we're missionaries whether we like it or not

Caz’s message on Sunday talked about how the famous verse Jeremiah 29:11 was given to a people who were completely displaced and kicked out of their Promised Land.  God’s people were called to integrate into a new society, and God even shares that He carried the people there.  I might have argued that Jeremiah heard God wrong after hearing those words.

            We all have times when we feel out of place, and possibly that God has forgotten us. I clung to Jeremiah 29:11 when I was a scared college freshman living away from home for the first time. And I related to Caz’s experience of moving to Austin as being quite different, as I moved from California. It was lonely. And yet God had very clearly called me to this strange place.  After a while I began the immersion process Caz described. It was not the church where I first made close friends, but the poetry community. Not a fortress for Christians by any means. And yet this community is as vital as church to me, and my poet friends know me better than anyone I’ve gone to church with.

             We all live in an un-Christian world. We are all missionaries whether we like it or not. When our building is done, we will have greater opportunity to be a beacon in the community. Until then, our mission field is our neighborhoods, workplaces and community. We don’t need to hand out tracts. (What a relief, right?) Our calling is much greater: to build relationships, to listen and to point others to God through our own lives.

Beth Kropf