The Greatest Obstacle to Missions

President's chapels were always one of my favorites at Columbia International University. Our president at the time, Dr. Murray (mentioned in the last post) spoke with passion and conviction, always challenging us to share our faith or be involved with missions or live godly lives.

And that week's title (the same as the title of this blog) sparked much curiosity and discussion as to what he would say. My friends and I would joke that he was going to just say "YOU! YOU are the greatest obstacle to missions! Now GO!" I'm sure if he had, he would have still done it in a fair and biblical way that would have been convicting.

But that's not what he said at all. In fact, he led us to a rather unlikely passage, a passage that until that day I hadn't connected with missions, nor seen as an obstacle to it. He took us to Matthew 9:36-38:

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Get Involved In Missions
Prayerlessness is the greatest obstacle to missions. So in this final post I just want to leave you with a simple challenge: Get involved. If you are already involved, great. If not, take the first step to becoming a "world Christian" by starting small: prayer.

Start praying for the nations. Start praying for missionaries. Start praying for God to raise up missionaries to go and work his harvest field. Just start praying. Prayer is a powerful gift of God that unleashes his purposes on the earth.

Disclaimer
Prayer is a dangerous thing. You may find, as I did, that when you begin to pray for peoples who don't have the gospel, God might do something strange. He may call you to go (see Matthew 10, immediately following Jesus' call to prayer).

Resources
I would like to give you a couple of resources that will help you begin your journey of prayer for the nations:
Operation World - an annual prayer guide that walks you through the world, giving stats and prayer requests for every political nation in the world. A good guide available online or in print.
Joshua Project - daily prayer focused for unreached people groups. Great site with great info on the work left undone.
Also, your church may have prayer guides/letters for missionaries they support.

However you do it, just be sure that you pray that the task would be accomplished, that God's glory would be revealed among the nations.

How do you pray for missions? Are there other resources you know of that will help others pray for the nations?