Our radically Islamic neighbor, Somalia, has threatened to kill anyone who dares to spread Christianity in her country. On several occasions they have lived up to their words. As we pray, dream and plan on ways of taking the Gospel to every nation, tribe and tongue let us first take a critical look at what we are doing at home to reach the lost in our community. Our churches exist in communities full of lost people, they work for us, we work for them and with them…some live next door, others live within our doors…yet many of them have not heard the good news of Jesus proclaimed to them. Our Churches have no burden for the lost…at times we do not even show a burden for the lost who regularly attend our services. If we have no passion to reach those who live amongst us…how can we profess a passion to reach those in hard access regions? Churches that are planted from passionless churches often show no passion for the lost in their communities. Before we think about reproducing ourselves let us ask if we really want more churches out there who look like us. The most convicting fact though is that in most cases the members of our congregations lack this passion for the lost because we who lead them show no passion for the lost…we might talk about it…but rarely demonstrate it.
The recently completed census counted over 2,000,000 Somalis living in Kenya today. They have curved themselves a large portion of Nairobi that’s come to be known as “little Mogadishu”. With close to 500 of them crossing the border every week, their population is constantly spreading to other suburbs every year. By the providence of God the foreign mission field is in many ways being brought to town. The guy next door is practically the guy who three years back was living in “in-accessible” Somalia. I personally have over 20 of them as neighbors, which means that for me these realities lay a practical demand upon my life. They lead me to ask myself the question…”how sincere is my “passion” for the unreached in hard access regions whilst my neighbor yet remains unreached?” This is the same question I pose to you.
