Go TELL it…

The hymn refrain harmonizes it best : “Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills, and EVERYWHERE!” This tremendous task from the Lord of the highest heights and the deepest depths is the privilege of every rescued soul, including yours and mine.

“Everywhere” is one of those words that we know what it means but true comprehension eludes us – like the word “eternal”. We can define it – but do we truly grasp it? To be everywhere is to be with every zipping tuk tuk through every African town, with the lone woman in Nepal picking in the rice fields, child at her side; with the soldier standing guard on the frontlines of sin’s most devastating symptoms in our world; and with the grandmother in Jamaica prepping kids for school and heading to a day’s work – at the same time. Johnny Cash once crooned, “I’ve been everywhere, man,” but that is entirely different than being everywhere, man.

Rev. Jim Douglas teaching a live course

We sing “Go tell it . . . everywhere.” And, while it is impossible for us as humans to be everywhere at the same time, sometimes a lot of “everywhere” comes to us. I’ve had the privilege of seeing this as a teacher in the TELL Network. TELL is an online learning program that teaches the simple truths from God’s Word to people all over the world (everywhere) so that they can share the good news with others. In military parlance, TELL is a force multiplier for our global commission as believers to “Go tell it…everywhere”! We tell students from around the globe and those students tell their neighbors, friends, family and even total strangers the good news. I’ve never zipped along an African street in a tuk tuk, haven’t stood on any front lines, never picked a grain of rice and haven’t set foot in Jamaica (sadly). But I have had the privilege of sharing God’s Word with people from almost all those places (and a few more) as a teacher in the TELL Network.

TELL gets its name from the method that teachers use to teach Bible truths to students. When we study a text we Think Evaluate Learn Lead with the text. The goal is to prepare students to seek situations where they can share the truths from the lesson with others. Yes, the truth is that we can share these truths with everyone and everywhere but each text can be especially beneficial to share with certain individuals in certain situations.

I have to say that the students are not the only ones learning. It sounds cliché but as a teacher I find I do a lot of learning when the Lord graciously brings everywhere to me. I’ve preached and taught about the three men in the fiery furnace, but nothing prepared me to teach that lesson and find out that one man sitting in the late-night quiet of his sewing shop in a predominantly Muslim country in South Asia was the death penalty simply for attending our class and confessing his faith that Jesus was the true God and Savior of humanity.

Then there’s a man who tells us that he had visited a school to share the good news about Jesus. Some students sat and listened while others found an opening in the building above the man and began pouring hot water on him. It’s good that we are able to connect them with the One who is indeed everywhere!

But even more than the stories are the questions – questions that display burning hearts that desire to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ so that they can go . . . go tell it on the mountain, over the hills, and everywhere.

Please continue to keep the students of the TELL Network, the administrator and staff, the teachers and their work in your prayers as we together with you “go tell it on the mountain, over the hills, and everywhere.”

Written by Rev. Jim Douglas, TELL Network teacher based in Monroe, N.C. 

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