Seeing The Big Picture

When I was in college, I had the privilege of spending 6 months overseas engaging and evangelizing unreached peoples: Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and people following various earth religions. It was my first experience with anyone outside of western North Carolina; in fact traveling for this trip was my first time even riding in an airplane! During this time my faith grew beyond measure, I experienced God in His Word like I never had before, and I shared the gospel with people who had never heard.

One of the most profound things I learned however was when I arrived back to my hometown in NC. While it was in fact true, I found it to be an ugly truth plaguing the American Church, specifically rural church in the southern United States. What was it? The idea that the world is only as big as one’s backyard; the idea that the church…