One Promise I Will Never Make You....

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.." Ephesians 2:8

As I've been praying and studying in preparation for transitioning to international missions work, one thing has come up over and over again.  

I want to make sure I let you know from the start that my heart isn't interested in missions to give people, including supporters, cool stories. It isn't to help give people these amazing numbers of new believers that "I've converted."  

Yes, my heart longs to have amazing stories and news that people have given their life to Christ! However, I want to make it clear that it's not going to be by any power of my own that this happens - it's all simply through God's work and Spirit.  

"...for apart from me, you can do nothing." John 15:5

I do want to promise you this:  I promise and pray to never focus on numbers.  I promise and pray that anything that happens overseas is only because of the amazing power of our Father (and I pray you keep me accountable to that).  I promise and pray to never lose sight of the person at the end of my conversation and their extreme love and value as image bearers of our Father.

My desire is to simply live the gospel out loud.  My vision for going is to be able to show others how drastically different life is as a Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christian from what this culture offers.  My desire isn't to add rules and regulations on their life.  My desire is to have the Lord move through me to set them free from captivity of sin, and trust the Spirit to convict and challenge their desires.  

"The challenge for healthy evangelism is to stop trying to clean people up through rules rather than bring them to the cross."  Mack Stiles, Marks of a Messenger

My desire is that the people I interact with would grow in their own faith, rely more fully on God's grace in their life, and would constantly be pointed back to the gospel.  I will work hard through God's strength and pray every day for interactions to share and speak truth to others - but I promise that it will only be by God's grace that someone's eyes and ears are opened to the beautiful message of the cross.