After my first year on staff I spent a summer in the Philippines. It was an incredible time with great highs and a few lows. I saw amazing opportunities for evangelism and movement development. But I contracted amoebic dysentery, laying me out flat for parts of the summer.
Though I’ve tried to maintain a heart for the world, my focus has been launching and building movements in the US. I did not leave the US again for a number of years. In the last decade, I’ve gotten to travel more internationally. In fact, as I write this, I leave in two days for a secure part of the world. But I wish I had known some ways for keeping a vision for the world.
Mike Berk, Associate National Director for Global Missions in the PSW, recently sent out a list of 25 things for growing such a vision for the world. Read on to see Mike’s list of very practical ideas.
25 Things to keep the World before your students.
- Read Missionary biographies with your small group.
- Pray for a location regularly with your disciples.
- Skype with a missionary during bible study.
- Send a care package to a missionary.
- Go on a vision trip together.
- Go on a summer mission together.
- Challenge one another to take a year together reaching students.
- Book mark the travelling team website and read the articles together.
- Eat ethnic food together.
- Go to the international student center and hang out.
- Initiate with someone different from you – practice crossing cultures.
- Start an international student ministry on your campus.
- Take a perspectives class together.
- Take a language course.
- Go to Cost Plus World Market and find some food or music from a different culture.
- Go to OperationWorld.com and regularly pray.
- Get a large world map and keep track of missionaries, trips you or your friends have gone on and parts of the world God is burdening you for.
- Read the world section of the newspaper (online).
- Do a fund-raiser for an international cause – human trafficking, social injustice, evangelistic missions…
- Memorize scripture on God’s heart for the nations. http://www.ywam.org/get-involved-2/all-nations-verse-list/.
- Read through famous missionary quotes: https://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/slogans.htm.
- Read the book “Go, following Jesus to the Ends of the Earth” by Dave Dishman.
- Have your group practice sharing the gospel – practice by doing and practice often!
- Download the Jesus film App on your phone. It’s a great tool to have that can help you communicate the gospel to students from just about everywhere.
- Read a book about sharing the gospel with people from another faith. Some Recommendations:
- The Gospel for Muslims. by Thabiti Anyzbwile.
- The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha. by Ravi Zacharias.
- New Birth and Rebirth: Jesus talks to Krishna. by Ravi Zacharias.
- You Bring the Bagels, I’ll Bring the Gospel. by Barry Rubin.
Click here to access a pdf of Mike Berk’s entire article on 25 ways to keep the World before your students.
