"I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power." --Ephesians 3:7

I turned the dial on my campus mail box. The tumbler finally aligned. I popped open my box and fetched my mail. "What is this"--a letter from Campus Crusade for Christ?" Four weeks earlier as a freshman, I had opened my life to Christ, and accepted Him as my savior. New joy, new friends, and a fresh desire to read the Word of God had filled my life.

Now this form letter from Dr. Bill Bright was encouraging me on in my Christian life. He signed off his letter with a phrase that intrigued me, "Yours for helping to fulfill the Great Commission." Wonder filled my soul as I contemplated what it might mean for me to be a part of a last days "Great Commission" army.

Over the next year, I found myself filled with great energy each time I shared my new found faith in Christ. A third of my dorm floor came to Christ. Nothing meant more to me than to see fellow classmates discover the reality, as I did, that Jesus could become their life.

In thinking what I could give my life to, nothing equalled Bill Bright's challenge to "Come Help Change the World." Before I entered my sophomore year, I knew my life mission would be to help "fulfill the Great Commission"--whatever that meant.

Four years later, I was completing my second year on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, when I came across a booklet entitled "Say Yes to Mission." In it, Dr. Ralph Winter shared a stretching thought. If the Great Commission was to be fulfilled in our lifetime, many more Christian workers would need to consider an "E-3 assignment." E-3 meaning a maximum degree of distance from our home culture, in terms of language and culture. For the second time in my life, I said "yes" to the Great Commission.

That summer during the "Institute of Biblical Studies," I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Winter would be one of the guest faculty. I convinced Olgy, my wife of four weeks, to sit with me in on one of his classes. I still remember the day--July 3, 1978. As we slipped in, I saw a slightly bald, small frame man lecturing the class of 100 students. His manner was plain, but his mind was full of new ideas--all revolving around fulfilling the Great Commission. The next day, Olgy and I came back to hear more. After the class scattered, I asked Dr. Winter if we might have a word with him.

For the next hour, Olgy and I were dazzled with lists and charts about a new venture he was seeking to get off the ground--the U.S. Center for World Mission. After dinner, I spread the sheets out on my bed, and carefully reviewed them. "Olgy, you will not believe this, but from reading these sheets, I think that all of our goals for the next five years could be fulfilled by working at the U.S. Center for World Mission! What do you think about moving to out to California?"

This began an adventure that was to launch me into a lifetime of service to the world Christian movement. It began by running the first PERSPECTIVES Study Program at Penn State, and continued as we launched PERSPECTIVES as a nationwide program. By 1982, our interest in developing mission curriculum and training led us to help develop WORLD CHRISTIAN magazine and conferences for a national young adult audience. This in turn opened a door to serve three years as a congress planner with the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.

In my early years of witnessing, I always quoted Ephesians 2:8 "it was "by grace you have been saved by faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." After I became a servant of the world Christian movement, I learned that more than "saving grace" was at work within me. I discovered that God had given me a gift of "sending grace."

In working with my colleagues in missions, I found that there were seasons of new beginnings, where the Spirit of God would begin to work in an entrepreneurial manner. My role was to keep up with where He was going. Whether it was leading a short-term trip, launching a national conference, designing a new missions curriculum, or editing a book, I found a divine wind behind my steps.

The apostle Paul recognized this "sending" grace as the Holy Spirit--who worked mightily in and through him. In Ephesians 3:7, he describes this power using the Greek word from which we get our English word--dynamite. Have you experienced this explosive work of God in and through you?

After twenty years of running with Christ, I am convinced that His Great Commission is something far less to obey, and something far more that we receive. The Scriptures say that those who know their God will do great exploits. Have you received this Greater Commission?

I remember in 1979 when Dr. and Mrs. Donald McGavran gathered with young people for an evening of prayer and God gave the watchword, "A Church for Every People by the Year 2000." We had heard about unreached peoples, some had even talked about the year 2000, but on this night I believe God fused these two things together in the Spirit. In the coming months, this spiritual fusion gave birth to the PERSPECTIVES program, the Caleb Project, Frontiers mission agency, and the World Consultation on Frontier Missions in Edinburgh (the early forerunner of the AD 2000 movement).

What was God doing? I believe He was pouring forth sending grace to enable a new generation to enter a new land as we approach a Jordan. This is the Greater Commission that our LORD testified to when he stood up in his hometown synagogue at Nazareth and said, "The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor" (Luke 4:18-19).

This is the Greater Commission that we must receive personally, and as a generation, if we are to see the power of the gospel release captives from among the unreached peoples.

How do we receive this Greater Commission? By asking. Jesus is ever our model. Luke 4:21 says "as he was PRAYING, heaven was opened..." Jesus would later tell his disciples, "As the Father has sent me, so send I you."

There is no greater privilege than to know Christ and know that He has called you to be His servant. And there is no greater joy than to stand before God, and ask him to anoint you with power for the great service of preaching the gospel to the ends of the earth.