Embark on an extraordinary voyage with Andrew Scott, CEO of OM, as he recounts his transformative journey from a small Northern Irish town to leading a pioneering global mission movement. His personal saga begins with pivotal encounters with missionaries, kindling a fervent commitment to the gospel that would see him join OM's mission ship at just 19. Throughout this episode, Andrew delves into the life-changing power of mission work and the vital importance of reaching those who have yet to hear the gospel's message.
The conversation seamlessly transitions into the ongoing evolution of mission work, reflecting on the historical context of the early church and comparing it to the modern digital age's opportunities. Andrew illuminates the impact that ordinary believers can make when they weave their faith into their professional lives. He shares uplifting tales of non-traditional missionaries, from tech-savvy evangelists to Filipino workers in the Muslim world, all embodying the diverse expressions of God's mission through their unique talents and vocations.
Our dialogue culminates by exploring our intrinsic identity and purpose within God's grand narrative. Andrew guides us through understanding how our Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences (SHAPE) can be harnessed to fulfill our God-given roles. Rejoice in the realization that embracing our divine design equips us to contribute meaningfully to the world, all while living out our callings with courage and heartfelt gratitude. Join us in this profound reflection that not only encourages but empowers listeners to participate in God's mission with the unique blueprint He has entrusted to each of us.
Follow @unreachedpodcast on Instagram for more!
Embark on an extraordinary voyage with Andrew Scott, CEO of OM, as he recounts his transformative journey from a small Northern Irish town to leading a pioneering global mission movement. His personal saga begins with pivotal encounters with missionaries, kindling a fervent commitment to the gospel that would see him join OM's mission ship at just 19. Throughout this episode, Andrew delves into the life-changing power of mission work and the vital importance of reaching those who have yet to hear the gospel's message.
The conversation seamlessly transitions into the ongoing evolution of mission work, reflecting on the historical context of the early church and comparing it to the modern digital age's opportunities. Andrew illuminates the impact that ordinary believers can make when they weave their faith into their professional lives. He shares uplifting tales of non-traditional missionaries, from tech-savvy evangelists to Filipino workers in the Muslim world, all embodying the diverse expressions of God's mission through their unique talents and vocations.
Our dialogue culminates by exploring our intrinsic identity and purpose within God's grand narrative. Andrew guides us through understanding how our Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences (SHAPE) can be harnessed to fulfill our God-given roles. Rejoice in the realization that embracing our divine design equips us to contribute meaningfully to the world, all while living out our callings with courage and heartfelt gratitude. Join us in this profound reflection that not only encourages but empowers listeners to participate in God's mission with the unique blueprint He has entrusted to each of us.
Follow @unreachedpodcast on Instagram for more!
In Revelation 7, john shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb. Yet today there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world. For the last six years my family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet and fund the task remaining. Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work for the men and women he has called to reach the unreached. Hello friends, dustin Elliott, back with you in the Unreached podcast.
Speaker 1:I've got a really special guest today, my friend Andrew. I'm going to read a few things about Andrew. I want you to understand. This guest today has incredible credibility in the world of missions, in the world of business, in the world of travel. I believe he has set foot in over 80 countries and I want you to hear from some other friends of ours and what they've said at the beginning of his book called Scatter.
Speaker 1:I thank God for Andrew Scott and his vision for mobilizing multitudes, more men and women from the church for mission in the world. That's David Platt and then Louis Giglio Throughout history. One of the greatest hindrances to fulfilling the global mission of Jesus is the idea that people must leave what they're doing and begin doing something new. Andrew Scott is the perfect guide for this journey. His passion for the people in the world and his unique positioning in God's kingdom enterprise qualify him in an extraordinary way. And then my friend Steve Richardson. With Pioneers, the Reformation brought us a rediscovery of the priesthood of the believer In Scatter. Andrew Scott calls for a second Reformation with world-changing implications a rediscovery of the missionhood of the believer. Andrew Scott, thank you so much for being here, the CEO of OM. We're thrilled to have you.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Dustin.
Speaker 1:Great to be with you why don't you give us just a brief background on who you are, where you're from, how you got where you are today?
Speaker 2:Great Thanks, Dustin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it will be obvious pretty quickly that I'm not from these parts, but originally from Northern Ireland, grew up in a little tiny town in the southeast corner, in a beautiful place actually, where Dustin has played golf, not far from there.
Speaker 2:That has so much to do with who I am today because in that place I was introduced from a very early age to God's global mission and we had missionaries come from all over the world to our little tiny church. My dad had a big passion for mission so he invited missionaries to come tell their stories. So in my book I share, this is we didn't have a TV in our home, so these stories, as well as the biographies of missionaries, became our movies and these people became our heroes, Really caused us to think about the nations. My whole family have been involved in global missions in some way all their life and continue to be to this day. So I find myself now living just south of Atlanta, Georgia, heading the work of OM in the US, and loving the opportunity to continue to engage with what God's doing around the world.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, I can totally appreciate missionaries traveling through small towns, because I'm from a small town in East Texas and I got saved at 17 in a tiny little 30-person church, single room Church of Christ, by a missionary that came through and did a sermon series on the gospel. And the last day he was there I said, man, something clicked, I want that for my life. And, by the way, he got all the cobwebs out of the baptism pool and got that thing filled up. That's when my life changed, right, wonderful. So I totally appreciate that. But your life got going early with your walk with the Lord and then, after kind of high school, grade school, you had a really unique start. Tell us about how you got started in working with OM.
Speaker 2:I ended up going to the ship.
Speaker 1:Is that?
Speaker 2:where you want me to jump in. Yes, because I don't know that a lot of people know about the ship. So OM has always had ships, actually for 50 years of its existence, and it really come out of just a really quick insert because it speaks to our founder, george verwer, who's just he passed on last year, but just one of the most amazing men in the modern mission movement. A young guy from new jersey got saved through billy green crusade, immediately heard about 1.5 billion back then in the world who had never heard, and he said this is not fair that we in america hear it many times, there's some will hear it never. So he, operation Mobilization, got a little impatient with taking the gospel through vans and trucks around the world and said, hey, if we had a ship, now, get this.
Speaker 2:He was 23 years old and he came up with a multi-million dollar project that no one had ever thought of before Buy a ship, fill it with young people and literature and sail around the world to bring the gospel to nations that had never heard. People thought he'd lost the plot, but he prayed and seven years later we got our first ship and 50 years later we've had five ships. Now we currently have two, and literally hundreds of millions of people have heard the gospel through those ships uh, through the vision. So I joined that when I was 19 years old come on, how cool is that?
Speaker 1:what a a life.
Speaker 2:Incredible, absolutely incredible. 19 years old, and you know any young people out there that are sort of I mean, especially those that might be thinking of that we're going to university and they're going to spend a truckload of their parents' money going to university, but they've really no idea what they want to do in life. The ship is an incredible place to go for a one or two year program where you'll be discipled, you'll see the world, you'll see what God's doing, live with another couple of hundred young people from 50 different nations, visiting a new city every three to four weeks, where we get to bring the gospel. And I tell you that formed and shaped my mind like nothing else. That also allowed me to get some leadership development, discipleship training, theological training on board, and when I stepped off that, I knew that I couldn't settle anymore. I needed to continue to be involved in what God's doing among the nations.
Speaker 1:Man, I'm so inspired I haven't had a chance to do anything even remotely close to that. Tell us, give me just a little, let's pull on that thread for a second. What is life like on the ship? Give us kind of the daily routine. It sounds like you're kind of going from port to port every three or four weeks, but what's that daily life look like?
Speaker 2:Right. So for the young people on board, which make up the bulk of the crew, we have a few professional deck officers and engineers and a doctor. Those are the things you need to sail, and they're all believers. And then you have all of the young people that come on for one or two years and they're running the kitchen. They're people that come on for one or two years and they're running the kitchen. They're running the bookshop on board, they're running the engine room, okay, and so they're getting a good work ethic on board in a cross-cultural environment. So that's sort of the daily rhythm. They're put into teams one day a week where they go out and do some type of ministry with the local church in that area, and in the evenings there's conferences on board during the day and they get involved in those. So it's this all of life experience. So one of the things I love about the ship it helps people to see their whole life as joining God in his work, not just a part of their life. So they're involved in bumping shoulders with people that come on board the ship.
Speaker 2:Recently our ship's been to Iraq, for example. Wow, it's been to different parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Just incredible stories of people coming aboard and seeing something. Like one guy said, there's something different about the way you folks live. How can it be that 40 to 50 different nations can live in such a small piece of metal floating around the sea and still get on with each other when the world's in chaos? I watch you, you know, in the bookshop, and I see the way you interact with people. There's something different about your life. So it's a real opportunity for the ship, then, to be a witness in these places where there is a local church, joining the local church and helping swell the numbers, or going out into places that the church might not be able to get. But because of the profile of the ship, we get to bring the gospel into these places.
Speaker 1:So when you come off the ship, you're at port and you come off the ship, we uh to bring the gospel into these places. So when you come off the ship, you're at port and you come off the ship, we're not talking about 200 people that look alike and all come from the same place.
Speaker 2:You just said 40 or 50 different people groups on the ship. I think our larger ship, logos hope, has got 60 different nationalities come on yeah, I mean mongolia. You're talking mongolia, azerbaijan, kyrgyzstan. I mean we're not just talking, you know, northern ireland and america. Here we're talking parts of the world that we would have thought were mission sending places.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you did about 10 years on the ship.
Speaker 2:Yes About that, yeah, yeah and then. So then I came to the US. I was invited to come across to start college recruiting, which is when I first met people like Todd Ahrens, who were involved in things like that.
Speaker 1:Oh, todd, todd gets a shout out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's where I cut my teeth in the US. I fought that a little bit. If I'm honest, dustin, I come from Northern Ireland. 25% of the population are evangelical not dissimilar to the Bible Belt here in the US and I'm thinking I want to go to the nations. I don't want to go to where they have a lot of Christians already, but a number of different factors really believing this was the right place to come and quickly seeing the potential in this nation for being involved in the global task. So just seeing the potential in this nation, if we truly, the church in America, truly got a glimpse of God's heart for the nations including their own, but God's heart for the nations and we aligned our efforts and resources to engage with that, we in the US could play a huge role in this next era of mission. That would dwarf anything that's happened in the past, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:So, as you can see, or as you can hear to the listeners, Andrew is not without big ideas, he's not without big vision and he's one of the people that's probably challenging the narrative or the paradigm of missions today the most. He's asking big questions, and that's what we want to do today. We want to explore what are we currently operating in, what questions are we not asking and what can be different going forward. There's not only one way to get this job done Now.
Speaker 1:There's only one God on the throne, but there's different methods that each of us have been equipped with time, talent and treasure. As we've said many times before, how do we engage in what we've been given to play out our role in God's redemptive story among the nations?
Speaker 2:First of all, I'll say this, dustin, my idea is not a new idea, right? It's not really my idea. I believe it's uncovering an idea that we see in Scripture when we look at the New Testament church. Michael Green, in his book Evangelism in the Early Church, says that 80% of the growth of the early church happened through the everyday follower of Jesus. Right, just gossiping the gospel in the marketplaces of the world. It's not a new idea. I want to say that and also I will say this up front, because often I fail to say it up front.
Speaker 2:When we think of new ideas, new ways of doing things, in no way are we disparaging existing or old ideas or ideas of the past. We are here today. We stand on the shoulders of everyone who came before us and just as we might do some things different today than yesterday, people tomorrow will do things different from us because the context is different and understanding continues to expand. Like you said and I want to also make this clear is that the gospel is unchanging, but we have to be careful that we don't confuse an unchanging gospel with ever-changing methodologies, and so all of that sort of like preface to what I'm going to say, but what we're basically saying is folks, all of us have been made to live on mission with God in every day of life and we want to encourage people to go do that in parts of the world where he's not known. So we have placed people in the Middle East, we've placed people in Southeast Asia in jobs, asia, in jobs in the highest levels of hospitals, of energy companies, of tech companies. Yeah, I'll try and share some of the stories with a vagueness to them, because we want to. But just one of the wives told me recently you know, her husband works in one of the large companies in a Muslim area of the world and she has been building relationships with the wives of of his workmates and her neighbors and invites them over to do art and crafts in the house, have meals together.
Speaker 2:Uh, the one lady particular we'll call her fatima was showing great interest, and so they invited fatima and her husband for a meal. They started to build a relationship, and and so, through time, fatima and her husband were so intrigued and so blessed by this relationship they invited my two friends to go with them to visit their family in another part of the country, which is a huge honor, right. So they go, and when they went there they intermingled with their family and the mother was a little suspicious to start with and even let her know that I know that you're reading the Bible with my daughter. Oh okay, yeah, and they thought that was a little bit of a threat. But at the end of it the mother turned to the family and said I've watched your lives and you are white-hearted people, and what that means is a term, islamic term that means you're pure in all ways, right, so it's just a huge compliment. And so basically in a sense, endorsed her daughter continuing the relationship and reading the Bible together. And after that Fatima came to my friend and said look, I need to know more about Jesus. Can we read the Bible more often? And so she brought her calendar and said let's put this in the calendar right away. And so she is reading the Bible with Fatima on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:Now in this story there's no end to say that Fatima has now come to know Jesus. She's coming to know Jesus. But the reality is Fatima didn't even know a Jesus follower before this couple showed up. She was in a part of the country where there were no other people there that were following Jesus and in another way. There might have been some, but they were in parts of society that Fatima would never bump into. But they were in parts of society that Fatima would never bump into, and so one of the things we want to do is place people in sectors of society that the typical traditional missionary would never get to and that they're doing good work. Their work is not a cover for them to be there. They're doing good work to bring good into that country and they're able to have conversations about Jesus in the everyday of life.
Speaker 2:And throughout the podcast, I'll share a few more stories of people that have come to faith and just amazing things that are happening through similar types of people. But to start with that story that actually, in my mind, is one that helps center us around, what we're talking about is Jesus followers going to parts of the world where Jesus is not known and no one, or very few, have ever met a Jesus follower. You know close to 90% of Muslims, hindus and Buddhists don't even know another Jesus follower.
Speaker 1:You said, these are not people that are going in as professionals and their job is just kind of a shell game to just get them there and keep them there, and they're not working really effectively or efficiently at their job. That's not what we're talking about. No, we're talking about doing your job to your absolute best right, working with excellence, as if for the Lord, and because of that you're establishing credibility. You're doing life with people.
Speaker 1:Our kind of most popular episode, going back to season one, was about sending a young lady from our church to the Middle East and we know that in the Muslim background and those MBB, muslim background believers and those you said, they were having meals together. Those meals can take hours and hours and they can go well into the night. Right, there's a lot of personal relationship building there and a lot of that's going to get built on. What are you doing for a living and how is your job going? And I love that you're trying to just bend. It's not like a full paradigm shift, but it's like a bend of the paradigm of like, no, be great at what you're good at, but maybe go do it somewhere else we need to ask about existing ways.
Speaker 2:We've done it where we have not maybe cared as much about our local identity and maybe even the visas that we're applying for are really not truly what we're there for, and I want to question that and say look, folks, if our presence is questionable, how do we hope our message will be anything other than that? Oh, so good. You see, here's the thing, and maybe another way to paint this picture is for years, we have been trying to get in the back door or through a top window when the front doors of these countries are wide open. You know, 75% of employers worldwide cannot find the talent need. That's a manpower study that comes out every year that has almost doubled post-COVID and will continue to grow. They call it the 2030 talent crisis.
Speaker 2:I believe it's one of the new Roman roads where the nations of the world will pay for the people of God to go live on mission for God in the world, and they're not going to go there and cheat those nations. They're going to go there and they're going to bring some of the best talent in the world that resides in this country highly trained, sought after, highly marketable. It's like, yeah, we want them. I could list a lot of countries who will have put Americans at the top of their list, equal to nationals, as the people they want to employ for some of the top jobs in the country. So we have to understand that this is a wide open door. I don't believe, maybe apart from two countries, maybe one, that there are any real closed countries. We just have been going in the wrong door.
Speaker 1:So okay, there's a lot you just said we're going to go back and forth and say like there's a lot to unpack here, but you said a new Roman's road, or a new Roman's road. Would you maybe just for the listeners that may not be totally familiar with the Roman's road give us some background on exactly what that is, and how are you defining these new opportunities?
Speaker 2:Right. So when we refer to the Roman roads, you know, back in the day of the early church, the Roman Empire had been in place for a couple of hundred years, obviously, and they'd built these roads all over the empire which allowed travel to happen exponentially quicker than it had before. Right, they could go on carriages, et cetera, on horseback versus cobbled streets or rough roads. So we talk about, at that point in time, the gospel was able to go further, faster, primarily because of two things. One was the Roman roads and the Greek language. God had prepared a time for the gospel to spread quickly. I think we have multiple ones today. One is which I just spread.
Speaker 2:Technology is another one, and I know others are talking about this. We have technology today that allows people to read, to listen, to see a gospel presentation in the privacy of their own home, where it's safe. Even our own organization for years was taking literature in different ways at high risk, into countries at high risk to people's lives. Now there's no risk to people's lives because of technology. That's another Roman road that I would say we have to continue to make use of today. But going back to the one I mentioned, the opportunity for people to be invited into countries to work for the good of the city, as Jeremiah told us to do, and to be present. To settle down is there. So the doors are many, the opportunities are vast. What we need to do is help people understand that this is part of how they can live on mission for God, and they don't have to raise support, they don't have to worry about a visa, they don't have to navigate the question why are you here? All of these big issues that are facing the existing missions model all disappear.
Speaker 1:So, as we're talking about changing the way we're thinking and Andrew is changing the way he's thinking, if you read Scatter and you look at his book, he starts out. So I want to give you credit. Actually, you tried to give some disclaimers to start today of you know, look, I want to make sure that we're not kind of making it sound like we're saying what we were doing is bad or wrong. You did that in your book, right? You pay a lot of honor to some of the great missionaries in history and you're saying but I've learned some things, right, I've seen a need for a shift, and I love that. One of the things that I really admire about you, Andrew, is that you're willing to admit that there's change that needs to happen with your own perception, with your own approach. This kind of grandstand or pedestal to make some of these questions and observations and claims, but maybe like, what are you seeing as the shift that we need to really engage with today?
Speaker 2:Huge, huge, huge question. So I think, maybe to give you a little context for this, I was not long into my role and we did a strategic plan. This will cut a long, long story really short. Got a consultant in to get us through a strategic plan. This will cut a long, long story really short. Got a consultant in to get us through a strategic plan and we were going to do more of what we'd always done, because that's what we did in the missions world, you know, sending what we might call a traditional missionary to go somewhere.
Speaker 2:And OM's how old 65 years old, yeah, yeah. So the whole idea of someone who you know as we might rephrase it specially called highly trained quit your job, raise support, join a mission agency, that type of worker which is what we've done for years, like other mission agencies. And then the leader of our work in the Muslim world came to visit me. He had lived in that part of the world for years. He was sort of like the leader of all of the agencies. When they came together, he would be the one that would facilitate the discussion. So incredibly experienced in this part of the world, the type of people when he's in the room, you want to listen to what he's saying. Right, and he said to me there'll be no traditional missionaries in the Muslim world within 10 years. I thought, oh my goodness, like I've just built a plan to send those, why? And he talked about the visa thing and I said, okay, yeah, but surely we can access. It's about presence. What is your presence like? And we've talked about this already.
Speaker 2:But here's what he said, dustin, that completely put me in a tailspin. That said I need to think differently. He said the Filipino maids have done more for the spread of the gospel in the Arabian Peninsula than all the traditional missionaries put together. And that just blew my mind right, because Filipino maids these are women that left the Philippines for economic reasons no. Special call, no. Highly trained no. Quit your job no, join a mission agency and raise support. They left for economic reasons, took a job and were living in the homes of these sheikhs, loving on their kids, loving on their wives and seeing more done for the spread of the gospel than than this other thing that I was involved in that had done good, but somehow god in his sovereignty was using this group over here and and a couple of things crossed my mind was one big question was if I've gotten this wrong, what else have I gotten wrong? What? What other assumptions am I working on of things that have been handed to me that I'm assuming are correct and right for this context? And how do I change that? Because I don't want to again. It's not that there's no good or right in what we were doing. There's a lot of good and a lot of right, and I'm not saying that, but it's like there's something over here that I'm missing and I need to get.
Speaker 2:And so this whole thing of reframing my thinking, going back to the scripture and saying God, you're using Filipino maids, and not just Filipino maids Filipino maids I have lots of stories of Filipino nurses and Filipinos in the engineering world that are having a similar impact and other nationalities, but you're using these people that don't fit my paradigm of what a missionary was. So all of a sudden, I saw something that a missionary was not this little narrow thing that we had created primarily in the West. It was now this broader group of people. And how broad was that group of people? And so I started in Ephesians 1.
Speaker 2:I don't know why that was, but Ephesians 1 was important to me that before God laid the foundations of the earth, he loved us, he chose us, he adopted us into his family. So, foundations of the earth, he loved us, he chose us, he adopted us into his family. So that speaks to our identity. We are the children of God, right as intended by the father, before he even made anything else in the world. And down in verse 12 and 14, it says and he did this so that we would be for the praise of his glory, in other words, so that our lives would glorify him. If you go over to Genesis 1, you see the same thing. We were made in the image of God. That means that's a term that was used only for the pharaohs, and this was groundbreaking for me.
Speaker 2:The idea of being an image bearer was only for the pharaohs, it was for a select few people in the world, and it carried two things with it, one or two ideas. You were a child of God, a son of God. The pharaohs were known as the sons of God and they represented God. So again, identity and purpose. Same as Ephesians 1, identity and purpose. And so I was introduced to this idea that God's design for humanity was that they would be his children, all of humanity, and that they would be his representatives. It wasn't a select few, it was. Everybody carried this identity and this purpose.
Speaker 2:Now we know Satan tried to destroy that, he certainly distorted it. But in Christ we have been redeemed, reconciled to God, and that original identity and purpose has been restored. To who? To every person in Christ. And so, all of a sudden, the mission force went from this small group to this very large group, which changed everything for me, because I realized very quickly well, what we've built was not built to facilitate everyone living on mission with God. Right, it was just built for a few and we had to do something different. We had to see things different.
Speaker 2:How do we help? First of all, awaken the people of God to know who they are and why they exist. You know, you meet so many people in life who are still trying to work out their purpose, and scripture tells us stop. No created thing ever determines its own purpose, only the creator. And God has designed us to represent him. That means live your life according to God's ways. You're representing God, you're his ambassador, you're his image bearer. Paul says it this way imitate me as I imitate Christ, or imitate God. In other words, you're not acting as yourself, you're mimicking the actions of somebody else. That's where we get mimicked. So we are imitating God, and it's all of us.
Speaker 1:I want to make sure that we get into the practical application of this right. Our friend Kirby Holmes, who was with Storyline, now he's with World Relief, he said the mission field has become the mission force and I loved that quote and I still love that quote. But I think in the context of Scatter, in the context of your book and your conversation today, you know the mission field has always been the mission force. It's more just about empowering those who are image bearers of God to understand that and live that out all day, every day. And I think when you got here and we were talking kind of before we hit record on what do we want to make sure that we hit on? There was a redefinement that you wanted people to understand and kind of what God has revealed to you as true about their identity. Right, You're not a business person that's also a Christian. You're not a person that works and pays a tithe, you're not just those things. But how do you want to make sure that you convey? How do I receive this and then apply it?
Speaker 2:Right. I think this is critical and I think this is where we get a little bit mixed up and then stuck or paralyzed. And it has a lot to do with calling Dustin. I think we have misunderstood what calling is in the Scriptures. We've made calling synonymous or in line with what happened to Moses with the burning bush, or with Paul on the road to Emmaus, or Balaam and his donkey right, and we're expecting something God to speak in an extraordinary way to us before we'll do anything and we get paralyzed. We either feel that we're excused because God didn't call me, so I get to live my life the way I want. I'm talking about Jesus followers here. I get to live my life, have my own ambition, dreams and goals and then have this little part of my story that I invite God into and that might mean a little bit of my money, a little bit of my time that I volunteer to church or to some other nonprofit in the local area, and that's God in my story. And I think we have to realize that the story is God's and he's written us into his. He's not waiting for us to write him into ours, right? He's inviting us into his. So this is what we're saying is that it's an all of life idea. So going back to the identity purpose, so calling is not for sure.
Speaker 2:God had supernatural interactions with a handful of people in the scripture for some massive assignment to steer his people in a certain direction, absolutely, but that is not the norm. Os Guinness says in his book the Call or the Calling. He says this that do not let the experience of a few, what we just talked about, be the expectation of the many, because the call of God for humanity was written before time began and we have heard this from Paul in Ephesians 1 and we get it in Genesis 1. And the three words I use to sort of to get it in Genesis 1. And the three words I use to sort of to take apart the idea of calling is identity, purpose and role.
Speaker 2:And it comes from the idea of being an image bearer, which we just talked about. An image bearer was a title only given to kings. It came with two ideas that you were a child of God, your identity, and you represented God purpose. So right off the bat you have something that has been declared and determined by our creator, our identity and our purpose, unchanging. They cannot change because they've been determined by our creator. Yes, satan distorted it, but Christ has redeemed and restored that. So those are the unchanging ideas of identity and purpose. So don't wait for God to invite you into his mission. He's made you for his mission. As I say, you're not called to the mission of God, you're made for the mission of God, right? So then it comes to well, how I get that why, the who and the why. But what does this look like practically? And this is where shape comes in.
Speaker 2:And one of my chapters is given to this an acronym, by Eric Ries, actually, that I got permission to use. But God has uniquely shaped each one of us to represent him, because he didn't just create humanity to all be all with the same gifts and abilities. He's given us all different things because he needed us Genesis 2, to care for and cultivate everything he created. So he needed people that could build homes. He needed people that could farm the land. He needed people that could extract minerals from the ground. You know, he needed people that would develop science and art and all the rest of it, because that's how beauty gets extracted from the world. Right? He didn't create homes, he created wood. He didn't create song. He created sound right. He left it to the humans to bring about that beauty. So this is where the how comes in, that he's uniquely shaped, every one of us. So our role, if we want to know.
Speaker 2:Ephesians 2.10 is one of my favorite verses, where God's masterpiece created in Christ Jesus to do good works which he prepared in advance for us to do. In other words, before he made us, he prepared the things he wanted us to do and then he made us in such a way that we could do those things. So find out how God has made you and then live into that space, embrace who he's made you to be, because we've all got different abilities, all got different passions, personality, experience and spiritual gifts the acronym SHAPE.
Speaker 1:Is it sufficient to say that? Or maybe just I think it's fair to say if you really can find God's peace in that and in your calling, it might actually be not only say easier, but more fulfilling, more rewarding the way you go about life, like I understand why I'm here now, right, right, I can go do this and it is good and it's part of God's story that he's built me to play a role in, absolutely, and that's where role and purpose come in Right.
Speaker 2:So so, if you understand that God has wired me to be a business person right, I love doing business, I'm really good at business Once you understand that that's not your purpose, that's your role, and your role should be lived out underneath your purpose, which is represent God. So how do I represent God within this role? Now, you're not. Here's the key thing, dustin. You're not just a business, you're not just a business person. You're not just a doctor, you're not just an engineer. I'm a husband. I'm a father, I'm a brother. I'm a member of a soccer team. I'm a dog breeder who interacts with other dog breeders and show people in that world. I'm a neighbor.
Speaker 2:So we will have many roles in life, and roles will always change. I'm no longer a son. I was a son, for I can't remember how many years when my parents both passed away. I'm no longer a son. You just don't want to age yourself. Yeah, that's right, we get it, I'm old. There are roles that will change. I'm stepping out of my role as the leader of OMUSA very soon.
Speaker 2:That role will change constantly and we have multiple roles, but our purpose never changes.
Speaker 2:And once we get that, then we can start to understand our calling and understand who god made me to be.
Speaker 2:Embrace that and live it out, because when we live out who he's made us to be, not trying to be something else or someone else I believe we're the most brilliant reflection of god on the planet and I think that's that's critical for us to understand.
Speaker 2:And when we try and maybe let me make maybe a little bit of a controversial point here, or one that might stir a few people up, but when we try to force people to do something that they were never made to be, or do we start to see a side of them that's not as brilliant or not as beautiful? Right, to see a side of them that's not as brilliant or not as beautiful, right. And and one of the things I think we've done in the mission space is that we have said missions looks like this, and it's often taking somebody out of the business world and coming into the missions world, where they're doing something like trying to meet people in a coffee shop or trying to build relationships in an environment that is a little less natural to them, right? And I think what's happening, quite frankly, is they're slowly dying inside because they're actually not being who God made them to be. I use my illustration in the book we've put the armor of Saul on the people of God.
Speaker 2:You know David coming from his father with the food for his brothers. What's this big noise in the hillside? Of course it's Goliath. Why is nobody taking him out? He's making a mockery of God's people and God. And well, we're afraid. And David of course said I'll take him out Now.
Speaker 2:David had not. It wasn't false confidence. David had taken out bears and lions. With his sling he could kill a fast-moving lion. Malcolm Gladwell in his book talks about the stone of a sling would fire at the velocity of a Colt .45 bullet.
Speaker 2:Right. And so you had this little guy who was fast and quick and accurate going out into a battlefield with a lumbering, half-blind giant. They say the giants had a lot of things going wrong with them. They were intimidating, but they couldn't move quickly and they couldn't see well. And so, david, he didn't stand a chance against David. But so David was very equipped to take out the giant. Right. Saul said hold on a minute, david, before you go out and face the giant. You need to look like a soldier before you go on the battlefield. And he wanted to put his armor on him. It didn't fit. It would have taken the natural ability away from David to use it for God's purposes and the rest is history. I think we have to be really careful to say hey, if you want to be a missionary, you must look this way, Instead of saying hey, how has God shaped you, go do that somewhere in the world where he's less known.
Speaker 2:Ephesians 6 is where God tells us about the right armor to put on Ephesians 6, if you split Ephesians 6 up, basically in half, you've got the first half, paul's telling him about who they are, how they've been saved, what they've been set apart for. Then he sort of like splits it in the middle saying hey, by the way, if you're a pastor, apostle, teacher, evangelist, your job is to equip all these people to go do the work of the ministry out there. And then he turns to the people and he he starts to say hey, remember who you are, stop cheating, stop lying, stop doing all this stuff. So you can see the mess of the early church. But he still reminded them of all the things they should be doing and and the life they should be living. And then tells them to to put on the armor.
Speaker 2:Putting on the armor was not for a select group of people who were the super spiritual that were really going to be effective in the world. It was for every believer, because every believer needed to armor up everybody, everybody, just like the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is here's the evidence if you're armored up, if you're in Jesus and you're armored up, here's the evidence of it in your life Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, long-suffering, and when the world starts to taste and see the fruit of the Spirit of God in our lives, you know there's something really beautiful and tasty. It's like salt that brings out the flavor, it's light, it brings out the God colors in the world and they're attracted in right.
Speaker 2:Paul says live your life quietly, let people see your life, don't make a real fuss, but let people see your life and even though they might not agree with everything you're doing they might accuse you of doing wrong they'll see your good deeds, they'll see the fruit of the Spirit in your life, they'll see there's something different and they'll glorify God. And so I think I really like this idea of coming back to what was it that we were told to put on? What were we told was evidence of God in our life for every believer? And when we do that, I think that's what it looks like to live on mission for God.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question. I want the believers to hear this who is our fight against? What does Ephesians 6 tell you? Who is our fight against? Yeah, it's not against flesh and blood. It's not against flesh and blood. I think if you really will anchor yourself in Ephesians 6, then you will find the ability to love your neighbor and to love your enemy. You will find the ability to be more impervious to the arrows that will be flung at you, because you will understand those arrows are being shot not through that person, not through that image bearer of God. They're being shot through the dark, unseen forces that are controlling this world. Good word it unlocks your ability to love them through what they're going to come at you with Right.
Speaker 1:And with that we're breaking this into two weeks, and with that we're breaking this into two weeks, we're going to do two episodes, because there's so much we haven't talked about, about what's going to happen next, where God has you on this new path, while you're reflecting, while you're thinking about where you've been and what you've learned, but you're not done yet. There's chapters left in your story. There may be scatter two coming out, and so, if you will, would you pray for the listeners today and then, guys, you're going to have to come back in two weeks and we're going to pick up again for the rest of Andrew Scott's story. Sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Father, thank you that you're at work in the world. Thank you that you have made us in your image, which allows us this privilege of sonship, daughtership and this incredible responsibility to represent you. Thank you that we have been reminded, even just now, that you've given us an armor to put on. You haven't left us naked in the battle. You've given us an armor and you've put the Spirit of God inside us so that we can show your presence, your goodness, your righteousness, your justice, your mercy, your love, your kindness to the world around us. Help us to step into our identity and our purpose. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen and amen.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Unreached. Our sincere desire is that what you've heard today will cause you to see the mission of God differently and your role in it more clearly. If this adds value for you and we hope it does would you please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen. Also, share with your family, your friends, your church, your life group, small group, D group, wherever you do life, and if you want to connect with us, find us on Instagram at unreachedpodcast. No-transcript.