USA (MNN) — Urbana ’06 highlighted the desire of young people to couple human need with evangelism. They don’t even think to separate the two. Their focus is the whole person, reaching out to the whole person physically, emotionally and spiritually. But, is there a place for them overseas?
USA President of SIM Interntaional Steve Strauss thinks there is. “The Great Commission has not been ended for North Americans and as soon as the national church stops sending out cross-cultural missionaries, they start to die. But, if you’re going to go out as a missionary these days you need to go out ready to work side-by-side and in many cases serve the national church you’re going to serve under.”
Strauss describes the ideal outreach model. “We need to proclaim the coming kingdom in our evangelistic message, but we also need to live out those values. We need to do the two naturally as part of who we are and what we’re about as believers in Jesus Christ and this is a generation that believes that we do the Gospel with our lips and with our lives simultaneously and I couldn’t agree more.”
According to Strauss, SIM alone has incredible needs and it’s not just for people proclaiming the Gospel. “We have over 700 needs that our fields have already identified. (We have) everything from traditional evangelism and church planting, we have business as mission opportunities, medical opportunities, we need agriculturists and medical people — you name it, we can probably find a place for you. We need teachers.”
SIM works in 42 different countries. Go to SIM.org for more information.
