Thursday, September 9, 2010 » All Indiana Wesleyan University freshmen and transfer students get to (have to?) take a class called World Changers. For everyone outside the “IWU Bubble” the class sounds completely nuts: a class on changing the world, really? Those of us inside the Bubble occasionally mock the class, or deem it a blow-off or a snooze-fest. But I’m a junior now, which means I’ve sat through the class, two World Changers Convocations and dozens of global outreach chapels — and honestly, I kind of like the mission. Maybe by the time I graduate I can be a World Changer.
I say that, but do I take action?
I have wanted to change the world long before it became trendy. When I was in high school, freshman or sophomore year, I wanted to be a missionary to the poorest parts of India. I only wanted to because the boy I liked wanted to as well. I figured if we were going to get married (which we didn’t) or at least date (which we haven’t), he’d want me to share his dream.
When I was a senior in high school, I read Shane Claiborne’s “Jesus for President” and “The Irresistible Revolution.” They made me want to travel to a war-torn country like Iraq to love people, to become a World Changer by bringing peace.
I spent a lot of time dreaming of world changing, but never engaging in it. No matter how many chapel services I heard on the topic, I never did any world changing myself.
Here’s the thing about being a World Changer: you have to do something. You can rant about how you hate injustices in the Middle East or famine in Africa or trafficking in Asia, but if you don’t do anything about it, you’re not a World Changer. Being a World Changer means you do something to change the situation, not rely on someone else to make it happen.
Last summer I lived and worked with two World Changers, Jeremy and Jessica Courtney, who founded Preemptive Love Coalition in northern Iraq. PLC funds heart surgeries for children with congenital heart defects which are attributed to Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks on a people group living in that region, known as Kurdistan.
The Courtneys started funding heart surgeries as soon as they learned of the need. They lived in Istanbul, Turkey, at the time, but moved to Iraq to start raising money as soon as they could. The Courtneys started by selling handmade Iraqi shoes, giving all their profits to an organization called Kurdistan Save the Children that sent kids to surgery. After a year or so of working with KSC, they split off and started their own organization.
They never intended to start their own organization, not at first, anyway. They came up with a creative way to save lives and took action. Everything else happened as a result. Now PLC sends about 20 kids to heart surgery every year.
So how does one become a World Changer? Using all my wisdom from being athird-year Wildcat, I think you become a World Changer by doing. You go and you do. You pray. You look for opportunities. Find them. And do.
Talking about changing the world is great. We do a lot of it at IWU. We get some good ideas. We find ways to participate through local outreach (Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Grant County Rescue Mission), campus organizations (Doulos, World Christian Fellowship, BAM) and non-profits and nongovernmental organizations (International Justice Mission, World Gospel Mission, TOMS Shoes). But you can’t change the world through chatter. You have to do something.
Maybe your bust will never be by the two-headed Gaither Monster in the IWU Society of World Changers, but if you take some action, you’ll be on your way to becoming a World Changer.