Those were the first encouraging words said to me in a conversation with an elderly lady after church on Sunday. I’d been sharing with the Grange congregation of Hope Church about our plans to move to Stockholm. It was certainly a different reaction to most.

And then she told me a story that spoke of her concern that the UK is drifting ever further from the Gospel. That’s my neat summary of what she told me. Her point was that there was a great need in this country too and therefore I shouldn’t move to Sweden. It’s nice to be wanted. That or it’s a sign of the great desperate need of the UK.

Shortly after that in my next conversation I was asked how I could square the great need for church planting and mission in this country (which I affirm) and my evident enthusiasm for emigration.

My reply was this; ‘the need is not the call.’ On one level we’re not moving to Sweden because of the great need, we’re moving because we believe that’s what obedience looks like for us. What would be an effective measure of the greatness of the need? You could probably make a formula, maybe something like:

Size of population ÷ Number of Christians (or churches) x number of languages ÷ number of scriptures in each language x some poverty index = GREAT NEED

On one level if we were all to respond to need then quite simply tens of thousands of Christians in the UK should move to Karachi, Kabul or Khartoum. Take your pick, the needs are roughly similar.

I have great friends who live in Karachi, Pakistan. It’s a city of maybe 18 million people. That’s twice as many people living in one city than in the entire nation of Sweden with less Christians. How can I compare those two needs?

However the need of a Asif Karachi and Sven Stockholm is the same. Without Jesus both are lost. That fate is equal for both of them. That doesn’t change the simple fact that there ARE many many millions more of such people in places like Karachi. So there is a great need for more Christians to be involved in mission in such places.

But in His wisdom (and I sincerely believe this is God’s plan not ours) He decided that Stockholm was the place for us. The question for each of us as disciples of Jesus is ‘am I following?’ and I mean really following. It’s way too easy to just say ‘yes’ because we go to a small group or something. Usually following requires faith and courage to be obedient, realising that discipleship is an ongoing relationship of trust between the one who knows everything and the one who sometimes thinks he does but clearly doesn’t.

So what does it mean for you to be obedient to Jesus today?