My Answers Today to Missionary Awana Questions

Awana is a Scripture memorization program implemented in churches to teach children and teens Bible verses. They ask the kids to "interview a missionary" from time to time, so I get emailed some questions to answer every now and then from an Awana student. I thought I would share my answers to this fine young man's questionnaire from this morning:

1. Where do I work? Atlanta, GA, except I also travel to other places and work in missions, too. My mission field in Atlanta is Little Five Points (as a missionary to psychics and people who pray to rocks and Hare Krishnas..) and GA Tech (as a missionary to students who believe in evolution)

2. What is my job? I am a missionary. We are beginning a new outreach of evangelism at GA Tech, and my job is to see that begin well; we are also beginning a new outreach in Boston, with a focus on sharing the Gospel with Catholics. My job is to 1) know the Bible 2) live in obedience to the Bible 3) tell others about what the Bible says about how to know Jesus as their Savior, too and train other Christians who want to be missionaries and give of their time to share with people what the Bible says about how to be saved. We do “apologetics”, because we defend our faith in Jesus against other belief systems, and we get the JOY of telling people all the reasons WHY we love Jesus as our Savior.

3. Do I enjoy my work? Yes, I enjoy my work so much that it does not feel like work. I would certainly do it without getting paid to do it, because telling others about Jesus is part of who I am as a Christian.

4. The next place I am traveling is Boulder, CO, because I need to work with our new team there and teach them more about materials to give to Buddhists on Pearl Street and tell people about Jesus with them. BUT, the next place I share the Gospel may be right here where I live in my building to a neighbor or to someone at the grocery store today. I try to keep in mind that God is the God of my schedule, and He can interrupt my plans any time if He wants me to take the time to share about Jesus with someone and tell someone who to be saved and know God as his or her Friend. I am a full time missionary before the Lord, because that is who He saved me to be as a Christian. (What is important is who we are when no one sees but God.) The Bible says to “speak according to the need of the moment” (Ephesians 4:29 ), so we speak as His Spirit leads when it is appropriate, but we must love people enough to be willing to tell them the truth, even if they don’t like us for it. To be a good missionary, we have to care more about what someone thinks of Jesus than what he or she thinks of us.