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“Mom, I don’t know what to do.” This was my summer vacation litany as a youngster. No TV in those days. No little leagues. We had to dream up most vacation activities ourselves.

But for me, reaching adulthood and sailing off (literally) to Africa as a missionary didn’t resolve the whole problem of what to do. Theo and I knew why we were going to Africa. That was rooted in our biblical understanding of humanity’s separation from God, of God’s gracious offer of pardon and reconciliation through Christ, and of the importance of sharing ultimate good news with the world. Our going was also motivated by a deep sense of gratitude for God’s great love for us. We wanted to express our thanks by participating in his priorities for the world.

Yet, where should we locate? What specifically should we do? How should we approach the work?

Part of the problem for me was that I didn’t seem to have any exceptional gifts. I could do a lot of things fairly well, but I wasn’t brilliant at anything. “Jack of all trades and master of none” was how I felt. I could usually do whatever was asked of me, but I couldn’t get a sense of what to do by looking at my abilities.

Shortly after the 1974 Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization I was attending a missions conference with Dr. Ralph Winter. Theo and I had just completed ten years of overseas ministry, and the old what-to-do-next question was again on my mind. I mentioned my dilemma to Dr. Winter, not only an outstanding missiologist but also a trained engineer. He made a suggestion that helped me then and many times since. He said, “Jack, instead of first tackling the question of ‘what,’ try beginning with the question of ‘who.’ If you can decide whom you want to serve or with whom you want to work, you may find that deciding what to do becomes more obvious.”

Dr. Winter’s simple observation was a revelation to me. I began to think about the various groups of people who were on my heart. In our case, Christians in French-speaking Africa, whom we had begun to know and care about, came immediately to my mind. I thought of their needs for discipleship and training for Christian leadership roles in Africa. I realized that some of my own experiences, training and gifts could be focused on the task of equipping them. So beginning to find an answer to the question of what to do happened when the who became a high priority question.

I believe we all can benefit by asking the who question. David Barrett’s second edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia has just been published. I noticed that 26.9 percent of the world’s population is still unevangelized. That percentage is about five percent less than it was a decade ago, but it still represents a who of 1.6 billion people. Should that not influence the thinking of all Christians about what to do? We need to get creative about seeing that these people have an opportunity to know Christ. The vision of unreached peoples can help us see what we might do about them. So, the spiritual as well as the social and material needs of the who can become significant criteria for formulating the what.

There is biblical precedent for this perspective. The apostle Paul’s Macedonian call reflected the needs of a particular people. With that clearly in mind, Paul could see what action he needed to undertake. And he did act. The judges and prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures oriented their actions and words to the needs and circumstances of God’s people. The what flowed from the who. In fact, God himself began with loving the world (the who) to the extent that he chose to send his son on a mission to seek to save it (the what).

It’s worth noting that what we actually do in response to the needs of the who doesn’t necessarily spring from our major gifts, strengths or demonstrated abilities. The good Samaritan wasn’t an EMS specialist with training and experience in treating assault victims. The early Christians who sacrificed their lives to remain faithful to Christ didn’t have a genetic or acquired gift of martyrdom. Love doesn’t calculate how good or able I may be, but rather how needy and/or worthy are the ones I love.

For the love of God, for the love of a Christian community or for the love of a people in need of Christ, our eyes can be opened to what cries out to be done. Then we can decide whether to respond, how to respond, where, when and with whom.

Dr. Winter helped me greatly by suggesting that I think and pray about the who before the what. Perhaps I’d been too preoccupied with what to do rather than with the people whom I could serve. It’s much easier for me to be task-oriented than people-oriented. Tasks are much more manageable than people. But as I read the apostle Paul’s letters I’m struck with the depth of his love and concern for the people to whom he writes. Paul achieved incredible results in planting Christian communities around the Mediterranean. But his work began and ended with the people he loved for the sake of Jesus, his Master.

So, I’m suggesting that the priority question may not be, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” It may very well be, “Lord, about whom do you wish me to be concerned?” Getting clarity on that issue has repeatedly illumined the path that I believe God has wanted me to follow.

October 4, 2002