I'm a front-line worker, too

Paul walked here

“And so we came to Rome. The brothers and sisters there had heard that we were coming, and they traveled as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet us. At the sight of these people Paul thanked God and was encouraged.” (Acts 28:14, NIV)

“At the forty-third milestone was a place called Forum of Appius. Both here and ten miles farther on at a village named Three Taverns, Paul, Luke, and Aristarchus were happily surprised to find a delegation from the Christians of Rome. The church there had been alerted to his arrival, and possibly many of the names found in Roman 16 were clustering along the sides of the Appian Way in a grand welcoming committee. What enormously cheered the travelers must have astonished Julius.” First Christians by Paul L. Maier

Like all pastors, I get a lot of mail from ministries of various causes and opportunities appealing for my money, prayer and whatever else they think I can offer them in their hour of need. Yesterday I opened a packet from a respected ministry which had a cover letter that had in large bold letters at the top -

Adopt a Front-Line Worker

This particular ministry is an advocate for the persecuted Church and I'm sure they do a lot of good stuff. And I get what they're trying to do – round up people who will pray and, if possible, give to a gospel worker in countries considered closed or hostile toward the gospel. I have no problem with that. What I take issue with is the phrase “front-line worker”. It makes me think of an evangelistic outreach that a number of fellowships in our area partnered together with back in the mid-90s. It was a worthy cause, the church who hosted the event was packed out nightly and several individuals made professions of faith. But every night, right before the offering was received, the leader of the traveling ministry would proudly tell us that his ministry was a “front-line” ministry and that our dollars were helping move the gospel forward. I'm sure they were. And I'm sure he and his associates used the money for the cause they said it was for. But that phrase - “front-line ministry” - stuck in my craw. Because the implication was that other ministries – specifically, my ministry with its hum-drum Sunday to Wednesday to Sunday rhythm was...well...not the front-line. I was “playing” while he and his team were “fighting”. I was working a garbage scow on the back-waters of the Pacific while he was in harm's way in Leyte Gulf.

Okay, maybe it was what he was taught to say by the larger ministry he worked for. Or the packed house and the eager and willing response of the crowd got him a little carried away in the moment (but night after night after night?) I wouldn't be surprised if some of those same folks who heard that appeal took money they otherwise would have normally given their fellowship and gave it to this guy and his “front-line” work. After all, if you give it to your local fellowship some of your offering may just go to pay the light bill whereas supporting a “front-line” worker doing “front-line” work advances the kingdom “in the trenches” where the real “fight”is at (or so some folks would be inclined to believe.)

But in the Kingdom of God, where is the “front-line”? About a hundred years ago when doughboys from America marched off to France to beat back the Hun they sang the ballad by George M. Cohan, “Over There”

Over there, over there,

Send the word, send the word over there

That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming

The drums rum-tumming everywhere.

If you don't have an aversion for this kind of music, it's the kind of song to get you marching somewhere, preferably to the “front lines” to resist the evil empire that threatens to subdue freedom-loving people everywhere. In a similar way, when we pray over someone bound for the mission field in what used to be called “darkest” Africa it is fairly normal to think of these individuals as some elite squad being inserted deep behind enemy lines for the saving of many Private Ryans while we carry on with our quiet but otherwise mundane lives back in the States. Except for this – it doesn't wash with the record of Scripture which says that the so-called “front-line” is not over there but everywhere. Which means all of us – not just the traveling-evangelist type or the missionaries bound for war-torn South Sudan – are engaged in the epic struggle to advance the Kingdom of God to the ends of the earth.

A novel Church growth plan

Following the martyrdom of Stephen in the mid-30s, life in Jerusalem for disciples of Jesus was chaotic. Saul is on a rampage rounding up followers of the Messiah everywhere he finds them. Most don't stick around to give him that pleasure but do what people have always done in times like this – get out of Dodge.

“Forced to leave home base, the followers of Jesus all became missionaries. Wherever they were scattered, they preached the Message about Jesus.” (Acts 8:4, Msg)

They were running for their lives but they weren't mum of why they were fleeing. They didn't seek to keep a low profile. They shared the faith and spread the Word. The irony is palpable – even while he is trying to stomp the movement out Saul is inadvertently helping it spread. As merchants and traders wherever they landed they found opportunity to share about Jesus the Messiah. Some time later when the dust settles and Peter and John are sent down to Samaria to confirm the rumors that many in this region have received the gospel, they find that Philip, a former associate of Stephen's, and others like him have been here for awhile working the Samarian fields. All that's left for the apostles to do is lay their hands on these new Samarian disciples and affirm God's work and impart Spirit baptism (see Acts 8:14-17).

Some of those unnamed missionaries from Jerusalem got further afield than Samaria, however.

Once a hub of the Christian movement

“Those who had been scattered by the persecution triggered by Stephen’s death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, but they were still only speaking and dealing with their fellow Jews. Then some of the men from Cyprus and Cyrene who had come to Antioch started talking to Greeks, giving them the Message of the Master Jesus. God was pleased with what they were doing and put his stamp of approval on it—quite a number of the Greeks believed and turned to the Master.” (Acts 11:22-24, Msg)

When the home office hears about the strange happenings in this city in what is today southern Turkey they deputize Barnabus to go up there and investigate. What he finds there is a thriving fellowship of believers that is having influence in their community without any help from the apostles in Jerusalem. In time, he'll recognize that they need the help of a good teacher and will go in search of Saul the former persecutor and invite him to return to Antioch to join the ministry there. But the point is way before Barnabus or Saul arrived “over there”, the battle for Antioch was being capably handled by men whose names we'll never know.

Years later when Paul at long last arrives in the capital city of the Empire he doesn't come as a master tactician ready to take the fight to the pagans there. On the contrary, he comes as a prisoner who is warmly greeted by a large delegation of disciples of the Church of Jesus in Rome who have heard rumors of his arrival. Long before Paul and later Peter arrive in the Capital, unnamed disciples had beat them to it and were gathering together regularly to strengthen and encourage one another. 

A few of the Church's greatest hits

He was all the rage in his day

   

There will always be men and women who God raises up to articulate his message for a certain time and hour. We'd be tempted to call them “stars” if it weren't so unbiblical – Peter, Paul, John, Origen of Alexandria (3^rd Century), Augustine (4^th Century), St. Benedict and St. Patrick (6^th Century), Bernard of Clairvaux (12^th Century), Martin Luther and John Calvin (16^th Century), George Whitfield and John Wesley (18^th Cenutry), William Carey, Adoniram Judson and Hudson Taylor (19^th Century), Billy Graham, Loren Cunningham and Keith Green (20^th Century). For a short time they and a lot of others I haven't mentioned captured the attention of their generation and were in the spotlight, front-liners the lot of them. But for every D.L. Moody who barnstorms across the Midwest all the way to England proclaiming the gospel to packed houses and theaters there are how many other Sunday School teachers quietly sharing the love of God with the kids in their Sunday School class? In the late 1800s, Moody was a household name in evangelical circles but who had heard of Edward Kimball who had been Moody's Sunday School teacher and had been the very first to share the gospel with him? In the late 20^th Century Billy Graham was pretty much everywhere sharing the gospel to packed auditoriums in city-wide crusades. Who didn't at that time turn on the television only to find that their regular programming had been preempted by this evangelist from North Carolina who was calling people to repent and be born again? But who remembers Albert McMakin, the farmhand on the farm that Billy grew up on who finally persuaded his boss' son to come to a series of revival meetings by promising he could drive the truck? Billy did and though he was a Presbyterian went forward to receive Christ. Who can tell how that brokered deal between McMakin and Graham has influenced the course of history?

His name will live on

Definite front-liners

That story has occurred repeatedly throughout the history of the Church and will continue to be repeated until her consummation. In the congregation I serve as pastor there is a couple who have been serving with Youth With A Mission for over twenty years now. During that time they have led many schools in Hawaii, the Philippines and now northwest Wisconsin. Many of their former students are missionaries themselves now in Asia and many other places in the world. In the 1980s they were farming south of Chetek and Duane was pastoring a small fellowship in nearby New Auburn. Following the tragic death of Keith Green in 1982, there were a series of memorial concerts all across America. Duane and his wife, Lois, attended one of them and though they were serving Jesus as both farmers and individuals serving a local fellowship they stood when the invitation was given to go wherever the Lord would lead them. The way Lois describes the moment it was almost impulsive but standing up in that meeting has led to a life of ministry to foreign nationals in places in out-of-the-way places like Dbunko, Palanan, Philippines and Weyerhaeuser, Wisconsin. Believe me, they, too, are front-liners. Their faithfulness and obedience has led to the advancement of the Kingdom of God as well. They just don't get the press that Franklin Graham or Bill Hybel does.

So we can go ahead and adopt that “front-line” worker in the County of Timbuktu if we feel so inclined so long as we don't forget that wherever we are – in Chicago, in Minneapolis or in Chetek, Wisconsin or Wairaka, Uganda – the front line is not “over there” but right here if we have eyes to see it. All the more reason to take the Apostle Paul's words to heart, to “...don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort” (1 Cor 15:58, Msg). I wholeheartedly agree.