The Field is the World (Matt. 13:38)

Many of you know that despite the fact that it's necessary for us to continue to build our team of ministry partners, we are actively involved in a part of our ministry: helping to staff the world's first Internet-based Ministry Response Center . It's really a blast--I get to follow up, disciple and answer seeker questions coming in from people from all over the world. Last month, responses came from England , France , Slovenia , Romania , Nigeria , Cameroon , Ethiopia , Tanzania , Zimbabwe , India , Malaysia , The Philippines , New Zealand , and even Pakistan and Algeria . I personally handled 71 responses, (and I'm only one of over 300 volunteers), communicated the Gospel, prayer, doctrine and encouragement with Christians and seekers from all these countries. Helped a believer in Ethiopia get a bible through Campus Crusade's office in Addis Ababa. Helped answer the question, "Where in the Bible does it say I can pray a prayer and be saved" I helped ...

Well, obviously, looking at the situation in New Orleans the last few days, we got off light last year. We knew we did, even then, because we saw damage all around us but experienced none ourselves. Sometimes a crisis, like 9/11, brings out the best in people. As we're seeing in New Orleans, it can also bring out the worst. Jesus taught us how to use pointed examples of our mortality like this as opportunities to share the Gospel. In Luke 13, the Pharisees confronted Jesus about the destruction of the Tower of Siloam, which fell on 18 people in their day, as well as the Galilaeans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the sacrifices. He said, it wasn't that they were worse sinners than everyone else that this had happened to them, but that unless we repent, we will all likewise perish. No one knows the hour of their death, no one expects death when it comes. We expect each moment to be like the last, and we have no real reason to think that way. Life is full of unexpectedness, an...