{"id":7259,"date":"2015-02-12T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T13:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=7259"},"modified":"2017-07-10T14:11:06","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T18:11:06","slug":"sowing-among-the-seedless-practical-mobilization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=7259","title":{"rendered":"Sowing among the Seedless | Practical Mobilization"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Missions-Catalyst-no-tagline_large\"<\/a>Sowing among the Seedless: Learning to Love Jesus among the Unengaged<\/h2>\n

By Shane Bennett<\/a>, February 12, 2015<\/p>\n

Few things feel more productive, more helpful, more on task to me than speaking at a class like Perspectives<\/a> or Pathways<\/a>. I love it! The content is spot on and the classes tend to gather the coolest people in a given church or city, so it\u2019s a privilege to chat with them. I\u2019ll often start by asking students to consider why they\u2019re taking the course. I want them to have solid motivation to do the hard work the course asks for. Without fail, some in each class say they\u2019re taking it to find out what they should do with their lives, specifically what God wants them to do. It\u2019s the classic, \u201cWhat’s God\u2019s will for my life?\u201d Or, as poet, Mary Oliver frames it, \u201cTell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?\u201d<\/p>\n

I love to hear people ask this because I love people who care what God thinks, what God is doing, and what God may have in mind for their hours and days. The down side is that the question can paralyze. Most of us reading this article are part of a set of humanity with no shortage of options. If you decided it was a good idea you could shift houses, change jobs, or even move to a different country. If you could do anything, how can you choose the next one thing to do? Kafka said, \u201cI am free and that is why I am lost.\u201d That\u2019s a little heady (and depressing) for me, but I get the point.<\/p>\n

To help people feel a little better, I\u2019ll often tell them, \u201cGood news: I actually know God\u2019s will for your life!\u201d Of course I don\u2019t, really. Well, sort of. What I don\u2019t have sorted is where my personal (or American) arrogance ends and solid understanding of the Bible and the world begins. Like I could really know God\u2019s will for the life of an almost total stranger!<\/p>\n

Yet this much I know for pretty sure. This I offer to you, your friends, the people you go to church with, myself, any of us who care what God thinks and want to answer the call of Jesus to follow him: Go where the glow is low.<\/p>\n

Go Where the Glow Is Low<\/h3>\n

I really wish I could remember who I swiped that pithy little gut punch from, but I don\u2019t. I didn\u2019t make it up, but heard it from someone and it seemed both real and true. \u201cBloom where you are planted\u201d may make a nice coffee mug, but \u201cgo where the glow is low\u201d makes a better tattoo! And it\u2019s more biblical. God told Abraham he wanted his blessing to be pressed into every family on the planet. Jesus told his disciples that the \u201cgospel of the kingdom would be preached in the whole world as a witness to all nations\u201d before the end would come. And his disciple John apparently saw that happen, recording in Rev. 7.9, \u201c\u2026I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Assuming we\u2019re in the middle of this amazing story, clearly the mandate that we (the collection of all of us who love Jesus and try, however falteringly, to follow him) have is to take the gospel of the kingdom where it isn\u2019t seen or known yet.<\/p>\n

Or in other words, go where the glow is low.<\/p>\n

Where No Seeds Are Planted<\/h3>\n

One of the clearer ways to describe the lowest of the \u201clow glow\u201d areas is the term \u201cunengaged.\u201d Unengaged describes people groups among whom no one is living for the gospel, reaching out in the local language and working toward discipleship movements.\u00a0 No harvesting, no growth, not even any planting. Seedless. If you\u2019re a grape or a watermelon, seedless is good. If you\u2019re waiting for an initial outbreak of God\u2019s kingdom in your midst, seedless is bad.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s seedless? When we\u2019re looking at a shifting scene, numbers will vary. Reliable information, however, indicates around 1400 unengaged people groups. Frontiers sees Muslims comprising 1100 of those. Steve Richardson (of Pioneers) points out 45 Buddhist groups and 139 Hindu groups too. Completely unengaged. These are groups that are not only \u201clost\u201d and \u201cunreached,\u201d but as far as we know, also lacking incarnational gospel witness among them.<\/p>\n

So some of us from somewhere need to go to these places, these peoples, with a truckload of seed. We need to learn local languages, love the people we find, and seek God for his purposes among them.\u00a0And many more of us ought to to pray and send and look for other creative ways to see the seed spread where it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Is this the only thing God is doing? Certainly not. And the answer to \u201cWhat\u2019s God\u2019s will for my life?\u201d does not always include the word \u201cunengaged.\u201d But let\u2019s not let this generation pass with any groups without someone showing them what it means to follow Jesus.<\/p>\n

What Can We Do?<\/h3>\n

So what can we do? The Unengaged Unreached Community on Facebook<\/a> encourages believers to become aware, to pray, and to obey.<\/p>\n

Awareness<\/strong><\/p>\n