There’s a lot that’s wrong with Nike’s famous line: just do it. We could discuss the theological misimplications of that phrase all day. But there’s a sense in which every Christian needs a “just do it” attitude. I loved Marvin Olasky’s editorial in a recent World magazine. He called it “Mad missions.” Mad missions are risky endeavors with no guarantee of success except the possibility that God might choose to bless it and use it for His glory and the good of many people. But Olasky notes (borrowing a line from de Tocqueville) that many American Christians are ruled by a “soft despotism,” with personal peace and affluence as their only goals. Personal peace and affluence is not a mad mission: it’s a foolish one (Luke 12:20f.).
I’m very thankful for many influences in my early years that challenged me to just do it for the sake of Christ. God graciously worked in my heart a passion that when I reach the end of my life I do not want to look back and say: “I played it safe, and wasted it.” If God is so great, we should just do it. That passion often wanes, and the soft despotism creeps into my heart. But the passion is still there. When I sit around a table with other Southern California pastors, as I did at Ministry Summit last week, the passion burns. Maybe God will bless this mad mission. Maybe we will see a vibrant, fundamental church planting movement in Southern California. Better to fail at that mad mission than succeed at the American dream and ultimately be called a fool.
