A Bigger Vision

My work in missions started really after the Berlin Wall came down and I had the opportunity to go and train pastors in former Iron Curtain countries. What struck me when I was there was that I had viewed this amazing opening for the gospel as being like my opportunity to go and teach them. I had the freedom to go into these former Communist countries and have a ministry.

What I saw there was that it wasn’t about my freedom to go; it was about their freedom to reach their own people. So I came alongside of them and found ways in which I could help them, I came back, I talked to my pastor and elders and they said, Look, what you’re talking about in helping the church in these former Iron Curtain countries is far bigger than any one church. So why don’t you start an organization that many churches could participate in? And so I did.

Those were good years for me of learning and listening. I shared what I was experiencing as I saw the power of the gospel. I saw how amazing our God is and how Christ is building his church all over the world. So it was a time of listening and learning and forming partnerships.

Mobilizing and Sharing

Over the years since then, I’ve been involved in mobilizing and positioning men and women in some of the harder places: the restricted-access countries of the world, the 1040 window region as it’s sometimes called in mission jargon, those gospel-destitute parts of the world. It energizes God’s people to see that God is at work, that Christ is alive.

So, I’ve been mobilizing and also sharing what I’ve learned. In many ways I look at myself not so much as an administrator, preacher, or teacher, but as a writer. I love to share what I’m seeing of gospel advance all over the world. I love to see how it energizes God’s people to see that God is at work, that Christ is alive, and all the implications that has in the global church.

This is a guest article by Tim Keesee, author of A Company of Heroes: Potraits from the Gospel’s Global Advance. This post originally appeared on crossway.org; used with permission.