Way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I surrendered my life to Jesus as a twenty-something. The Jesus Revolution and the charismatic movement were sweeping east across the country and around the world. I was swept up as well, feeling like Jesus was the best-kept secret in the universe. I needed to tell everyone; this was certainly too good to keep to oneself.
And along with that, a sense of urgency.
The End Times Mindset
Married to this move of the Holy Spirit was an eschatological exigency: the world was gasping its last breaths; the return of Jesus was imminent. And that affected everything, including holding loosely to the stuff of earth. We had read Revelation…and the mega-bestseller The Late Great Planet Earth. Those fifth-trumpet locusts were certainly Blackhawk helicopters and we were ever so close to a dystopian nuclear firestorm. And the Beast was apparently a lot of zeroes-and-ones in a super-computer in Brussels.
I guess you had to be there. That is, in the ’70’s. And I suppose many of us Boomers have moved our prophetic timelines in light of, well, getting older.
The Urgency of the Gospel
Still, it was urgency in those days that drove us to share what we had discovered in our new-found relationships with Jesus. Regardless of our prophetic certitudes, offering others an opportunity to connect with the Messiah seemed uber-important.
The apostles seemed to operate with an urgency assumption. I love Peterson’s paraphrase of Peter’s Pentecost message:
“He went on in this vein for a long time, urging them over and over, ‘Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture!'” ACTS 2: 40 THE MESSAGE
A Call to Present-Day Action
Whether it was an impending second advent, or simply the recognition of our limited days on this planet, it seems there was a sense of urgency in communicating the good news. When Peter’s Jewish audience cried out, “Brothers, what should we do?”, he offered a call to action. Decisions were to be made and time was of the essence.
Which causes me to wonder: do I have that same sense of urgency? I’m not talking about a frantic busyness or a bullhorn approach to outreach. But rather, have I taken stock of both my limited days and of those around me and care enough to have conversations with some weight? It’s not a panickiness, but rather a confident recognition of both God’s overall sovereignty and his calling on us to deliver his timely salvific message. And, of course, there’s some tension in that.
Leaders, how critical do you think the “urgency factor” is in your own life? Is there perhaps a correlation between the revitalization of our churches and our own awareness of urgency?
Someone should write a book on that.
Dave Workman | The Elemental Group
