"After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count…standing before the throne and before the Lamb." (Revelation 7:9)
Recently I received an advertisement from Thrivent Financial Services, in Minneapolis. Among other things, the ad proposed that people like me should feel at home here in the Twin Cities as there are so many Lutherans in the area – and so many customers of our favorite financial services organization.
Thrivent calculates that the Twin Cities area is home to 513,728 Lutherans. They belong to 518 congregations. More than 115,000 are members of Thrivent.
The numbers are formidable. If you linked these Lutherans together, hand in hand, you could make a parade from Duluth to Chicago. If you stacked these Lutherans one on top of another (and found some way to balance them), you could make a pyramid that reaches to the orbit of the space shuttle. If each of these Lutherans were to pray for the world one minute per year, you could intercede for the world’s lost around-the-clock. If so many Lutherans were to contribute one dollar per month for the missionary cause, you could support three organizations like the World Mission Prayer League. And more than 500 congregations! If each one would target twelve of the world’s least reached people groups (and found some way to coordinate their efforts), they could cover all of the least-reached people groups on the planet. And these are just the Lutherans in my city.
And then – it boggles the mind! – to think of the Lutherans outside of the Twin Cities! You may find them all across the country, by some estimations. There are more than 8.5 million of them in the United States and Canada. There are more than 65 million of them around the world. And just imagine – if you were to add to their numbers their Christian sisters and brothers elsewhere in the church – well, you get the idea.
Thrivent’s ad made me feel at home, maybe a little. But more than that, the ad made me feel hopeful, somehow – though not in the way the company might have imagined. It made me feel hopeful about world evangelization. The task is doable, now more than ever before. We have the resources: sufficient time to pray, sufficient dollars to give, sufficient numbers of people to serve and to go. Why, the Lutherans in my mid-sized city could evangelize the world, almost, all by themselves.
Almost. What the ad does not reveal, of course, is the quality of missionary commitment among the many, many Lutherans in the Twin Cities. How many are willing to pray for one minute per year – really, now? How many are willing to give one dollar per month? How many are willing to learn the names of twelve unreached people groups, and love them into the Kingdom?
Are you?
"The Way I See It", January 2003
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