Perspectives

If you have already sent in a donation to help support my mission trip to Haiti this year from March 22nd to April 5th, thank you very much. It is truly appreciated. If you have been thinking about it or planning to, there is still time, and I am still in need of additional funding. I am currently about 1/3 funded, and the trip is next month. For details please see my previous post or feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. Donations can be sent to the address below. In addition to financial support, if you have an old but usable laptop you would like to donate I am collecting those as well. Please contact me if you have an old laptop, and we can arrange its transport.

Union Church
C/O Jonathan Wright-Gray
P.O. Box 7028
Ocean Park, Maine 04063
(Please put "Haiti" and my name in the memo of the check.)

Thank you, and now back to your regularly scheduled blog entry ...

In January I started taking this course titled "Perspectives". I enrolled in the course as it was targeted at people interested in missionary work and who wanted to dig deeper, understanding the true purpose of missions in a global context. This is a 15 week course that can be taken for seminary credit, though I am taking it for a certificate as I am not in seminary.

I have always had questions about my missionary work and always been conflicted as about why I do mission work. To be brutally honest one of my greatest fears is that I find out that I am actually doing this work as some way to bring glory to myself. I don't believe that is that case, but I want to be constantly sure, that this is not about me.

I am a Christ follower. And while I don't go shouting that from the roof tops, my hope is that I have not been afraid to claim it when asked. During my life I have had many questions about faith and continue to have many. The Perspectives course has helped me with at least one of these questions and for that I am grateful. It has also helped reinforce that missions is not about me. And here is the twist, it is not about directly meeting the needs to the people with whom I am in contact either. Mission is about God's work on this earth. About reconciling all the peoples of the earth to him.

I would like to be clear on a couple of things given this statement. It is not my nature to travel anywhere and force my beliefs and world view at or on them. Nor is it my nature to bring up my beliefs or world view. However, if I am asked about my perspective I will speak to people about it. Mission work has gotten a bad reputation and some of that reputation is deserved. My goal is never to force anything on anyone. My goal is never to change anyone, for I can't do that. Again, if they ask why I do what I do, I will freely answer. But any aid I give is not conditional on them ever sharing or even agreeing with my perspective. I help because that is how I glorify God. That it meets some small need in Haiti is simply a bonus.

If you were wondering about one of the questions that the course helped me answer. It is this, "Why would God crave the worship of us humans?" To be blunt that sounds very narcissistic. The answer, according to one article that was part of the assigned reading, is that God does not crave worship for the sake of being worshiped. What He craves is to bless people. His nature is to bless people that honor and worship Him. And as God can not act against His nature, He wants us to worship Him so that He may bless us. The short version is that He wants to bless us and in order for Him to do that we must first worship Him.

Not everyone will agree with that answer and that is OK. And to be honest, I am still digesting it myself. That being said, I would be happy to talk about it anytime.