That is THE question we’ve gotten a lot here at NewSpring Church the past couple of weeks…so let me give an answer that WILL encourage many and frustrate others…and I will do so by starting from the beginning.
I was on a plane last April flying to Catalyst West Coast and decided to watch a movie. After scrolling through the options I chose “Taken,” and after watching it I was angry, sad and disturbed. I had heard that stuff like that happened…but had never really seen anything quite like that movie.
Two days later I listened to a panel of speakers that “just happened” to be at the Catalyst West Coast event to talk about human trafficking…and God WRECKED me and I knew that I could NOT make this problem go away by sticking my head in the sand…something HAD to be done.
WHICH is where my frustration came in!
Here in America we are used to problems being INSTANTLY solved. We get angry when we have to wait for ANYTHING. (We literally will stand beside our microwave ovens and scream “hurry up!”) AND so I naturally thought, “I will make some calls, raise some money and our church will rescue some girls from the sex slave trade.” AND…I quickly discovered that it doesn’t work like that…it’s actually quite complex.
Here at NewSpring Church we are primarily working with two organizations that are deeply involved in this global issue…one organization is the A21 Campaign and the other is International Justice Mission. After a lot of prayer we really feel that these are the two organizations the Lord is leading us to.
We’ve met and had long conversations with both organizations…and when I asked point blank to the people we were meeting with what we can do as a church BOTH of them said, “right now we just want you talking about it, raising awareness, because for some reason the church thinks that if it ignores the problem that it will go away.”
That’s it…neither organization asked for one single dime. Neither organization asked us to send mission teams to a specific region of the world. We’ve been told by both A21 and IJM that getting involved in this is going to be time consuming process that will have to be worked out over the next six months to a year. We’ve simply been asked by both groups to do two things…raise awareness that sex trafficking is a global issue AND to begin praying.
SO…that’s what we are committed to do. We will be talking about this issue…and we will be praying for both organizations as they do what God has called them to do…
AND…we WILL continue to explore HOW God wants NewSpring Church specifically involved in this area of ministry.
I KNOW this is frustrating because so many of you are bothered by this and want to do something now…my answer to you is that we ARE doing something. We have made our church aware…we are desperately seeking God as to what HE wants our church to do…and when He answers we will dive into His direction with a laser like intensity and show the world what HE can do with a group of people who are radically devoted to HIM and radically devoted to loving others.
Following Jesus is something we do one step at a time…and He will show us OUR next step in HIS time.
Please keep praying for us as a church as we are involved in talks with both groups…we love both of them equally and will be doing all that we can do to make sure that this problem is not only addressed…but DEMOLISHED!
God’s called us to play a part…and when He puts the music in front of us we will play it to the best of our abilities. He’s called us to take action…and we are asking each one of you to pray with us as He reveals the specifics that we need to obey.