Covid-19 has contaminated hundreds of thousands of people with infections increasing dramatically daily. Some have projected the total number of those affected worldwide will be in the tens of millions with fatalities anticipated to be over 1 million people. Sports have been canceled, jobs have been lost, schools have been closed. Terms like “social distancing,” “isolation” and “quarantine” have become common vocabulary. Churches have been shut down for weeks, many without a date for reopening.

Did you know there are 45 million foreign-born residents living in the United States and another 7 million living in Canada? All total, approximately 52 million foreign-born residents currently live in North America. That’s millions of people representing unreached people groups from around the globe. With this staggering population base, North American evangelicals in general and Southern Baptists in particular must not view immigration as political, economic or legal issues. True to our Great Commission mandate we must view immigration through the lens of Scripture. If we dare, we will discover — “immigration is a gospel issue.”

The spread of the gospel faces challenges because people are battling their own personal sin and pride in the face of the “offense” of the gospel. In addition to the challenge of simple human sinfulness, sometimes the gospel runs up against challenging settings. Christians in places of religious freedom carry the biblical burden to take the gospel into higher security or closed settings. The ultimate goal for these difficult settings is to see the Holy Spirit establish a long-term, doctrinally sound, multiplying church presence for the glory of God.

In 2004, God gave me a clear vision to raise up leaders who have the kind of faith Moses had. Just as God met Moses and sent him back to Egypt to bring his people to the Promised Land, God will meet immigrants today and send them back home to spread the gospel — we just have to raise up leaders. My vision today remains the same as it was in 2004: praying that immigrants will become 21st century versions of Moses. On Sept. 16-28, 2019, I saw the vision become a reality as immigrant pastors and leaders from North Carolina took part in a vision trip to their native countries to help share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Recently, I spent a week in Europe with a missionary family from our church. For over 10 years, we have partnered with and supported this family as they labor in a very difficult mission field. While there, I attended a newly formed church that, by God’s grace, they had planted. As I listened to this young church worship God in a language different than my own, I was overwhelmed with a sense of joy. Here, before my eyes, was the fruit of the tireless labor of a family sent from our church.