One of the characteristics of the Christian faith is that of mission work or evangelism or outreach.  Jesus gave us the Great Commission in Matthew 28, telling us to go into all the world and make disciples.  He showed us the expansion of the kingdom in Acts 1, starting in Jerusalem and going to the ends of the earth.  In preparation for a sermon on the Great Commission to be given on Pentecost, and an offering for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Countries (does that not totally sound like a British title from the early 1800s?), Reginald Heber was asked to create a poem or hymn for the occasion.  In short order, the poem, From Greenland's Icy Mountains, flowed from his pen.  It eventually became one of the greatest missionary hymns of the 19th century.

The spread of the Gospel has ebbed and flowed through different areas over the course of time.  Jerusalem was the beginning and it moved through the Mediterranean.  Eventually, the West became the dominant location for the Gospel and missionaries were sent throughout the world.  Today, we see a different picture.  The "Global South", Africa and Latin America specifically, have grown in the Spirit and in significance, and it is the West that is in need of having missionaries sent from it.  This article is being written within 2-3 weeks of the revival meeting that broke out at Asbury University.  Is this the start of a revival that we desperately need and many have prayed for?  We will see, but most notably, when God is moving, we want to be in it!

Article taken from Living Stories of Famous Hymns by Ernest K. Emurian. Copyright © 1955 by Baker Book House Company. Used by permission of Baker Book House Company.