Rick Warren - How Missions Changes You the World

Because we see Christianity under attack in the West, we

don't realize the revival that's going on and so many

other places around the world, that Christianity is growing in

so many places because we only see the problems we're having.

Not everybody's a Christian of my brand or your brand,

but they are Christians. Yeah, okay, I think I said

this before that there are six hundred million Buddhists in

the world. There are eight hundred million Hindus in the world.

There are about one and a half billion Muslims in

the world. There are only fifteen million million Jews in

the world because three or four generations were lost because

of the Holocaust. There should be five times that number

of Jews in the world right now, but there are

two point three billion Christians. That means one out of

every three people on the planet would say I believe

Jesus is the Son of God. Now again, they're not

all our our brand, okay. But if you were to say,

do you believe in the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit. Do you believe in the Trinity? Yes? Do

you believe the Bible is the Word of God? Yes?

Do you believe Jesus Christ died on the Cross for

our sins. Yes. Do you believe he rose again? Yes?

Do you believe the Holy Spirit fills us? Yes? Do

you believe that one day Christ is coming back? Yes?

Then we're on the same team. We may not agree

on this or that much after that, yeah, exactly. Okay,

But if that's true, then there are two point three

billion of those. That means one out of every three

people on the planet. The church is the largest organization

on the planet. Let me put this perspective. The Church

of Jesus Christ is bigger than China. The Church is

bigger than than China, the United States and the Europe

and Europe put together, we have nothing to apologize for. Okay,

we don't. We're not because we see Christianity under attack

in the West. We don't realize the revival that's going

on in so many other places around the world, that

Christianity is growing in so many places, because we only

see the problems we're having in finishing the task. My

goal is to get people out to the field, and

that is to get them to experience it in some way.

When we started a thing at Saddleback called the Peace

Plan years ago, plant Churches, Peace Plant churches, equip leaders,

assist the poor, care for the sick, educate the next generation.

I turned mission education upside down growing up in a

little evangelical church. Here's how I was taught about missions.

You pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray.

For missionaries, you study, study, study, study, study, study, study,

listen to missionary testimonies. Here have mission Vacistally, you give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give,

and maybe someday you might go. But really it's more

about pray and study and give and maybe go. When

I started saddleback, we flipped it and I said, don't pray,

don't study, don't don't give, Just go. Okay, just go,

because I knew that if they went, when they come back,

they want to pray, they want to study, they want

to give, Their lives are changed.

I've got to jump in and just say, you're making

a point that's super important right now, because anybody that

knows you, and anybody that lives in southern California with you,

knows that you are not about sitting at a boardroom

and navel gazing. Okay, So I was about to ask

you how are you turning this project upside down like

you do most everything else.

Well, I really think that the peace plan which we

started at saddle Back was kind of.

Like preview to coming attract.

Exactly, Matt. It was our guinea pig was it was

our test case. It was our skunk works. And we

at Saddleback Church we have goals for a year's and

for months and for you know, three year periods, and

then we have a decatal goal each of the four

decades I've been there, the decade goal between two thousand

and twenty ten was this to send our members, saddle

Back members to every nation by the end of twenty ten. Now,

I didn't even know how many nations there were, so

I had to look it up. There are one hundred

and ninety seven nations in the world. There are one

hundred and ninety five that are part of the United Nations.

The only two nations not in the United Nations are

Serbia for war crimes and Taiwan because China won't let

them in even North Korea visitor status. So we said

we will be in every nation, one hundred and ninety

seven nations by the end of the decade. Now, when

Jesus told the disciples to go to every nation. It

was physically impossible. They couldn't go to Australia, they couldn't

go to Latin America. They couldn't go there were no

ocean bearing vessels. You either walked or rode a donkey

or a horse. Jesus often asks us to do the impossible,

and then he'll make it possible. Today you can go

anywhere in the world in twenty four hours. You don't

believe that, Ask a travel agent. I want to be

at the top of the Himalayas and me and mar

or Burma whatever by the end of this By tomorrow,

they'll have me there. And so we are the first

generation that literally can be world class Christians can go

to every nation. Between two and twenty ten, I sent

out thirteen thousand, eight hundred and sixty nine members of

Saddleback by just saying go just go to plant churches,

equip leaders, assist the poor, care of the sick, educate

the next entry. We're now over thirty thousand of those.

But in that decade we sent out thirteen thousand and

eight or sixty nine. We said we will be in

every nation by the end of twenty ten. And on

October eighteenth, twenty ten, we went to Nation one ninety seven.

It was a little island in the Caribbean called Saint Kitts,

only thirty five thousand, only five thirty five thousand people,

but we went there to plant a church, equipped leaders,

assistant power, canvastation there. So we said, okay, I've proven

that normal people can fulfill the great commission out of

just one church. What if every church had a vision

to say, we're going to send our members and when

they come back, you know what happens. They're not so

materialistic as they were before. Wow, you know what, all

of a sudden, when you've seen poverty around the world,

you care. Okay, it changes your heart, you know. But

so many people think, well, I have to go to

Bible school first, or I have to know more about

and it's not that it's just sharing the love of

Christ in your ting available. Yeah. Do you realize that

when the first Christians, the fastest growth of Christianity was

in the first three hundred years of the church. Okay.

Christianity went from being one hundred and twenty in upper room, Okay,

to being the state religion of the Roman Empire in

three hundred years. What was going on during that time?

Two things. One intense persecution, yeah, my goodness, okay, you

were more likely to be fed to lions or hung

on a cross, and so it was illegal to be

a Christian much of that time. And second thing, there

were no church buildings for the first three hundred years

of the church. Everybody met in small groups. I've been

into the oldest standing church building in Malula, Syria, which

is built in three twelve AD. It's now full of

bullet holes because of ISIS and all of that and

the civil war there. But the fact is, you don't

need a building, and you don't need Bible school. You

just need to go. You can't spell God without go,

you can't spell Gospel without go, you can't spell good

News without go. We are unlike Buddhism, which is a

sit still religion. Our faith is go, go, go, make disciples.

And so it's part of our DNA. And my goal

is knowing that if we mobilize the church for this

one of the five purposes worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism.

If we mobilize for this, you know what, it makes

them hungry for the other four here it is you

want to worship, you want to grow in Christ. Okay,

you want to serve the people around you. Come back

and go, I help those people. What am I doing

about my neighbors? It just flips everything upside down.

Friends, we here at TVN want to thank you for

partnering with us and taking the gospel of our Savior

Jesus around the world. So for your gift of support

and any amount we want to send you Pastor Robert

Morris's Seven Words of Christmas, please go to TVN dot

org slash seven words and thank you for being a

part of this global television ministry.