Do you enjoy challenges?
I do, sometimes, and sometimes, not so much. Like most people, I guess.
But, as parents, we have a huge challenge to raise our children for usefulness in this life, and as Christian parents, we have an even broader challenge–to somehow raise our children so that they voluntarily choose, not only to accept Jesus’ offer of salvation for themselves, but then to make a difference for eternity. Not that all will automatically choose to serve as visible missionaries or pastors, but we are all given the commission to “go” and serve others. Why? Because we have freely received, so we can freely give what we have found.
In our home, we enjoy reading stories of great people. For me, greatness is measured by how much individuals have allowed God to work in their lives. We are studying, this semester, and probably into next year, countries and cultures. We are using My Father’s World curriculum outline as a kind of framework for our study, but we’re mostly going at our own pace. Our focus is to see how God has worked through past and more recent history through men and women who have been called to serve God in each of the different countries that we study. So far, we’re really just barely getting into our first country, which is the United States, but we have already been blessed to read about people such as Harriet Tubman, Ben Carson, Sacajawea, and others. We have skipped ahead and read about Bruchko, and we’re currently reading about Cameron Townsend, as well as Brother Andrew. We don’t always exactly stick to the particular country we’re in, because when a good book comes, we don’t like to wait!
But, perhaps the most “living” histories that we can read are the ones that are being written as we speak. In many countries, sprinkled across the globe, there are heroes who right now are sacrificing to try to share the good news of salvation with others who have never heard. A highlight of our home for many years has been to read the stories of the current missionaries who are working abroad. Our favorite magazine is the AFM magazine, the publication of our church’s Frontier Missionaries. We have some good friends who currently work in the field, as well as several families whom we’ve never met, but in reading their stories from month, we feel like we’ve come to know.
(by the way, this is a free magazine that you may request here: http://www.afmonline.org/frontiers/index.php?PHPSESSID=f23910cfa93ede70df5763b4bf060dd5)
When I heard about a book that a current missionary that we follow wrote, I was interested. When I read what the book was about, I decided that this was a book that this mom needed. So, I used my Christmas money and purchased myself a copy.
(and you can get your copy here:
or here:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barnabas-hope/grow-a-world-changer/paperback/product-20316582.html)
When I received my book, I immediately sat down to read it. But then I decided that I did not want to just breeze through the book without really taking the time to digest each concept thoroughly. I have prayerfully read the first five chapters so far, and I’ll tell you that so far I have indeed had my point of view challenged. In a good way.
I will admit that much of the time prior to reading the introduction to this book, I thought that my job as a parent was essentially to prepare my children for a life of service here, while we are ultimately working along with God to refine our characters for eternal life in heaven. And I believe that is our goal. But, while ensuring the salvation of our children is our goal, it is not the only aim that God has for us, or for our children. Jesus wanted His disciples to be saved, and He worked hard so that they could understand the plan of salvation. But, that wasn’t His only goal for them either. For The disciples, as well as for us, Jesus says “Go Ye.” Go find someone that doesn’t know Jesus, or doesn’t know how to come to Him, and share with them. This is a bit uncomfortable for any of us who live in our own little predictable worlds, wherever they are. It means that we don’t continue to play church and feel good. It might mean getting our hands dirty.
I wrote to the author, whose pen name is Barnabas Hope, and requested his permission to share what I learned from his book on my blog. He was very gracious and granted me permission, with the hopes that others will catch the vision as well. I want to go chapter by chapter and share just a few tidbits of what has stood out to me as important. If you are in any way curious as to what Barnabas has to share, I really encourage you to look into reading his book. He, by the way, goes by a pen name, because his family is currently living in a dark country where using his real name to share religious matter would be dangerous.
Since this post is really an introduction to the book, I think that it would be appropriate to share a little from the introduction to the book, so that you know the crux of why Barnabas wrote a book of this nature. From the introduction, page 10, he writes,
“This book is birthed of passion. It comes born of my own discovery that a Spirit-filled individual can change the world. I believe a personal Holy Spirit yearns to take a surrendered young person and gift them and challenge them and use them to wildly delight the angels and cast down demonic strongholds. As God spoke to Jeremiah as a boy, as God made promises to Samuel as a boy, David as a boy, and Naaman’s young servant girl, so too today, He is seeking the response of the young. A child needn’t wait for degrees or titles to change the world. However, they must learn to listen, to love what is innocent, to hate that which is evil.
“But not all youth, not even all Christian youth will grow up to make a significant contribution to the kingdom of Christ. It’s a pity, but many, if not most, will lead mundane lives on nominal help to others. Why? What is the difference between those who become World Changers and those who don’t? Simply put, for many the vision is never cast. I believe a youth can only become a world changing believer if and only IF she has a determined mind to become one. So where does a young person get that “mind to”? How do they embrace that vision? That is the subject you are interested in and the theme of these pages.”
I hope that you will enjoy the tidbits that I share in subsequent blogposts, and that you, too will be challenged to plant the seed that can sprout and grow into one or more World Changers in your own garden.
Lessons...and lessons 