The following is by a man in my church, Curtis Alan. Curtis is now the international church planting pastor at the Summit Church.

My family and I returned just a few short months ago from serving as church planters in a majority Muslim context. The location we served in had been severely devastated by the 2004 tsunami. Since being back, I’ve had more than one person ask me what we most feared while over there. Was it Islamic extremism? Resumption of a civil war that had just ended? Tropical diseases? Third world medical care? Admittedly, all of those gave us cause for concern at different times. However, the most fear I experienced wasn’t even my own.

About 2 years ago I was sitting in my truck, waiting for a meeting to start. It was hot, quiet, and still. With my nose in work reports and sweat beginning to drip down my back, the mood suddenly changed. I looked up and saw a solitary figure running down the dirt road in front of me. He kept glancing back over his shoulder as he ran. The look of fear on his face was intense. Within seconds, he was followed by others – scores of others. All of them headed in the same direction. All of their faces were twisted in fear and casting glances back over at where they had come from.

It took me a few seconds to respond. My mind was spinning and I began to yell to those in front of me, “What is it? What happened.” My cries were met with a single response…”Run!”

So, I started the car and began to drive – towards where and away from what I didn’t know. The single-lane road was packed and the scene was absolute pandemonium. Families, old people, children…all running in the mud and slipping all over the place. In front of me, the chaos continued. Screams of terror filled the air, locals clawed at my car, and I did my best to fill it with as many people as I could. In between sobs and shrieks, I realized that they believed another tsunami was coming.

I quickly called a friend and he confirmed that one of the tsunami warning system alarms in town had gone off – just one, indicating it was a false alarm. At the same time, none of us had felt any earthquake that morning, so we found it nearly impossible to believe that the alarm was true.
Fearing that someone would fall under my car in the panic and realizing I had no idea where I was or was heading, I looked for a place to stop. Spotting an open field, I pulled the car off the road and parked. I told my passengers again that there wasn’t a quake or tsunami. I explained that I wanted to take them back, that they were heading in the wrong direction needlessly. Their response was unanimous. They ran from my car back up the road.

In a quiet moment later as I headed home, it dawned on me that it was highly likely that I was the only person on that muddy road that morning that hadn’t lost a family member or friend in the tsunami. While it was seemingly simple for me to recognize the truth of the situation and turn back, these people were absolutely convinced. Their experience…their history…their culture…their fear… told them to run.
In many ways, that sums up our broken world. As followers of Christ, we walk in the light of the truth – and we are compelled and burdened to live it and share it to those around us. False alarms abound in every culture – but it is the church’s responsibility (and, for that matter, our privilege) to point the world to safety, to rest…to salvation.

When the martyred missionary Jim Elliot’s journal was found, it contained this prayer:

“Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.”

At the Summit, we believe that the local church is the hope of the world – not just a signpost within our culture but a clear intersection in our communities. This compels us to plant gospel-centered churches and we believe that everyone of us plays a part in church planting. Whether it’s joining a church plant, being part of a small group that plants new groups in new communities, or supporting through prayer and short-term trips, we can all love our world by planting churches.

Praise God! (P.S., if you wanted to hear Curtis’ and other incredible stories in person, join us this Friday for our annual SENT conference: www.summitrdu.com/sent.