FIRST GLIMPSE

Four Lattés and a White Chocolate Moch

Five close friends met one afternoon in Sloan’s Meadow, a woodland park near their college campus. They gathered to continue a classroom discussion about the importance of world missions and what role they would play themselves in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Intent on the lively debate, they failed to notice an approaching thunderstorm. With lightning flashing around them, the students left the trees and took shelter under a haystack in an adjoining field. In that strange place, Samuel, James, Francis, Harvey, and Byram found themselves on their knees, praying out the storm for the hearts of those who had never heard the name of Christ. They left their shelter determined to make a difference.

This impromptu prayer meeting in 1806, later dubbed the Haystack Prayer Meeting, became the catalyst for the first missions movement in North America. When the resulting student organization sent its first worker to India four years later, it was just the beginning. Between 1812 and 1961, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sent nearly 5,000 missionaries into 34 different fields, with hundreds of thousands of converts.

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Five close friends met on Facebook one afternoon in early December 2011. They gathered to discuss grim news. Their missions organization faced a financial shortfall that would keep 11 missionary families from returning to their respective fields in the coming year.

They pondered the importance of world missions and what role they could play themselves in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. David, Jacob, Kiley, Matthew, and Mick left the online meeting determined to challenge their generation to raise the bar of missionary support and involvement. The result? Pledge21k.

The premise is simple. Through social networking, find a thousand friends, family members, churches, youth groups, Sunday Schools or college groups—anyone willing to give $21 each month for the sake of world missions. For some, the pledge will be new. For others, a simple increase. For all, a step of faith!

What will $21 a month do? It will help underwrite the cost of sending all 11 missionary families back to the field, ease the financial strain in stateside operations, and—most important—send a unified message about this denomination’s dedication to sharing the gospel with the world.

What will it cost? Pick any of the following: lunch fajitas for two at my favorite Mexican restaurant; a year’s subscription to (your favorite magazine); nine holes of golf at the local course; two (cheap) haircuts; a week of bagged lunches; or four lattés and a white chocolate mocha.

So little. Such a difference.

Will you pledge $21? For more information go to www.pledge21k.com.