I like that statement. To me it means you can change the world you’re living in day-to-day, but also the big, huge, 234-country “world”. I heard someone say that we’re the first generation that can get anywhere in the world in 24 hours. It might be a hard-core 24 hours, but you could get anywhere. This past weekend I was immersed in strategic thinking about what’s going on around the world and what we can do to make a difference. We had a Go Global mini-roundtable with some pastors and leaders. We talked about some of the projects we’re going to focus on in 2008 and really looked at how we can make Go Global a win for them. These guys were all fired up and relieved that we are setting up trips and projects that they can invest in, but they’re not responsible for all the logistics and leg-work. It was a great 2 hours. More on that later.

We also had Fred Markert in for the weekend. He spoke in all our weekend services and shared at Kingdom Builders. We spent about 6 hours with him on Saturday and, at the risk of sounding dramatic, it was the most significant time I have ever spent thinking about the world and how we can reach it. Fred is a brilliant mission strategist. He’s been doing missions for 35 years and has been in 200 countries of the world. He helped us identify the six key areas around the world that we have to reach in the next 20 years. As a church, we’re committed to raising up, training and releasing 1% of our church into full-time mission work. When Leslie and I left Kenya to start a church 10 years ago, we prayed that God would use us to replace ourselves 100 times over in the nations of the world. We prayed for 100 missionaries to be sent out from our church. I really think that’s a reachable, faith goal for us in the next 20 years.

It’s interesting because we’ve also been doing some hard work researching, praying and thinking how to better position our church to meet the needs of our city. We’ve identified 5 things we’re going to do as a church, not fads, but 5 commitments we can run with long-term. More on that later, too.

It’s been a real significant season. I love it when the vision lightbulb goes off in my head and heart. I love it when I get real clarification on something I’ve been feeling. More than ever, I believe you and I can change the world.