Forging a Foundation for Risk Embracing World Christians

Competing Narratives

What’s it like to grow up in this modern world? It’s an ironic mixing of both connection and isolation. We know more about the world than ever before and have avenues for connecting like never before, but there are forces at work forming us to withdraw from our world into self-absorbed lives. 

Passport to the Nations counters so many competing narratives our children face in our modern world. The world shapes future generations to believe life centers on them and their desires. This is reinforced at every turn with technological advancements and social media platforms. This world of self-absorption proves disappointing in the end. We were created for so much more.  

World Christians are Being Forged

That’s what I love about Passport to the Nations. My wife has taught it for five years in a co-op and a passion for the world has been fueled in many students’ lives. Prayers around dinner tables at home have changed. Knowledge of how to share the one gospel clearly across cultures has been developed.   

This kind of curriculum expands the imaginations of future generations about the good works God may be preparing for these children to do. The sustained exposure to the bigness of God’s world and God’s grace plants within them the desire to engage in the macro-drama of mission. A foundation for risk-embracing, world Christians is being forged. 

The experiential nature of this curriculum enables children to engage humbly with various cultures to learn from them and imagine what life is like among them. It’s immersion without the actual passport. But I’m confident it will lead to many actual passports filled with visa stamps from all over the world as God uses it to summon more laborers into his harvest. Because once they see the world this way, they can’t unsee it.

Chip Bugnar lives with his wife and four kids in Birmingham, Alabama, and serves as the Global Pastor at The Church at Brook Hills. Before coming to Birmingham, he and his family served among Muslims in Central Asia for seven years.