What Will We Do?

I met many young Maasai men in Kenya. They were men of deep thought, and enthusiastic conversationalists. During my days there we would visit from "boma" to "boma" in the mornings. (A "boma" is a Maasai homestead built around the patriarch and his multiple wives and children.) After an adventurous lunch (we never knew what we were going to get) and a mandatory one-hour rest period, we would gather inder the roof of the church for some awesome Bible studies and incredibly deep theological discussions.

As the Maasai of Ilkushin Baptist Church pondered their vision of "a church on every hill," questions began to emerge. One of the most fascinating and interesting questions that they asked me during one of these lively discussions was, "What will we do when everyone in a Christian?" This one had them perplexed. You see, in their world ... in their valley ... almost every person they could imagine was following Jesus. They sincerely saw a quandry ... what would they do when their entire "world" was converted?

I was blessed to challenge them with my perspective on their quandry. I encouraged them not to rely entirely upon the Western missionaries to take the Gospel to the other places. I reminded them that there were Maasai in may valleys in Kenya and Tanzania. They could send out their own missionaries to reach their own people in faraway places. They seemed pretty excited about the idea.

Wouldn't it be incredible if we could ask that question here in the U.S.? "What will we do when everyone around us is a Christian?" Perhaps if we would stop trying to help God convict people of their sin, if we would stop standing against and boycotting everything and begin standing for something, if we could embrace the people within our culture rather than alienating them as our cultural enemies ... then we might be a bit closer to asking that profound, holy, unthinkable question.

Maybe we should just follow the Jesus methods of evangelism ... meeting needs, ministry, grace, love, healing, and forgiveness.