Obedience to Christ. Compassion for the Lost. Urgency for the Mission.
Today is Wednesday, September 2, and as I write this, we are getting ready to leave Romania once again. In a little while, we will load up, make the three-hour drive to Budapest, and begin the long journey toward Livingstone, Zambia. There are suitcases to finish packing, passports to check, flights to catch, and a mission team coming together from different parts of the world.
But underneath all of that is a much bigger question:
Why do we keep going?
After all, Pam and I are already missionaries. For the past eight years, Romania has been our mission field, our home, and the place where God has allowed us to build relationships, share the Gospel, disciple believers, work alongside churches, and pour our lives into people. So why would missionaries living on one mission field get on another airplane and travel to another country to serve?
Because missions was never supposed to be about just one location. It is part of who we are.
If we are going to challenge others to live on mission, then we believe we need to lead from the front. We want to continue going, serving, sharing, and allowing God to stretch us beyond what is comfortable and familiar.
For the past five years, I have had the privilege of teaching at the Word of Life Bible Institute in Hungary, where I teach Dare 2 Share’s Take Off to Touchdown curriculum, developed by Greg Stier. That training emphasizes three biblical motivations for mission that have become a foundational part of how I preach, how I lead, and how our family tries to live: obedience to Christ, compassion for the lost, and urgency for the mission.
Those three motivations help answer the question: Why do we go?
Obedience to Christ
Before we talk about the mission, picture what has already happened. Jesus has been beaten, crucified, and killed. His body has been placed in a tomb. Three days later, He rises again.
For forty days, the resurrected Jesus appears to His followers and continues teaching them about the Kingdom of God. Scripture even tells us that at one point He appeared to more than five hundred people at the same time. Then we come to those final moments before Jesus ascends back into heaven.
The apostles are with Him, still asking questions about what is coming next, but Jesus redirects their attention toward the mission in front of them. In Acts 1:8, He tells them they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them and that they will be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
And then Jesus begins to ascend.
Can you imagine being there? I have always tried to picture that scene in my mind. The resurrected Jesus is literally being lifted from the earth while His apostles stand there watching. I would have been staring too.
Then a cloud takes Him from their sight, and as they continue looking toward heaven, two angels, appearing as men dressed in white, stand beside them and ask, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?” They remind them that this same Jesus who had been taken into heaven would come again.
I think about that question often.
Why are you still standing there?
Jesus had just given them their mission. He had given them the objective. He had told them where the power would come from, what they were supposed to do, and how far they were supposed to go.
That language probably connects with me because of my years in law enforcement and my relationships with people who have served in the military. When you have been given a lawful mission and a clear objective, you do not just stand around talking about it.
You move.
Jesus gave His Church a mission, and Matthew 28 makes the objective even clearer: Go and make disciples of all nations. That is not simply a suggestion for a handful of missionaries, pastors, or evangelists. It is the mission Jesus gave His Church.
So the first motivation is simple: obedience to Christ. Jesus told us to go. We have our orders.
Compassion for the Lost
But obedience alone is not the only thing that should move us. We should also go because we have compassion for the lost.
Matthew 9 tells us that Jesus traveled through the cities and villages, teaching, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and ministering to people. Then He looks out at the crowds, and Scripture says He has compassion for them because they are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Jesus did not simply see a crowd. He saw people. He saw their pain, their confusion, their spiritual condition, and people who desperately needed a Shepherd. And His heart moved toward them.
I recently wrote about learning to see people through Jesus Eyes, and this is exactly what I mean. When we begin seeing people the way Jesus sees them, people stop becoming statistics, projects, numbers, or photographs in a missionary newsletter. Every face has a name. Every person has a story. Every person is created in the image of God, and every lost person desperately needs Jesus.
Compassion for the lost should move us toward people.
Urgency for the Mission
Then there is the third motivation: urgency for the mission.
Jude 23 paints one of the strongest pictures in Scripture of rescue—snatching people from the flames. There is urgency in that picture, and I do not think we talk enough anymore about the reality of hell.
Hell is real. Eternity is real. And people really do need Jesus.
We are not sharing the Gospel simply because Christianity might make somebody’s life a little better. We are carrying the message of salvation. Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose again, and offers forgiveness and eternal life to those who place their faith in Him.
When someone hears the Gospel and places their faith in Christ, we are watching God rescue someone from death and give them life. That is why Jude’s picture is so powerful: snatching them from the flames.
If a building were burning and we knew someone was trapped inside, we would not casually stand outside discussing whether rescue was really that important. We would move. There would be urgency.
Hell is real, the Gospel is powerful, and the rescue is urgent.
From Romania to Zambia
That brings us to Zambia.
Our relationship with Zambia began through our friends Mickael and Sharon Quillman, BMA missionaries serving in Livingstone. Mickael and I have been friends for many years, and our connection through Dare 2 Share was one of the things that helped connect our hearts around evangelism and Gospel ministry.
Several years ago, Pam, Candra, and I traveled to Zambia to serve alongside them. We fell in love with the ministry, but even more than that, we fell in love with the people.
There is something special about driving away from Livingstone and farther into the bush. You pass small villages, mud-brick homes with thatched roofs, children playing, families working, and friendly faces waving as you drive by. The people we have encountered in Zambia have welcomed us with incredible kindness. We have worked together, laughed together, served together, worshiped together, built things together, and shared the Gospel together.
But during those trips, something else began growing in my heart. I did not want Romania simply to remain a nation that receives missionaries.
I wanted to see Romania become a nation that sends missionaries.
So the following year, we took a Romanian family who had been serving closely alongside us to Zambia. Then we went again and took an entire group of Romanians with us.
People who had once been on the receiving side of missions were now getting on airplanes, crossing borders, and becoming the ones who were going. They worked, served, built, shared, loved people, and came home different.
Sometimes You Have to Go Far Away to See What Is Close
That is one of the reasons I believe so strongly that Christians should experience short-term missions. A mission trip should never simply give us a week of emotional experiences and some great photographs before we return home and continue living exactly as we did before.
Mission should change the way we see the world.
Sometimes God takes us thousands of miles away so He can teach us how to better see the people living across the street.
We saw that happen with one of the young ladies from our Backyard Bible Study who traveled with us to Zambia. She came home different. Something had awakened in her heart about reaching people, and that mission did not stay in Zambia. It came home with her.
Candra has also come alongside her in this outreach, going with her and helping as she serves, and most recently Pam was able to join them as well.
She began doing a simple form of evangelistic outreach right here in Oradea. She and some friends put together flowers with small Scripture cards attached to them. Then they go into the city, give those flowers to people, show kindness, build connections, and use those moments as opportunities to begin Gospel conversations.
I love that because it does not require a stage, a church building, or an airplane ticket. It simply requires someone willing to go.
Sometimes God takes you across the world to awaken something that He wants you to live out when you come home.
So We Go Again
And that brings me back to today.
Our bags are packed again. In a few hours, we will leave Romania, drive toward Budapest, board an airplane, and begin making our way back toward Zambia—to Livingstone, to people we have grown to love, to the bush, and to opportunities to serve, encourage, build relationships, help where we can, and share the hope of Jesus.
Not because crossing an ocean makes someone a better Christian. Not because international missions is somehow more spiritual than sharing Jesus with your neighbor. And certainly not because we have everything figured out.
We go because Jesus told us to go. We go out of obedience to Christ. We go out of compassion for the lost. And we go because there is an urgency for the mission.
Those three motivations helped take us from Arkansas to Romania. They have taken us from Romania to Zambia. And I pray they continue taking us wherever God opens the next door.
But maybe the question is not simply, Why do we go?
Maybe the question for you is:
Where is God asking you to go?
It may be Zambia. It may be Romania. It may be across the country, or it may simply be across the street. You do not need a passport to live on mission, but you do have to be willing to move.
Jesus is coming again. Until then, the mission is still in front of us.
We have our orders. We know the objective. There are people who need Jesus.
So why are we still standing here?
Let’s go.
And remember—
We are still on mission.