Are we Babylonian or Biblical? (Part Two)
By Brian Hargett in Cross-Cultural Missions and Expeditions
I agree with our national director, E. Scott Martin. We are in the nascent stage of a great student awakening. A great student awakening sounds like fruitfulness and multiplication. Some important questions are “Why do we want it?” and “Why would God send it?” Is a great student awakening coming “so that we can make a name for ourselves” or is it so that we can mobilize disciple making students to the ends of the earth? Is our ministry vision and activity Babylonian or biblical? How we answer this question will determine whether we experience God’s favor or frustration behind our efforts.
Reflect:
Evaluate your ministry. Where have you settled? What needs to change? What evidence in word and deed is there that “fill the earth” is a primary value?
How are you intentionally exposing your students to God’s work around the globe? What plans do you have in place to challenge and guide them so they can be a part of God’s global plan?
Gather a group together and brainstorm how you can Go, Give, Pray, and Welcome in ways that are spontaneous, strategic, or systematic (disciplined) and sacrificial. Check out the table below for ideas to “prime the pump.”
| Go | Give | Pray | Welcome | |
| Spontaneously | e.g. – Disaster response | e.g. – Missions offering | e.g. – Pray for the nation of the ethnic restaurant you’re eating at | Include an international in a family celebration |
| Strategically or Systematically | Take teams to where most of your international students come from | Monthly pledges | Jumaa-Friday prayers for Muslims, adopt a people group | Require all staff and student leaders to have an international friend they meet regularly with |
| Sacrificially | Go to an Unreached People Group) | Live simpler to give more to missions | All night prayer for nation(s) | House newly arrived internationals and help them find a place to live |
Here are more ideas for ways your Chi Alpha group can push the boundaries of its influence:
- Set an alarm on your phone at 10:02 AM or PM to remind you every day to pray Luke 10:2 “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers.” Text “xapray” to 313131 and join Chi Alpha’s 10.2 prayer initiative.
- Adopt an Unreached People Group (UPG). Go, Give, Pray, Welcome towards that people group until it’s off the UPG list.
- Start a prayer group for the nations.
- Launch a new team to another part of the world. Call the National Chi Alpha Ministry Center about places asking for partnerships.
- Bring in missionaries to cast vision to your students.
- Bring students to lunch or coffee with a missionary and ask to hear his/her story.
- Write an encouraging note to an overseas worker once a month.
- Skip a meal a week and pray for an overseas worker(s). Take what you’d spend on that meal and give to them.
- Download the Unreached People Group of the Day app and pray for that day’s UPG.
- Stand before or spread out a map and pray over the nations.
In the comments, share more ways we can fight our tendency to “settle” and devote ourselves to “fill the earth.”
All views expressed on this blog are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, U.S.A., U.S. Missions, and The General Council of the Assemblies of God.