You didn’t see the most important teams at the Olympics

The 2018 Winter Olympic Games are over. After 2,922 athletes from ninety-two nations competed in 102 events, Norway won the medal count with thirty-nine, followed by Germany, Canada, the United States, and the Netherlands.

But the athletes we watched on television were not the only teams that went to the Games. Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists sent missionary teams to Pyeongchang as well. Twenty-six local congregations also staged outreach ministries.

One church’s members dressed in traditional costume as they offered coffee and snacks to spectators while a live orchestra played. Pin trading proved to be an effective way to begin evangelistic conversations.

What the Olympic athletes accomplished will fade from memory over time. What the Olympic missionaries accomplished will bear fruit forever (Isaiah 55:10-11).

I was a pastor in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics. Our church learned that when the Olympic Games come to a city, the world comes with them. Our members were able to share Christ with more than 20,000 people through water stations, clown attractions, and literature distribution.

The key, we discovered, is to see the hordes descending on our city not as invaders who will disrupt our lives (which they did), but as a Kingdom opportunity to reach the world. Then be ready to be used in surprising ways.

The boy with two names

I was reading the familiar story of Moses recently and noted how surprising his story really was.

The Jews had been enslaved in Egypt for four centuries and were now oppressed by a pharaoh who demanded that every Hebrew baby boy be killed. Such a genocide would lead to the extinction of their race.

When Moses was born, his mother put him in a basket and hid him among papyrus reeds on the Nile river. The daughter of the man who sought the extermination of the Hebrew people found the Hebrew child and adopted him as her own. She gave him his name as well (Exodus 2:10).

Moses sounds like mashah, meaning “to…