World Go Manual: Witness

By the grace of God, I was saved from a life and eternity separated from Him, I get to live with Himforever. If it were not for Him, I would be a horrible person, and my life – I’m sure – would be awful to match. But instead, I’m blessed with an amazing husband, a lovely house, parents who love Jesus, and knowledge that I’m following Him every step of the way. Why is it that I am not so overcome with gratitude that I tell every single person I meet about Him?

Chapter 2 of the World Go Manual deals with this issue of witnessing: “It is a wrenching, soul-bearing experience to tell other people who Jesus Christ is and what He means for us and for the world…Talk about how Christ has changed your heart. You are the world’s leading expert on that subject.”

The action step I chose was "Become a witness for Christ online." In my daily life, I don’t know very many non-Christians. I work for a Christian organization, my family are all believers, and most of my free time is spent at church or with my friends, most of whom are Christians. One of the reasons I started doing theatre at Marion Civic was because I wanted to feel like a missionary again, and I’ve met several people through that who needed Christ. I turned to Facebook, which is where I have most contact with my non-Christian friends. Most of my spiritual talks happened on the phone, but Facebook helps keep constant contact going.

One of the questions in the action step was, “Were your efforts successful at reaching anyone?” My response to that was: I’ve been able to communicate the truth about Jesus and what he has done for me. The rest is up to God.

There’s an awesome story about a guy in Sydney, Australia who witnessed on George Street. In the 1990’s, a British pastor started meeting people who all had the same testimony – they were given a tract by a old man and asked where they would go if they died tonight. He met people in India, the US, England, the Caribbean, Australia - all had the same testimony. Eventually, this pastor travelled to Sydney, and was able to meet Frank Jenner, the George Street witness. As he told Mr Jenner these stories of missionaries, pastors, and others who had come to Christ because of his witness, Mr Jenner started to weep. For 40 years, he had faithfully witnessed to people out of gratitude for the change Christ made in his life, but he had never known anyone to come to Him during that time. He just knew that’s what he was supposed to do, so he did. He obeyed God, and left the results up to Him.

World Go Manual: Beginning

WGM produced a really interesting missions resource last year called the World Go! Manual. (Hereafter called WG manual. Names for things shouldn’t include punctuation marks. Like Panic! At the Disco. I was elated when that band got rid of the silly exclamation point.)

At ANY rate, the WG manual is sort of a Bible study for missions. The idea is that there are nine qualities of a missions-active Christian (pray, witness, serve, love, give, partner, endure, teach, and plant) and the WG manual helps you develop those qualities. Each chapter has three or four action items you can choose from to exercise your prayer, serving, giving, etc muscles.

The WGM administration has asked all the staff here in Marion to go through the book, which makes total sense. How can we recommend a resource that we ourselves haven’t touched? We’re meeting together as departments to discuss the chapters, but the administration didn’t want to require us to do an action item, because of the significant time commitment. Which also makes sense, because taking 15 minutes to read a few pages is one thing, spending an hour or two – or more – completing an action item is another.

But yesterday, as my department met for the first time to discus the first chapter, Pray, our discussion seemed a little hollow. The chapters are very short, because most of the meat is in the action times, so there just wasn’t a lot to comment on. It was actually kind of awkward. So I suggested that from now on, before we meet, we also complete an action item. That way, the manual has a bigger impact on us, and we have more to talk about. So, stay tuned for more about this WG adventure.

First impressions of the WG Manual: Chapters are short, but the action items are intense – definitely meant to stretch you spiritually. There’s an incredibly cheesy fiction story that carries through the whole book. I’m willing to let it slide, because I'm sure it will float someone's boat. Just not maybe mine.