existed in the past. Thus the idea of top-down influence obtained by collective process makes less and less sense; they are growing up in an un-integrated society, and each goes their own way as seems best to them. We have arrived at situation described at the very end of the book of Judges: 

"At that time the Israelites left that place and went home to their tribes and clans, each to his own inheritance. In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit." - Judges 21:24-25

A Missed Opportunity: Unled Millennials

That may be the condition of society, but let us shift our focus specifically to the Church and Global Missions and how they could be blessed by these new generations: Millennials seek to work in community to bless the world, and they understand the great value of mentoring. Meanwhile Gen Z are focused workers who aren’t afraid to start building amidst uncertainty. These are not only both valuable mindsets for the mission field, but the two are also naturally complementary.

It would be a pity if current leadership in the Church and mission sending agencies missed out on these God-given strengths, but sadly for the Millennial generation this has already happened. The passionate but often naive idealism of Millennials met a prosperity-addled Church in love with its comfort zone, with leaders focused on maintaining an acceptable status quo or still fighting the culture wars of previous decades.

It has been widely observed that Millennials are all but unanimous in their desire to make a difference in the world. Yet, at church they often encountered a lazily fatalistic mentality which insisted things will simply get worse until Jesus comes, simultaneously conflating social and spiritual authority, and thus was increasingly disengaging from the world as popular culture drifted further and further from Bible-belt culture. Few leaders actively recruited maturing students into the great work Christ left us to do, but expected loyal attendance without any undue boat-rocking or change-making, or simply gave over spiritual responsibility for tomorrow's elders and deacons entirely to youth groups, so the adults could continue in their accustomed ways undisturbed. It’s not surprising then that when secular voices told Millennials a more optimistic and empowering tale--that change was coming and necessary, and by working together students like them could indeed make a better and more just world than that of their elders--Millennials allied themselves excitedly to those causes instead, and abandoned church attendance en masse.

For Millennials who did find their way into missions, surveys showed an interest in innovation and teamwork, and their highest priority was to find a seasoned missionary to connect with relationally and be mentored by. Yet arriving on the field they frequently ran into entrenched and outdated ideas and methods which had persisted less due to any bad motives than simple inertia. A sink-or-swim/hands-off mentality often prevailed over missionary mentoring, leading to widespread discouragement and burn-out.

Millennials only partly deserve their reputations as snowflakes.
As always, there is also some projection in those accusations...

It’s Not Too Late: Bringing Millennials into the Fold

Millennials are already changing global missions by their relational and technological focus (and willingness to totally reject defunct narratives and systems) but churches and sending agencies need to find more ways to channel their passion and desire to make a difference. Mentoring, mentioned above, is an urgent and crucial need. Millennials deeply desire to be mentored and led into ministry by people they respect, and then work hard to make a difference there; whether in the workplace or full-time ministry, they have consistently refused to be treated merely as the next batch of workers with an obligation to show up and maintain status quo. Mature believers who have been working actively for the kingdom of God should reach out to Millennial singles and couples and guide them into obedient service, not wait for them to appear.

As a generational cohort, Millennials are often criticized for delaying traditional milestones of adulthood, but that also means they are less tied down than previous generations at this point in their lives. This means it’s late but not too late to bring them back into churches and onto the mission field. The fact that they haven’t shown up doesn’t mean they never will, but it will take relationship building and invested leadership, not expectations of immediate changes in habits or ideological leanings as a sign of spiritual development. As Millennials have children and settle down, they won’t lose their desire to make a difference in the world, and families serving together can be uniquely effective on the mission field too. (Especially in the supportive and relational ministry environment in which Millennials seek to serve).

Coming and Already Here: The Challenge of Gen Z

With all the media focus up till now on Millennials, it’s important to recognize Gen Z are not a hypothetical future challenge, but an opportunity facing us today—they are already graduating college and beginning to enter the workforce. Having initially dropped the ball with Millennials, how can the Church and sending agencies avoid doing the same for another generation?

Fortunately, some lessons learned with Millennials will benefit Gen Z as well:

• The connectivity of the digital age is now increasingly an integral part of operations.
• In recent years many sending organizations have scrambled to catch up to the 21st century and are now moving into better and more flexible positions to work with modern missionaries.
• A mentality shift from waiting for qualified workers, to active recruiting and guidance.

All these things will help reach Gen Z, who will present new challenges to missionary recruiters. They tend to lack the deep Millennial passion to see change in the world, and also increasingly lack background understanding of the legacy of the Church and the missionary task. They are focused on working hard to reach personal goals in a fragmenting society. For them it may often be necessary to start from the beginning and explain why missions is important, why we do it, and what spiritual growth and other benefits they will personally experience as a result of obedient service. ("What's in it for me" is a self-centric question, but a very human one that the Bible anticipates and teaches us to grow beyond)

Gen Z missionary candidates will probably be less likely to come in with a Millennial-style crusading ideological stance on issues of gender, privilege, etc. but will be accustomed to that language and have a live-and-let-live approach; again it will be important for someone with a deep understanding of scriptural (and not merely "conservative christian") teaching on these topics to explain via authentic dialogue (not a long monologue) why a doctrinal or faith statement, etc., has certain firm language on these topics, or why it's absent. (Be sure to include informative graphics and not only text in the explanation)

It is probably also best to share real examples of kingdom opportunities and give them a clear picture of what they’ll be doing (The “it’s complicated, just show up with a willing heart and figure it out” mentality makes a lot less sense to digital natives who may prefer to simply video chat with their future coworkers in the field and get some answers directly), and explain what skills would be helpful to acquire before going in. Lastly, Gen Z members seem not to expect as much hand-holding as Millennials, but they need mentoring and discipling just as much whether they ask for it or not--and they shouldn't need to ask to receive it. In a healthy church culture, it should be the default.

We Millennials and Gen Z are the experienced kingdom workers of the future, but still largely the unrealized opportunity of the present. May we submit ourselves to Christ as obedient servants of His gospel, and may the Church rise up and embrace the opportunity to establish a healthy generational relationship of mature believers actively discipling and guiding their younger brothers and sisters in Christ!

The Pearl Harbor mistake, and a lesson for Mission

I don't usually post on this sort of thing, but the Pearl Harbor attack 75 years ago today offers an excellent analogy for a danger that lurks in our most sincere mission efforts. As we honor those today who lost their lives while in service to their country, let us also reflect on the important lesson the Pearl Harbor attack contains for those of us involved in gospel ministry.

1. Background: The Attack

On the morning of Dec 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy," over 350 Japanese planes suddenly attacked the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii. The surprise raid led to devastating losses for the US Pacific Fleet. The U.S. temporarily lost all 8 battleships in the Pacific Fleet, and nearly 200 airplanes, in exchange for fewer than 30 Japanese aircraft downed in the attack.

It was a violently successful raid, which by its very success led to strategic danger and eventual defeat for Japan. For most missionaries, if we achieved a "dramatically successful" ministry, we would write to our supporters in excitement. But how much thought would we put into how whether that success translates into long-term strength for the gospel and local church in a given area?

Whether through over-eagerness, by the desire to "see something happening," the decision to capitalize on a current situation, or simply wanting to bring all the resources we have to bear on a given gospel challenge, it's easy to only think of the tactical aspects, the details in how to successfully do a given ministry or activity, and not think past it to the strategic level, the longer-term or wider implications of what we're doing.

2. Tactics vs. Strategy

The Pearl harbor attacks were an excellent example of how great tactics can be poor strategy. In the short term, the surprise attack was a crushing success which severely crippled the US in the Pacific. In the long term, however, it was the event which brought the US into World War II, and led to the defeat of Japan and the other Axis powers.

Admiral Yamamoto, architect of the raid, had strongly opposed the war effort, stating:

“Anyone who has seen the auto factories in Detroit and the oil fields in Texas, knows that Japan lacks the national power for a naval race with America.”

As Yamamoto himself admitted, planning the attack was an act of desperation against a powerful nation with a greater industrial base, which he believed would eventually overwhelm Japan. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a tactical strike made in hopes to somehow achieve a strategic victory, to demoralize the U.S. or "end the war before it starts." On that front it utterly failed, however. While America's fighting capabilities in the Pacific were temporarily halted, the vast U.S. industrial capability was now focused into the war effort. As new Allied forces poured into the Pacific, Japan was not able to hold on to all the new territory it had conquered, and was forced back, to eventually surrender after nuclear strikes on the home islands.

It's impossible to know in hindsight, but it is widely suggested that Japan's chances of holding on to much of its captured territory would have been significantly greater if it had done everything possible to prevent or delay war with the U.S., rather than fiercely striking out at U.S. naval forces at their own base, an action sure to infuriate America and maximize popular support for entering the war.

From a strategic perspective, the longer Japan had controlled its conquered territories, the more resources it could have obtained from them, and the more industrial capability it could have developed across its nascent empire. If a direct confrontation with the U.S. eventually occurred, the Japanese could have fought back from a position of much greater strength with a widely distributed and deeper industrial base to support the effort.

3. The Lesson for Great Commission Efforts:

One Ministry's Strategic Failure in Taiwan

A book I once read by a former Taiwan missionary (whose name sadly escapes me, the book is back in the States), recounted a disappointing instance in the efforts to evangelize Taiwan. A large gospel operation was planned, and dozens of local young people were trained in sharing the gospel and sent out into Taiwan's countryside, reaching thousands of people. Hundreds indicated they were interested in following Christ, and it seemed the outreach had been a great success.

Some time later, however, when missionaries returned to those areas to see how things were going, they were only able to find a single person still following Christ. Everyone else, lacking any spiritual support and surrounded by the idolatry that had been all they ever knew, were absorbed back into Chinese folk religious practices. Like the seed in Jesus' parable, the gospel had been snatched away by the Enemy, or else quickly choked out by the weeds of idolatry which flourish so thickly in the Taiwanese countryside.

"Perhaps we should have planned less and prayed more." the missionary sadly concluded, contending that the spiritual darkness of Taiwan was not to be lifted by well-planned efforts alone, but by spiritual battles which had yet to be won at that time. (My own observations here suggest spiritual battles for the soul of Taiwan are still waiting to be fought by Christians and missionaries willing to rise up and fight)

The apparent failure of that effort, and many smaller ones like it, are one reason Taiwan has trouble retaining missionaries. It is a gospel field full of thorny weeds, thin and rocky soil, and watchful birds. I rejoice at the frequent news of the harvest being reaped a few hundred miles to my West, in cities across China. May we see similar things happen on this side of the Strait in days to come. But for now, one labors for years to build relational context, establish trust, understand the complicated variations which run through the subcultures of Taiwanese metaculture, etc. 

Things that work in other places often fail here; there is a spiritual bondage yet to be broken, but also Taiwan is just a complicated place. You have to love it, and possibly be a little crazy, to come dive headlong into the Chinese language and figure out how to share the gospel in an effective way when the majority of people consider ritual more important than truth, tradition more important than logic, and success in prosperity possibly more important than any of the above. Many incoming missionaries begin with enthusiasm, but after struggling to really connect with people spiritually, eventually move on to areas where people are more open to the gospel.

"Why Spend so much Time? Just Preach the Word"

"So then, why spend so much time trying to perfectly understand where people are?" you might ask (and others have asked, in my hearing). "Let's not waste time with all this, we're here to preach the Word, let's just preach it." 

It's true that hesitation or lack of initiative can hinder the work of the gospel, but the ability to "just preach it" in a way that is effective usually comes after the efforts of many other workers and ministers, and it also depends on the people to whom you're preaching having had their hearts readied to receive the truth, and understand the basic concepts you are communicating.

As Acts 14 recounts, Even Paul and Barnabas, going a bit off the beaten track when escaping from Iconium, did not start an instant gospel movement in Lystra with their preaching and even a miracle of healing, but were instead believed by the provincials to be Zeus and Hermes, and sacrifices were almost made in their honor. "Just preaching the word" didn't work for them; there must be spiritual willingness and some measure of basic understanding, both things which the Spirit can provide suddenly in a gospel movement, but often chooses to accomplish through years of labor by kingdom-minded believers in a given area.

Tactics vs. Strategy... Ministries vs. the Local Church

I only have a few years of experience in Taiwan thus far, and I'm sure there was an era in which higher-level strategic efforts were made by mission boards and organizations separately and together to see fruit for the gospel in Taiwan. 

Now, at least, I don't see a lot of thinking at the strategic level; most missionaries are focused on their individual ministries, which as I well know are absorbing enough to occupy all of your time and energy and then some, especially if new missionaries are not coming or staying. At that ground-level, tactics seem to be at the forefront by default, because it's hard to think of anything else.

For missionaries wanting to really have an impact for the gospel, however, strategy can't be ignored to focus purely on tactics; we can't just focus on the impact of our individual ministries without considering the wider effect on the local Church. Just like Japan lost partially by too quickly goading America into the War, whereas waiting would have let them strengthen their industrial base and presence in their new territory, when we seek to capitalize on our own mission opportunities in the short term but do not strengthen the local church by them in the long-term, we have not achieved a strategic success, and may even have made mistakes which will weaken the local church in the long term.

Perhaps you do work directly with the local church, so it seems like this shouldn't be a problem. But are your activities equipping that church to reach its locale and cooperate with other churches for the kingdom over the long term? We should always be investing our efforts in that direction when possible.

Good questions to ask ourselves might look like the following:

"For this new ministry we want to do, are local workers going to interested in continuing it after we leave?" 

"If we come in and make lots of things happen with our resources and motivated foreign missionaries, will this be reproducible for local believers? 

"What will this church we're planting be doing in 10 years? Have we built in a foundation of discipleship and mission from the beginning?"

"If we push to evangelize and disciple based on what we're used to, before we understand the local culture, will future gospel efforts be stunted here by having taught locals to do mission in an American way that's unnatural for them and the culture?" 

"How can we develop partnerships with existing churches to have a greater impact and also give them experience in this kind of ministry?" 

"Is pouring all our efforts into this one church helping the local Church overall?"

Or maybe more localized questions that combine tactics and strategy, like:

"For this meeting, if we do an invitation we might get some people to raise their hands. But by doing at the very beginning will we alienate more people who are just figuring out who we are in this community? Do we know what decision they consider themselves to be making?" 

"If we invite short-termers to get a big boost in the activities we can do, are we able to follow up well on that for long-term benefits to our local effort? Will we create false expectations in the people we're trying to reach with the gospel?"

It's not always possible to consider all that, and having considered it, it may not be possible to always act in a strategically productive way. But asking ourselves questions like this will help keep strategy on the radar, and Lord willing, prevent us from spending years with our heads down in labor, only to look up later and find little long-term progress can be seen after all our work.

Is the Problem Planned Parenthood, or You?

This Topic...

Generally speaking I keep this blog politics free. However I don't consider abortion to be a political issue but a moral and spiritual one which plays out symptomatically on the political field due to its nature. It's a huge problem here in Taiwan as well, where even a higher percentage of babies are aborted than in the U.S.

I'm seeing a lot of disputed figures being thrown around regarding the Planned Parenthood debacle, of which I'm sure most people reading this will be aware. "The facts" in this case seem to differ depending on who is citing them, to an even greater extent than usual, and everyone from Congressmen on the Right to FB friends on the Left seem to stumble as they pick their information based on ideologically friendly sources which are focused on polemic over accuracy.

But while anyone with a functioning conscience rightly recoils in horror at what was going on with what they call "tissue donation" (like calling what the Nazis did "mortality research"), to me the most troubling aspect is that what they are doing is apparently legal. Regardless of whether Planned Parenthood is federally defunded or not, that must change. One of the sickest aspects of the whole affair is that Planned Parenthood defended themselves not by explaining that of course they weren't carving up living babies in the womb for their parts, but by clarifying how they were handling the funds involved in doing so. Yet as obvious as it seems to me and many of you that such things should be considered unspeakable atrocities, let alone very illegal, many people rise up bristling in anger when one suggests it. Why is that?

1. The Underlying Issue

The philosophical flashpoint around which the whole issue revolves is the question of personhood. Even a lot of abortion advocates believe human life begins at conception. They don't consider it murder to end that life, however, because they consider it human life in merely an abstract sense, not a person deserving of rights and protection in our society. To them, tending also to be involved in women's movements, a woman is a person, in fact a person of a social class that has been previously mistreated and deserves special protection, and the "fetus" is not. Therefore subjugating a woman's rights to that of an unborn lump of tissue is wrong in several ways at the same time, in their eyes, and they react to that prospect with rage and indignation which they consider righteous.

Now if you believe living people have souls, as all Christians do, and that life begins at conception, then you must logically believe that either there is a human soul united to a fertilized egg at the moment of conception, or that there is a human life with genetic information already supplied by both parents to which a soul is united at some unknown point in the womb. (Scripture does not offer specifics, though logic suggests conception as the most plausible option)

In either case, there is not some kind of benchmark for the progress of physical and mental formation that can serve as a definitive precursor to personhood. I personally believe the human soul exists from the outset, as the physical person and mind designed to match perfectly with it develop in the womb and beyond (Psalm 139:13-16). And if the soul exists from conception, then we must call it a person from that point, even if the fullness of personhood has not yet manifested itself. It has not yet done so in a toddler or teenager either, for that matter, but is a continual process from conception to death and beyond. We are people from the very beginning, and becoming more human all along. (Indeed, the fullness of our humanity as God intended it will not be known until we taste life after death. Only Jesus is truly, fully human, the Firstborn from among the dead.)

If, however, you do not believe living people have souls, and thus consider personhood to require having attained a certain level of physical development with a certain level of brain function, etc., you will be open to persuasion regarding exactly what point personhood is achieved. Certainly an unaware, tiny mote of tissue is not going to seem like a person yet. Even an embryo which is aware of outside stimuli, has taken on human appearance, and recognizes the voices of its parents might not make the cut. Some people, like the infamous Peter Singer and others, take this even farther and suggest birth should not necessarily confer personhood either, since new babies are not fully sentient, brains still rapidly developing, and aren't really people yet according to their stricter definition. (Since most people think emotionally more than rationally, they consider this "horrible" without ever stopping to realize it's just an extension of their own definition of personhood. Where do you draw the line? If nothing is sacred, why should the mere act of passing through the birth canal be so special that it suddenly confers full personhood that did not exist two minutes earlier? Because we adults can see the baby now? Because the amniotic fluid is now replaced by the thinner fluid of our breathable atmosphere?That seems quite arbitrary with regards to the child itself.)

A soul waits as its body and mind develop

2. The Great Impasse

So we have a conundrum. People who believe in the human soul and people who reject that concept are going to have a deep and fundamental disagreement on abortion, which is exactly what we see. It's easy to point to the more strident and offensive members of both sides (though you'll note the millions of deaths are all on one side), and claim that's who you are fighting against. It's easy to throw out various scientific data as well. But the issue at heart is not of science, but of philosophy and faith, because questions like "When is a human a person?" "Do humans have souls?" cannot be answered by scientific inquiry.

Since people do have souls, abortion in most cases should be outlawed as murder, as the developing embryo is a person. Indeed, if human life begins at conception, as a plurality on both sides of the controversy acknowledge, and if the soul is present from that point, then even emergency contraception, the so-called "morning after pills," etc., may represent the forcible separation of both parents' genetic information from the soul, which counts as ending a life. (It has been pointed out that many fertilized eggs fail to implant on their own. Well yes... in our world today, all souls experience physical death via natural causes at some point. But acting intentionally to ensure that this takes place sooner rather than later is called... murder)

However, you are probably not going to convince many people who believe neither in God nor the human soul that the developing human is a person at such an early stage of development. Not necessarily because it conflicts with their own interests, though this is often the case, but also because the very nature of the question of the existence of a soul makes it a foundational aspect of one's worldview. In other words, both believers in and doubters of the soul would be required to destroy and then rebuild most of their ideas about humanity to admit they are wrong.

So you will have, and do have, the Church grieving an ongoing, legal, mass infanticide while Humanist groups deny anything of the sort is taking place, or that it would be wrong if it were (because if there is no God, human society collectively figures out what is good for humanity).

3. What Can Be Done?

Currently, it appears there are only two options for stopping this generational slaughter:

1) You manage to be loud enough and insistent enough to get it banned despite many people not agreeing with your basic logic behind the ban. We do live in a squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease democracy now, for better or worse (mostly worse), so that approach can work if enough people get stirred up. That's exactly what has happened with some Republican congressmen on this issue just recently; enough of their base were fired up enough about the horrible, true revelations regarding some of Planned Parenthood's activities that they felt the pressure to take action on it and vote against the spending bill on that issue alone.

So this approach has been tried, does work to some extent, and as abortion becomes more and more emotionally distasteful with new technology that allows people to see just how human preborn humans look and act (and are), there may be some traction. Also, many political approaches have foolishly taken an "all or nothing" approach in the past. It doesn't make any sense to reject bans that make exceptions for rape, etc., as "compromised" when what you have now is nothing. Saving some babies now would be an excellent first step towards saving the rest.

However, this kind of ban is a shaky victory, which usually doesn't last. It's achieved with the aid of public sentiment, which can just as easily swing back in the other direction years later, and the Church is not nearly as good at being loud and insistent as many secular advocacy groups. We are about Christ's business, or should be, and while the people of any free nation should be concerned with its right governance, that is not the primary responsibility of the Church. Which leads me to the second method...

2) You convince the majority of people, or an influential enough plurality, that people really do have souls. Then, convinced that preborn humans are people too, a ban on killing pre-born people would logically follow. Most people aren't trained to think logically, but they're pretty good at being uncomfortable when something seems morally iffy. If they even strongly suspect an unborn baby is a soul waiting to be born, abortion is going to sound alarmingly like what it actually is.

This talk of the soul would have been more difficult in the age of Modernism, but with Post-Modernism we have found that as our understanding of the universe increases, some things we were sure about before become less certain. We used to "know" there can't be an immortal soul because we couldn't ping it with any scientific instruments and get a measurable response back (actually even that may not be strictly true); now people are much more open to things being out there that are accessible in ways which present difficulties for the scientific method. (not to speak of the current prevailing deterministic materialism in the world of scientific academia which they stubbornly conflate with science itself--an unwitting tribute to philosophy)

So though many gallons of Church ink have been spilled bewailing generations educated to believe there is no absolute truth, at the same time post-modernist ideas have actually removed some significant barriers to evangelism. The Church could be making great headway if we began to engage our culture from our real position of richness in Truth and epistemological strength in Christ and the Scriptures, instead of turning it on its head and trying somehow to be of the world but not in it.

This, as it turns out, is the approach Christ has already commanded us to be working on. Christians should start sharing the gospel and truths of Scripture with their non-believing friends and neighbors (not simply trying to get them to visit the church and then relying on their pastor to explain these things), and with passion and positivity, speaking the clear truth with love, explain our belief in the human soul, of our creation in the Imago Dei, the Image of God, and how every life is precious in His sight, and should be in ours too. And our actions had better line up with our words.

4. Redefining Pro-Choice

Is it difficult to have those kinds of conversations? Usually yes. There is no clear segue from "So did you catch the game last night?..." to "...and that's why human life is intrinsically valuable," but even in the few years I spent as an engineer in the work force before venturing forth on long term cross-cultural missions, we managed to end up having conversations like that around the water cooler quite a few times. (It helps if you pray specifically that God will allow you opportunities to share, and are intentional about it)

But honestly... with our brothers and sisters being martyred in the Middle East and elsewhere (even in this latest Oregon shooting, it looks like), and legal induced abortions in the U.S. having passed the 50,000,000 mark since Roe v. Wade, can you really explain to God that you are too busy, aren't adequately prepared, or are too fearful of other people's opinions to even make the attempt to communicate His truth to a declining culture, one person at a time?

If so, then stop complaining about Planned Parenthood, because the problem is you.

Evil will always be around until final judgment, but being "the good man who did nothing" is your own choice. Don't be that person, choose life, and life abundantly. That's what could turn things around; Christians choosing action over inaction; choosing not to retreat from an increasingly insane culture but to engage the people around them with the love of God and truth of the Word in the context of their own daily lives. Choosing to recognize we are all called to live for God and not to merely fit Him into the reasonable and appropriate crevices in our status-and-comfort-chasing lives.

Planned Parenthood and their advocates believe that with no God, human society determines what is right and wrong, and who is necessary and who is expendable. They provide the services which take this decision and enact it by means of a whole range of options, from smiling early prevention to gruesome live dismemberment.

They are busy acting on those beliefs.
Are you busy acting on yours?

Russell Brand and Special Revelation

1. A Different Brand of Message

Even a loose cannon is right twice a day?

Along with thousands of other people online, I have been entertained by some of Russell Brand's viral posts (one on the existence of God, another on the problem of porn in today's society) which have circulated recently.
One can't help but wish the man was a believer, both for his own soul's sake and also in terms of the impact his native intelligence and charisma would allow him to have for the kingdom. (On the other hand, we see repeatedly in scripture and in life that God purposefully chooses the humble and unimpressive as His instruments to accomplish His purposes, for His greater glory.)

Mr. Brand is a man of... interesting beliefs, and an interesting background. If you weren't aware of his existence prior to those videos which are circulating to some extent in the Churchosphere, go searching for much of his other material and you might find yourself scrambling for the pause or back buttons. So understand that of course my post is in no way an endorsement of Mr. Brand as a good role model (he would insist that he is not, and we would all agree), or his opinions to be generally trustworthy. (He's a marxist, self-confessed heroin addict who enjoys transcendental meditation, for starters)

I'm not linking to the videos here because I'm not really interested in promoting Mr. Brand and his variety of other outspoken opinions on this blog; if you are a responsible adult feel free to find them on YouTube. ("Russell Brand", "Stephen Fry", "is there a God" will take you to the first. Take note, it includes Stephen Fry's arrogant, blasphemous little rant accusing God of being neither sane nor good.)

While Brand argues against the possibility of a literal interpretation of (any religion's) scripture, and says he doesn't like dogma or organized religion, he does argue enthusiastically that we live in a world where there is a sort of God behind everything, and whose image is reflected in us, and supports the basic idea of a sin nature. In the second video he argues that pornography is wrong, goes against conscience and warps our perspective of each other as human beings, and that both men and women (and he himself) should stop doing it.

The first video, though too vague to call support for a monotheistic concept of God, was also an effective refutation of Stephen Fry's disrespectful and unsubstantial proclamation of unbelief in a recent interview. Though lacking any logic and pretending perfectly good answers to his questions haven't existed for hundreds of years, Stephen Fry was rhetorically aggressive in his "assault" of theodicy, and millions of non-scientist science groupies, "brights," and god-denying, would-be intellectuals doubtless think it quite a devastating argument and the end of any discussion. (Ideological wars are reminiscent of the Bronze Age; most soldiers weren't particularly good at fighting and nobody liked dying, so it was often preferable to have two champions fight and each side could cheer theirs on.)

But Brand basically popped up unexpectedly and dismantled Fry's negative attack, and it's strange but compelling stuff. It's hard to think of an American equivalent, but it would be a bit like the countering argument to Bill Nye coming not from Ken Ham, but an excited Steven Tyler.

The strange thought occurred to me that, sadly, in some ways the videos are better than various sermons I've heard. I have sat through plenty of vaguely topical sermons, in churches both in America and in Taiwan. Honestly, watching those two videos of Brand's excited rambling probably made more of a difference in my life overall than listening to some of those sermons did.

2. Majoring on our Minors

How could that be? Because I'm a worldly Christian who needs dubious celebrities to say things on TV or the internet before I believe them? Because I'm not willing to search for some applicable truth to my life in every sermon I hear, even the bad ones? As Paul wrote, "By no means!" Much of what Brand says are simply purported truths he's personally noticed about our world that are misunderstood or purposefully obscured. One reason his words in those videos resonated with many people is that much of what he claims to be true is truth that can be seen from the world, what we would call general revelation. To borrow Paul's words again, from Romans 1, evidence for God can be plainly seen in what has been created. Those who reject that evidence are given over to depravity and sentenced to live out the consequences of the delusion they preferred to the truth.

Brand has indeed indulged in depravity, admits he still does a variety of wrong things when he can't stop himself, and can speak with sincerity of what results from it. In recent years, he has sought the path of becoming "a better person," and now apparently seeks to encourage everyone to be better people as well. It's a sort of secular gospel, with some truths we would recognize as scriptural mixed in there here and there, with a lot of hindu-ish mysticism and Brand's own randomness mixed in. It does come across as an interesting breath of fresh air in the addled chaotic mess that a culture of "do as thou wilt" has led us to. But clearly, it's not the gospel of Christ that brings eternal life, not the message the Church is on earth to proclaim.

Conversely, when the Church lays aside its unique identity and blessings, loses sight of a gospel focus and tries to copy what the World already specializes in, it fails almost every time. That extends all the way to the pulpit. If you just want to pick a topic and give a good talk, there's someone in the world who has more natural talent and can do it better than you. A gifted agnostic speaker could no doubt pick a Biblical topic and give a better talk on it than many preachers "sharing" a message. Many would be edified, (earthly) lives would be changed, etc. That's the power of a good speaker.

So what does the church have that the most positive, talented, morally-upright (in content, if not in life) speakers and encouragers don't have? We have the special revelation of God about Himself and His promises, accurately in the words of scripture and perfectly in the person of Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to proclaim that revelation and live it out in this world. That's "all."

The Church instituted by Jesus Christ to take the gospel to the ends of the earth and make disciples of all nations until He comes has been equipped by God to do exactly that, and no one else can do it. So we preach Christ resurrected, and a hope placed not in this world but in its Creator. Or at least we should preach that.

Whenever we stop preaching it, whenever we start trying to make people better, or use man's wisdom to achieve God's results, or desperately long for recognition from Hollywood, the media, etc. to validate our way of life and thought, we fail.

What Russell Brand demonstrates is that general revelation, truth anyone can observe which ought to lead them to seek out God, is out there, and those in the world with the motivation and willingness to do so can perceive it, at certain times and in certain ways. This kind of general truth is never a bad topic, but if that's all we're preaching, we're not sharing much that Mr. Brand can't say too, probably more interestingly. We have more to offer: the words of eternal life.

3. Κήρυξον τὸν λόγον (Preach the Word)

So then, why do we keep trying to major on our minors? I don't even know. There are probably a hundred reasons, not least of which is the constant clamor of the world around us. We live in the "loudest" age there has ever been, with more distractions than have ever been, being bombarded constantly by more information than humans have ever had to endure. Eventually, it seems compelling. The problems with which we are confronted by the world seem compelling for the same reasons. That's an external factor.
 An internal factor is that a lot of pastors are tired. Regardless of whether or not they've ever been trained to dig deeply into scripture and present the fruits of that labor to their flocks in an effective and challenging way (globally, most have not), sometimes they simply have too much on their plates for one human being.

This could be their own fault, for not saying "no" when they should, but more often it's because a lot of Christians "delegate up," assuming many of the spiritual responsibilities of every believer are really the job of "professional Christians." (Of course Christians should try to do it more, but you have to do it, it's your job. Even as a fairly new missionary I've heard that line a time or two.)

I have good news for the church: God trusts you with the job too. There are no professional Christians, there are only professing Christians. Want to change the church overnight? Convince those sitting in rows on Sunday morning, or maybe even yourself, that church is not an event, it's us. We are the Church, and every believer is a priest; we are, as one of my Hebrew professors at seminary wrote, a Kingdom of Priests. Christ is our heavenly mediator, and we are His representatives on earth. There's no one else to give that job to; no one else is doing it if we aren't.

Of course, it's true pastors do have a sacred responsibility to proclaim the word. And a nice homily on showing gratitude or being kind to others is great, but it doesn't provide vital spiritual nourishment any more than a cookie does. We live in a wrecked world, infected with evil. Evil men are systematically rounding up and murdering Christians as you read this, both in Africa and in the Middle East. If the roots of our faith are not deep, the winds of adversity or attacks of temptation will simply knock us down. A topical message with a couple relevant verses simply won't cut it. Believers need the spiritual protein from the meat of the Word to build the necessary muscles, or we'll be weak Christians forever. And that's not the kind of weakness the Bible is talking about when it says "when we are weak, He is strong," it's more like the weakness of Proverbs 24:10: "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small." We must Preach the Word.

So in conclusion, if our faith is weak, and our understanding of the Word is weak, we cannot boldly proclaim Christ to the world. We won't even see why we should, let alone be willing to risk loss and embarrassment for it. Maybe we'll retreat to nice-sounding messages with "enough Bible" to be legitimate. Maybe we'll even retreat to "positive, morally-uplifting" messages that lack scriptural foundation altogether. At that point we're no more helpful than Mr. Brand; we've left our spiritual inheritance, and wandered into the domain where he speaks with more authority to many than we. How embarrassing would that be?

An INTP on the Mission Field: Another look at "Teamwork"

I remember engineering school quite distinctly (despite seeming in some ways like a previous life, I suppose it wasn't actually that many years ago). They were fond of giving us "group projects," ostensibly to teach us ornery engineers (real engineers are born, not graduated) how to play well with others. The most important lesson we learned through these was perhaps unintentional on the part of the school:

Observable Principle 1. Teamwork is the enemy of productivity
Observable Principle 2. Teamwork is the enemy of efficiency
Observable Principle 3. Teamwork is the enemy of adaptability
Observable Principle 4. Coordinating schedules with others is like herding cats
Conclusion for the maintenance of sanity: Avoid group projects whenever possible

My experience of team work until graduating college was pretty much this.

Thankfully, workplace experience demonstrated to me that this may not always be the case; it largely depends on the people on your team. It can be both worse (a team in which certain members are literally destroying the project through a combination of incompetency and obliviousness and harming your career prospects), or, in the rare case you get a bunch of qualified and competent people on your team, it can be a pretty amazing thing that results in stuff like, you know, getting a satellite to rendezvous with a comet after 10 years and dropping a lander on it. Of course in that kind of situation, teamwork gets a boost from the endeavor that unites them. More on that anon.

A Task Too Immense for Solo Work

Not being a people person, I definitely spent some time in prayer before deciding to become a missionary. "God, if I'm going to do this, if my job is going to be 100% people focused, you're going to have to change my heart towards people." I was pretty happy as a computer programmer; I had a few friends I trusted and family members that I loved, and didn't bother with people much outside of that.

(Contrary to what most people think, computers are quite simple. It's all 1's and 0's, they never get their feelings hurt, and they do what you tell them unless something is broken. And if so, it's usually easy to tell what's broken. People are tremendously complicated, get hurt from all sorts of accidental issues, let alone intentional ones, and actively hide their broken parts from you.)

God answered that prayer, and though at times I long for a nice, simple, straightforward task like several dozen pages of broken source code to debug, I have changed very greatly in how I relate to other people, not to mention in how I come across to them.

In missions, working with a team of one sort or another is basically necessary. Being a "lone wolf" missionary might sound attractive to a lot of INTP's and others too, but practically speaking it tends to not work out very well at all. If anyone could have worked alone (in the human sense), it would have been Christ, but He instead chose to surround himself with men to disciple, who would go forth and build the church after His departure. So at very least, if one is so competent that they do not to be taught or trained by anyone, they should work together with other people, to disciple them. But Jesus is obviously a unique example. What if we want a merely mortal example, the kind of person who is competent enough to rely on themselves?

We could then look at Paul, a stubborn genius who quickly got impatient with those less motivated than he. He seems like a good candidate for a lone wolf type, but it turns out he hated working alone, and always went out with a team when possible (my next blog post will mention this more). Later we see him sending his team members away to address issues in other areas only reluctantly, even when there was no one else who could go, and pleading with others to come join him.

The nature of modern cross-cultural missions work is typically such that one has a team to send you, and a team on the field. For new arrivals, one of the first things a team does (or should do! I've heard horror stories...) is help them get settled in. One is often not capable of surviving (let alone thriving) on one's own in the new language and cultural environment, and at very least requires help in getting started.

Settling in is not really the main issue, however. One could theoretically hire locals or expats to help you do all that, and some people are nice enough to do it for free. So my point is not that you couldn't survive the settling in process without a team; perhaps you could. That's a personal challenge that leads stubborn and/or confident people to think "hmm, I'll bet I could manage it."That kind of confidence or even stubbornness can be a useful character trait on the mission field, helping you "stick it out," though of course overconfidence or false expectations can torpedo the whole thing.

But the point of a team and the cruciality of teamwork is related to what I mentioned about great endeavors. That is, you need a team because the Great Commission is too massive a task for any one person to pursue alone, even in a local context. The team is not for you, the team is united for a common purpose, a gospel vision. Now, you've probably heard something like this before. In the secular sense, one could say "fine, that's not my vision," and walk away. For believers in Christ, the overarching goal, the meta-vision, has been provided for us, in the command from and example of our King. We are to make disciples of all nations, and though that responsibility extends to each of us individually, it's not a task any individual can tackle alone, at least not in any long-term sense; for something like planting a church, or taking the gospel into new territory, if Paul needed a team, you do too.

A Team Not of Your Choosing

Missionaries cannot typically choose their coworkers. A new missionary might arrive on the field and find, in the words of C.S.Lewis, "just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided." (from The Screwtape Letters) The guy with the annoying laugh who tries to joke about everything; the old guy who can't see why everything can't just be done the way they did it back in the day, when people were sincere and hard-working; the lady who feels the need to play devil's advocate in every discussion... (Note: these are "archetypal" examples and don't describe any past or present coworkers)
So the challenge then becomes working for the most important cause of all, with people who you would never choose as coworkers. Thrust into similar circumstances with a different task, perhaps it would be more manageable. But when your goal is to do something highly complicated and difficult- bring the gospel across cultural and other divides, plant reproducing churches, etc.- and there is no clear-cut way of achieving your goals, meaning you might have to "fail" a few times before seeing progress, then you have a recipe for teamwork disaster. (And if your team is multicultural, there are even more potential pitfalls to avoid.)

Add to this the INTP propensity for critical thinking and quickly seeing flaws in a strategy, and team discussions can be minefields for us. We feel very strongly that not pointing out flaws in the plan early on (obvious to us, who constantly run scenarios in our minds to see how they'd play out, and also file away any real-life experiences to improve the accuracy of this ability) out would mean failure of the plan is our fault; something many people don't realize... we are not attacking you! We are trying to help your plan succeed. This is our oft misunderstood attempt to prosper everyone and bless our efforts by making our plan foolproof. It just gets taken the wrong way when people begin to feel they're the fool we're trying to proof it against.

And please do not say, good missionaries wouldn't or shouldn't struggle with this kind of thing. There are no "good missionaries," there are only redeemed sinners learning to walk with God and how to obey His commands. (among them the Great Commission) Sinners argue, hold grudges, sometimes fight. At very least, they disagree about proper approaches to problems. Those differences of opinion are hard to let go of when you feel strongly that the wrong approach might not only cause this effort to fail, but make subsequent efforts more difficult. If it was a new marketing strategy for hybrid cars, that would be bad enough, but this is the gospel.

Example: What is the balance between a gradual and long-term approach that seems quite slow to bear any fruit but allows the cultivation of deeper relationships with local people and respect in the community, versus a bold and active approach that is willing to let a few people be offended and possibly wear out your welcome but results in more people hearing the gospel with the possibility of a breakthrough?

There is no right answer to this question! But everyone will have an opinion on it. We trust God, but we observe from scripture that He's given all believers work to do, and we've got to figure out how to do it, one way or another.

So under stress from living in a culture that is not our own, speaking a language that is not our own, making decisions we often don't have enough information to make (an especially stressful factor for INTPs, who might prefer to balk in those situations and wait for more data before making a decision), working with people we might not always respect or see eye-to-eye with, teamwork is a tenuous thing, easily fractured. And that's not even going into how the enemy is constantly trying to fragment our fellowship and set us against each other; discord is one of his works. So much intentional effort must be put into maintaining "one heart and one mind."

Substitute satan for management (no doubt easy for some of you), and this is pretty much
what is always happening on this mission field. This is one reason we need prayer!

One of the best ways to build and maintain a strong team is praying together! Coming together into God's presence not to talk to each other, but to Him, lets the Spirit do some direct work on people's hearts. This is something my team does intentionally, and I think it's incredibly important.

Summary: INTPs and Teamwork on the Mission Field

Basically, as INTPs we must be wise to avoid the following scenario:

Strategy Discussion for a Particular Ministry:

Person A: Maybe we could try [plan that was tried last year and failed]
INTP: I think we've seen that doesn't work well, unless you think the situation has changed in a fundamental way since we tried it last that would make it a good plan now?
Person A: Uh.. I'm just throwing out ideas!
INTP: *thinks* "Why waste time by talking about obviously useless plans?"

Person B: How about [plan that flies in the face of how local culture does things]
Team Leader: (Fully intending to discard this idea): Ok, maybe that's something we can think about.
Person B: (Feels appreciated, doesn't care if the plan is not actually used because their goal was to participate in the discussion in a meaningful way)
INTP: (Doesn't understand this^) "But what about [x] culture factor? Wouldn't they have [a] and [b] objections?"
Team Leader: (trying to salvage Person B's having contributed) "Not necessarily, maybe it's worth trying to see what happens."
INTP: (Feels slightly embarrassed that the team leader has rejected their assessment, and thus defensive:) Presents a 5-min, airtight logical case, with multiple failing scenarios, demonstrating that this approach is totally at odds with the local culture and could cause any number of problems. Provides an unlikely scenario in which it might succeed, wanting to be diplomatic. Some people nod in agreement or chime in, wanting to demonstrate they also have been culturally observant and understand this issue. 
Team Leader: *Sighs* Cannot disagree because the statement was clearly accurate.
Person B: (Feels foolish and under attack) Strikes back defensively insisting it could work.
INTP: (Unfortunately B's statement, born out of hurt feelings, is more an emotional expression than a rational counter) Warming to the debate, has no trouble picking B's defense apart. Noticing that B is flustered, they reassure him that they are not taking any of this personally. The INTP is confused when this only makes things worse.
Team Leader: (Resigning to the inevitable) Well, INTP, what would you suggest?
INTP: Provides a very long and well-thought out plan, taking into account both abstract methodology and practical and cultural considerations. Talks too long because they answer all questions about the plan as if the person is suggesting they didn't think through a particular issue, which they did, and feel compelled to make sure that person is aware, not wanting to appear incompetent for having missed such an obvious point.
Person B: (Upset, criticizes the INTP's plan because if theirs got criticized it's only fair that the INTP's plan gets criticized too)
INTP: Explains why their criticism of B's plan was valid, whereas B's criticism of their plan was invalid. It's not about getting equal time, it's about the validity of one's thought processes.
Team Leader: Uh, let's wrap this up and move on to the next subject.

As they leave the meeting:

INTP - Thinks the meeting went well, though B is too sensitive. Talks animatedly with a few people about the cultural issues that got raised during the meeting. Later, goes back and reflects on B's comments, making sure any potentially valid criticism is taken into account so the INTP's own arguments can be that much more solid next time.

A - Thinks INTP was a little mean to B, needs to lighten up

B - Feels upset, and possibly has begun to regard the INTP as an opponent. Concludes they can't actively oppose the INTP in a meeting without being made to look stupid; begins to think of ways to counter their influence. The beginnings of a crack in the team are possible. If they struggle with self-confidence, they may be less inclined to strike back, but hesitate to share in future meetings, for fear of their ideas being shot down.

Team Leader - Tired. Wishes INTP would not subvert his attempts to keep the team happy, through probably is aware that it isn't on purpose, and may just feel the INTP has an overbearing personality without realizing why he acted as he did. (Doing a meeting with personality tests to understand where each person on your team is coming from might be helpful. Sometimes it doesn't matter that you understand why someone could think that way, so long as you know it's a personality difference and not intentionally directed at you)

An INTP can bring extremely useful skills to a team, if they will learn and always keep in mind those rules which don't come with our personality, as I mentioned in a previous INTP post. You must take into account that most people won't have your motives, or dwell so entirely in the world of ideas, or think that the person with the most logical or well-tested thoughts should be the one to talk the most. It also helps to be self-aware, and explain your own motives for speaking up if you have a comment on what someone else is saying. They might still not appreciate it, but at least you can move from being "that INTP" to "our INTP."
As I mentioned earlier, prayer is a key here. It's harder to criticize your teammates in a potentially abrasive way when one has been praying for them! Prayer will shift one's thinking away from only their ideas or contributions and towards them as people, sons and daughters of God, which is always important for us.

Finally, a truly servant-hearted INTP who has learned when not to speak, may find people are quite willing to listen when he does. We yearn for people to benefit from our insight; to communicate that insight we must first clearly communicate the love of Christ.

Bit by Bit - You are Not an NPC

 (Bit by Bit is a series I'll do from time to time expressing gospel
truths through gaming metaphors. The title refers to our progressive sanctification. And, you know,
1's and 0's)

Anyone who has played an RPG or MMORPG (not to mention table-top role-playing games) will be familiar with the idea of an NPC. (If you're not, it means "non-player character" or "non-playable character")

Simply put, it is a character which is part of your game experience, but which you do not control. These characters range from allies that can join your party (often providing witty banter in addition to their combat assistance), to sellers in a market, to the various enemies you encounter, to those frustrating hostages in rescue scenario levels that seem to run lemming-like* to their doom given the slightest opportunity.

*- Lemmings don't actually run off cliffs en masse and kill themselves, it's a persistent urban legend. In one famous documentary they even used a device to launch them off the cliffs so they could film it happening as if the lemmings were doing it. Google or Snope it if you don't believe me.

An NPC doesn't have to care about the game because they -are- the game, existing as part of the game for you, the player, to interact with. They're typically just a computer-controlled character, usually responding to some kind of input from you as well, but of course lacking the means to make any real decisions on their own. (Unless the singularity has already occurred and the so-called AI in games has become real AI and is just toying with us, waiting for its change to go Skynet. But real AI is impossible, of course, for reasons I might explain in a future post.)

Incidentally, this is a convenient metaphor for explaining the idea of scriptural inspiration. We say that the Bible is "inspired" by God, with the Holy Spirit guiding godly men as they wrote. Theologians have often pondered exactly by what means this took place. While there are different schools of thought, the tradition I was taught (and hold to) and that most evangelicals would ascribe to based on their views of scriptural infallibility and inerrancy is Verbal Plenary inspiration, which considers Biblical authors to have been "carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21) and that every word of scripture is "God-breathed." (theopneustos, from 2 Tim 3:16, a cool word Paul seems to have coined for a concept he wanted to convey, Koine Greek being a language which let you do that sort of thing as English does today)

What this means is that Biblical writers were not NPCs, uninvolved spectators who suddenly woke up from a nap one day and found a glowing scroll and empty ink bottle in their inventory. They really did write the books and letters (or, as evidence seems to suggest for some NT books, dictated them to an amanuensis to copy down for them. Either way, they were generating the content..), and the books beautifully reflect the literary genres of the time and the personality of the human author. At the same time, it is not merely the important thoughts and insights of those writers that were communicated, but the Spirit guided them so that what they wrote was scripture, the true words of God, breathed out by Him. There is a gracious and powerful way in which almighty God works in conjunction with fallible humans to bring forth His own desired work. From the building of the tabernacle, to the writing of the scriptures, to the Incarnation itself, and our sanctification and ministry today; we are not NPCs either.

We can act like it, though. We can claim we have no responsibility, claim that God's sovereignty means we can be fatalistic and not fulfill the tasks to which He has called all believers, and those which he reveals to us and calls us to pursue as individuals or couples or teams. "If it's God's will, it will happen," may be true of His revealed will, but maybe it is His will for you to go do that thing today, and not doing it would be sin.

Paul said, regarding our lives in Christ, that we should run in such a way as to win the prize. In the previous post, I suggested a paraphrased adaptation for the gaming generation might be "play in such a way as to win the game." (2 Tim 2:5 makes it clear this doesn't mean cheating is an option.) So would it make a whole lot of sense to play the game by getting a house in an NPC village and just kind of loitering around? Or trying to stand by the village gate and suggest quests to other people while not starting any?

God has given us a mission, a quest, a calling, and it's to bring the gospel to every person, everywhere. Not to save them; only God can do that. And we can't believe -for- anyone else, as much as we sometimes want to (God knows -and that is not taking His name in vain- how I have wanted to). But we can share the reality of what God has revealed to us, about Himself and our human condition. 2000 years later, the campaign is ongoing. The world has been forever changed, previous generations did and are doing their part, but large portions of it remain unreached, and that's our part.

Half of all online free multiplayer RPGs, it seems, start with the same task: go to the [grassy field], collect 7 [gopher pelts], and bring them back so this NPC can make a [jaunty hat]. You will receive [a tattered cloak] or some other thing that's only useful for the next 5min of the game as your reward.

It's not a surprise to anyone who's played an RPG or two, let alone many, that you have to start with small tasks and work your way up to big ones. Before you can receive the quest to slay the Vermicious Knid that dwells in the Stygian Pit of the Fire Swamp, there are those gopher pelts. Some believers, typically younger believers but not necessarily, want to "change the world for God." I'm not mocking this desire, I think it's wonderful and necessary, if coming from a desire to see God's kingdom advancing and a willingness to "become less, that He might become greater" and be a living sacrifice to see that happen for His glory.

What I would encourage those people to understand is that you have to start with the gopher pelts. As a missionary, I've observed that a lot of people think missionaries are magically transformed into conduits of God's grace and power either by taking on the role itself, or by going to live far away for the sake of the gospel. While both of those things can have a profound effect on our walk with God, both through suffering of all kinds that makes you rely on Him and from seeing how brightly His glory shines when your surroundings are especially dark (and there are different kinds of darkness) -it's not magic. It's much more like 'grinding' quests than most people know. Gopher pelts every day, from gophers that rarely drop them.

But: once you've taught the little kids Bible stories and caught their colds, or spent time listening to the homeless and impoverished and begun to question fundamental aspects of your own worldview, or patiently served the disabled elderly with no glory and little thanks, or shared the gospel with that curious but resistant friend for the 11th time, and then God calls you from the Sunny Labyrinth of Suburbia or Concrete Canyons of the Inner City to serve Him in the far away Jungle Encampment or Mountain Village or Grand Market of Cydonia, after you've done all that...

You suddenly find that those little +3 to Patience and +5 to Courage and God-Moment drops you've been collecting in familiar and even boring settings have prepared you to be able to attempt and sometimes succeed at the exotic and unfamiliar missionary quests you discover in your new home-far-away-from-home. And what are those quests, you ask?

Well, there's lot of...

Teaching little kids Bible stories, spending time with homeless and impoverished people, serving the elderly, sharing the gospel repeatedly-hey, sound familiar? It turns out much of what you'd do overseas as a missionary is what you could have already been doing where you are now.* And, the more you did it in your "normal life," -which is anything but normal, it is a defiant stand of goodness and love against a world reeling from sin and stained in darkness- the more successful you'll be at it in your missionary life, should God call you to that. If not, it turns out you have the opportunity to be the Church that withstands the gates of hell wherever He has currently placed you. (He has, you know.)

*- Yes, missionaries have cool adventures and bizarre experiences too, but that's not a average picture of your typical missionary life day-to-day. Like I said, gopher pelts. Although those quests like rescuing Crown Prince Huang from the Ancestral Demons dwelling in the Haunted Iron Fortress with the Sword of the Spirit and the power of the Name really do happen too... we have good stories for a reason.

In conclusion we are not NPCs, not non-playable characters, we are the ones who are called to serve wherever we find ourselves. Whether the adventure on our plate is loving our irritable coworker or smuggling Bibles into a closed country, it is not "for those people who do those things" to take care of while we wonder whether God will call us to serve Him. Because we are those people. We are the called.

TL;DR: We are the called. Start collecting those gopher pelts.