Pilgrimage
This mission is simply a pilgrimage of growth and service, it is trusting God at His word and believing that His word to go is enough... to go.
This is a leading to leaving behind reason, security, and comfort, and taking a step forward in faith... this campaign is persons following Jesus and being obedient through total abandon and recklessness of faith.
Has God called you to literally sell everything and just go? Has our Lord put a distaste for the business model of church into your heart? ...has He given you a deep desire to forsake the institutionalized church and take to the road as He did - at least for a season… as did His disciples and apostles? Has God called you to simply trust the equipping He has given you thus far and travel with it? -That is what the Pilgrimage mission is all about.
It is letting go of most all possessions and simply traveling with the Lord. It is truly following His call once perceived, the call to GO, and taking one step at a time, not seeking to know the rest. This pilgrimage is giving it all to the Lord and showing up where He leads, trusting in and obeying His revelations day by day as they come.
“Following Christ means taking certain steps. The first step, which responds to the call, separates the followers from their previous existence. A call to discipleship thus immediately creates a new situation. Staying in the old situation and following Christ mutually exclude each other. At first, that was quite visibly the case. The tax collector had to leave his booth and Peter his nets to follow Jesus. According to our understanding, even back then things could have been quite different. Jesus could have given the tax collector new knowledge of God and left him in his old situation. If Jesus had not been God’s Son become human, then that would have been possible. But because Jesus is the Christ, it has to be made clear from the beginning that his word is not a doctrine. Instead, it creates existence anew. The point was (and is) to really walk with Jesus. It was made clear to those he called that they only had one possibility of believing in Jesus, that of leaving everything and going with the incarnate Son of God.
… only the believers obey, and only the obedient believe.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer (from Discipleship 61 – 63)
We recognize the benefit of utilizing any provision or direction which God has provided when considering missional ministry. However, we see it additionally beneficial to strive towards a heart that no longer needs to define and label things; a heart no longer in need of any safety or comfort outside actionful faith.
It is our goal to be totally reliant on God in every aspect of our lives and therefore pliable in the work of expansion concerning the Kingdom of Heaven. As it is, it is on our hearts to do this by obediently going, faithfully trusting, humbly listening with care, momentarily serving, and boldly sharing the gospel of Christ in love wherever we end up with whoever we meet.
“God is in total control. Life is simple. We are going to go where God takes us and tell people about Jesus when we get there.”
-Clark Van Wick
"Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend - it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension, and I will help you to comprehend even as I do. Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge. My comprehension transcends yours. Thus Abraham went forth from his father and not knowing whither he went. He trusted himself to my knowledge, and cared not for his own, and thus he took the right road and came to his journey's end. Behold, that is the way of the cross. You cannot find it yourself, so you must let me lead you as though you were a blind man. Wherefore it is not you, no man, no living creature, but I myself, who instruct you by my word and Spirit in the way you should go. Not the work which you choose, not the suffering you devise, but the road which is clean contrary to all that you choose or contrive or desire - that is the road you must take. To that I call you and in that you must be my disciple. If you do that, there is the acceptable time and there your master is come.."
-Martin Luther
Yes, this is a mission of pilgrimage for those called to radically sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel, by words and action. If reading this confuses you, if you scoff at it, then you are simply not called to it in this season. But for those whose hearts resound this call deeply with great warmth as they consider these things, continue reading and carefully considering!
God is the great healer and the great counselor, so in your abandon He will heal you beyond consideration and console the deepest parts of your heart. God is the great orchestrator, He will providentially arrange things and amaze you. He is the best friend, never will you be alone. On this journey God will so humiliate you, He will leave you so bare and vulnerable, He will so break you that your entire person- thought, will, desire, and passion will be drawn deep into Him and that will overflow unto everyone you meet, encouraging them to salvation as God has purposed.
This mission of pilgrimage will test and try and strengthen your faith in Christ and your love for God and His people. As He has called you to it, listen and GO.
It could look like obedience to a call to fly to another country with no definite plans. Maybe it becomes clear that you are to have a conversation of encouragement with the one you are seated next to on the airplane, and maybe that person gives their life to the Lord. Maybe it becomes clear once arrived that you are to have coffee with the taxi driver taking you from the airport to a hostel, and maybe that taxi driver is consoled away through Gods mercy through you from suicide. ...Maybe you show up around a tribal campfire in a foreign land and God, through their hearing of your faith to follow His call (something they have never heard or considered) converts the entire tribe. Maybe having praised with a local congregation somewhere Gods love for Himself displayed through your praise so moves a broken family in attendance that they invite you to stay with them and through your stay God works an amazing work of reconciliation repairing and strengthening the family. ...Maybe, but always, the goal and the mark of success is simply obedience. For maybe you are stranded somewhere, maybe lost; maybe you are mugged, beaten, and left in a ditch with only God to lean on... Maybe you are robbed, loose your passport and become stuck in a strange land for months. Maybe you are captured for carrying a bible and tortured. Maybe you are killed. Maybe, but always, the success is joy in obedience to the King!
*The only thing keeping the Christian Pilgrim separate from an abstract wanderer is the authority of the Word of God over ones life and the Lordship of His Son Jesus Christ within. So while pilgrimage may be a tool which He uses in the lives of those He draws, the salving work of Jesus Christ must be the solid foundation of one's inner person and the Bible must be the authority of the pilgrim's expression.
We travel, with whatever God gives us, we travel, and we trust Him with all things, praising Him in all things.