What burden has God placed on your heart for the nations?

My husband was preparing a missions themed teaching series for our church’s youth group recently, and when he asked for my input, I suggested he incorporate one paramount objective into his plans. It was different than what you might expect.

I knew that the majority of our youth had been taught about missions before. At our church’s yearly missions conferences they had heard missionaries speak, watched missions themed videos, prayed for the lost around the world, and been challenged to consider serving in missions one day. But I wasn’t sure if they’d ever been prompted to name their own personal burdens for the world. The identifying and naming of a personal burden, I proposed to my husband, might be the most significant thing that he could facilitate for the young people he would be teaching.

Why would I say that? I recognize that God doesn’t call all people to serve internationally as missionaries. While I might hope that they pray and help support the work in some way, the majority of Christ’s followers will not move to a foreign country to share the gospel with people of a different culture. I am convinced, however, that God does lay burdens for the lost and hurting on the hearts of all His children. To receive Christ into your heart is to take on a measure of His compassion and longing for healing and restoration in the world. If this is true, then one of the most missional things that a local congregation can do is help its members recognize and own the individual burdens that the Lord has placed on each one’s heart for the world.

The planet we live on contains unquantifiable need, and those who pay attention to the news today could easily become overwhelmed by it. Even Jesus, in His humanity, was forced to focus His bodily ministry on a relatively small region of the earth. Yet in God’s wisdom, He has formed a body of believers who each have unique gifts and callings as they live and move in Christ’s power and presence (Rom 12:4; 1Cor 12; 1Pet 4:10). With the help and support of the body of Christ around us, each one of us must learn to recognize the specific callings and opportunities that God has placed before us.

An impression from God

When I was around 11 years old, I saw a video about a tribe in Papua New Guinea that had no knowledge of the gospel or God’s word until a missionary family moved into their village and translated the Bible, bringing about incredible revival. This story had a huge impression on me, as I couldn’t fathom what it would be like to grow up without any knowledge of the hope of the gospel. God used that video to produce in me a burden for people in other parts of the world with limited access to the truth. I felt for those people. And in time, I had opportunity to verbalize that burden to friends and family.

There were certainly many other things which played a role in my missionary call, but that initial burden was pivotal, and I think that for most missionaries, the moment of recognizing and naming a burden is always significant.

The bestowing of a burden for a particular need or people group is a significant way that God calls His people toward partnering with Him on mission, whether locally or abroad. As disciples of Jesus, we all carry different types of burdens—different aspects of the compassion of God for a bent world, and I believe a significant way that the local church can help engage people on mission is by helping people recognize and name those burdens. When that happens, the body of Christ can walk with one another in discerning how to own and steward those callings faithfully.

How can churches help people recognize and name their burdens for the world around them? Children’s and youth ministries are a wonderful place to start. For my husband’s youth lesson, we devised an activity which began by inviting them to think of two different needs in the world—either locally or abroad—which they would reverse if they could do so with the wave of a wand. We wanted to, in a non-leading way, invite them to brainstorm about the hurts in the world which they felt for. Each of the students was invited to walk up to the white board at the front of the class and write down two needs they had thought of.

That activity was followed by a short teaching about how God often uses burdens to call His children toward particular ministries. Examples from both modern missions and the Bible were presented. The youth then gathered into small groups, and in that more intimate setting, were invited to discuss with one another the needs in the world which stood out to them. The small group time concluded with dedicated prayer for each of the needs which had been named.

Before this lesson was presented, parents were made aware that their students would be invited to think about what burdens God might have placed on their hearts. We knew that if God did see fit to use this lesson to move students toward missional partnership with Him, additional conversations with loved ones could help spur on and affirm those things.

As South African missiologist, David J. Bosch has stated in his book, “Transforming Mission,” “Mission is understood as being derived from the very nature of God,” and so as God draws us as His people into His heart, we will naturally be moved in love toward missional partnership with Him. This presents a wonderful opportunity for teachers, preachers, and small group leaders in the local church to facilitate teaching and discussion about the burdens God places on our hearts. Providing opportunities for people to identify and name this work of God in their hearts can play a significant role in mobilizing the church toward being the hands and feet of Christ to the world. It’s also a question for you, if you have yet to consider it. What burden has God placed on your heart for a specific people, place, or need in the world—and what will you do with it?