She's Baaaack

Jessie made it back from her trip to Kenya and Tanzania. She was checking in on some schools and students supported by the non-profit she works for, Blessing Hands (link here )

I was looking on a map where she was, and I think I saw some place that Higgins monologued about on Magnum, P.I. If you are binge-watching Magnum and you hit the skip intro button during the opening credits, are you even an American?

Jessie was reminding me of something Joy Griffin said at Annual Conference. Joy was preaching the Mission Night, sharing some of her amazing experiences evangelizing in some pretty remote places. Joy is from the Atlanta area, so she was proud to share a Coca-Cola story. She said sometime back, maybe the 90s, don’t hold me to it, their CEO came in with a bold plan, a vision: that everyone in the world would be within arm’s reach of a Coca-Cola.

So, Jessie and her crew were travelling way out into Tanzania back country. 11 hour drive down dirt tracks. Way out there. Like, you had to head back towards the city to go on safari. Anyway, she tells me they saw a Coke delivery van. I saw a video of a guy looking for the most out of the way places he could find some product, can’t remember what it was. He had a video from Afghanistan with the product. And there was Coke, also.

I gotta ask… are we as dedicated to the spread of the Gospel as Coke is to getting their soft drink out there? I get it. It’s sweet. Refreshing. A nice treat (I prefer Pepsi, for the record). But Coke doesn’t make it to teach the whole world to sing. It’s about money. And they are making a lot. Maybe you saw the story end of last year? Warren Buffett dumped $1 billion into Coca Cola stock about 30 years ago. Reinvested the dividends all that time. His dividend for the most recent year was more than $700 million, can’t remember the exact number.

Is that what it comes down to? Money? Is that a greater motivator than the Great Commission? More powerful than the gut-wrench that others have never heard the name of Jesus. I wonder: have more people never had a coke, or have more people never heard the Gospel?

What if our goal was as ambitious as Coca Cola’s? That everyone in the world would be within arm’s reach of the Gospel.

At the Mission Engage event at Trinity Hill back in April, Sherri Morrissey taught us that more money is embezzled from churches each year than goes to supporting missions to the Unengaged Unreached People Groups (UUPGs; people groups who have no known believers among them, and no missionary activity).

Would I invest and spend, not in order to receive a dividend payout, but to be welcomed into eternal dwellings? (read Luke 16).