Moving to DEFCON 3: Raising Our Alertness Level (December 31, 2025)

DEFCON is an alert system that describes five graduated levels of military readiness, where level 5 is a peacetime mentality, and level 1 is the most heightened state of imminent danger. 

In 2009, I published Jesus Cropped from the Picture as a call to move from a spiritual peacetime mentality (like DEFCON 5) to a wartime footing (like DEFCON 4). But recent reports and personal experiences now prompt me to raise our alert level to DEFCON 3. People are coming to Christ in great numbers in frontier places worldwide, but at the same time there is an equivalent spiritual opposition that is threatening these new believers.* Because of these opportunities and dangers, we need to up our game to a new level of watchfulness (1 Pt. 5:8). 

Thousands of Muslims are coming to faith through dreams and visions. Millions of believers are relocating to other countries, taking the Gospel with them. A global youth revival is breaking out. The indigenous prison church is flourishing, and God is sending disciplemakers to other countries through deportation.  

However, there is a proliferation of charlatans and agitators injecting distortions and divisions in the Church. Subtle misbeliefs are circumventing pastoral protection via phone algorithms, leading to widespread loss of discernment. Others are burdened by false guilt and inadequacy. But this can be overcome if we resist what my friend Bob Engel calls “Knothole Christianity,” where we look through a hole in the fence to see a fraction of the Bible’s Grand Narrative. If we simply look around the fence we can see the whole landscape of the Story, which protects us from these dangers. 

An essential ingredient in this Story is God’s intent to gather a family from all ethnic groups (every tribe, language, people, nation, Mt. 24:14). God is sending these ethnic groups to America both to share the Gospel as evangelists, but also to hear the Good News. God may be sending some of these people into your circle of influence as co-workers, neighbors, or Uber drivers. You can encourage them in their faith and share your testimony to point them to Jesus. No longer do we need to go on short term missions trips as the only way to be involved in cross-cultural ministry.  God is bringing the world to us. 

Let’s move to DEFCON 3 by raising our alert level and making the most of our opportunities. 

* https://lausanne.org/occasional-paper/discipleship-and-the-great-commission