May 9th- Missions Part 1

Hey everyone. So I've been thinking a lot about the subject of Missions and the Church, and the next few things I write are going to about this subject. I am doing this mostly because it is something that has been on my mind a lot, but also because I think there are some common misconceptions about the subject. Hopefully this is something that is equally relevant to people who are not interested in leaving their own country as it is to people who are considering a life in a different culture. So here's part 1:

Matthew 28:18-20 "Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Needless to say, I got a lot of different responses from people when I told them about God's call on my life here in Peru. These discussions have inspired a lot of thought about the subject of the church and missions. Additionally in the past 5 years I've been on a number of different missions trips, and I've heard a lot from many different preachers on this subject. Here are some of the conclusions that I have come to through all of this.

Missions is a word that I have heard being used synonymously with evangelism. For example, "I am a missionary in my school." or "I am a missionary to the people that I work with." Though this form of speech conveys information in a way that we understand, it is also dangerous. It is a dangerous way to speak, because in some ways it makes the assumption that there are people in the church who are meant to spread the message of Jesus Christ, while there are others who do not have this call. Otherwise, these phrases that we hear so frequently, wouldn't be necessary at all. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to speak this way, rather I am suggesting, for clarity's sake, that we re-evaluate our titles.

Steve Saint says, "The goal of missions is not to evangelize the world; that is the role of the church. The goal of missions is to plant the church where is does not yet exist." We are all members of the body of Christ, so we all share the same burden to share the Gospel with the people around us. It is not solely the responsibility of our pastors and missionaries to fulfill the great commission (to go out and make disciples of all nations). We must come to grips with the fact that we are the church, and that it is not someone else's responsibility to share the good news of Jesus Christ with the people who we come into contact with on a daily basis. Therefore if you are talking to the people in your school, or in your work about Jesus, you are not a missionary--you're part of the church. We need to get it through our heads that the real force behind the Kingdom of God cannot be laid on a few people in the church, but that it is something that needs to be taken up by all of us.