I had the privilege to go back and share at my home church on Sunday March 10 a missions message on a special “Mission Day.” It’s a special day for all of us to turn our hearts toward the nations, to pray for cross-cultural workers, and to explore our calling to participate in the Great Commission.
One of the items we defined in this message was what we mean by missions:
Missions is the task of crossing barriers of language, geography, cultural differences and even prejudice to invite the nations to
become true worshipers of God through Jesus Christ. (From the bookDiscovering Global Missions.)
It was a joy to share with them, and they recorded the message that is posted below (and here is my Powerpoint) to bless you and encourage you!
On March 9, 2019 in Wooster, Ohio, I was able to help coordinate the Connect & Equip missions conference by Encompass World Partners. It was a great day of connecting and equipping!
With nearly 100 people gathered together for the challenge of mission and among them were the leaders of 16 different workshops, electricity was in the air during this day. We had two main sessions and each of those speakers are men I deeply respect for their passion for the Lord, His Word and the Nations. Find out more and click through to these messages below:
For the conference on RISK (FLINCH Conference), my friend and team leader John Ward & I were asked to lead a workshop on how missions and missional relate.
Here is the workshop description:
The new word missional is now everywhere in Christian-ese. The word missions has been around for centuries. These two words often create very different ministry targets. You are invited to a lively debate highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of polarizing missional and missions.
Unfortunately, this session wasn’t recorded, but I have posted the powerpoint for you to see the direction we headed with this workshop. Below is an outline with the major items of discussion:
The first exercise we had the group do was to take 5 minutes and do their best to define the two words: Missional & Missions.
I’d invite you to take a few moments and take a stab too!
Here is where John and I landed for our definitions:
Missional: The Word missional is simply the adjective form of the noun missionary, and like any adjective it is used to modify a noun.*
Missions: Missions is to move towards or go to those different than us –culturally, socially, ethnically, economically– by crossing over those barriers and sharing the gospel with the compassion and love of Jesus.
Another exercise for the group was to ask this question: Does the church have a mission or does the mission have a church?
We realize it is a “both/and” answer. Yet thinking about our God being a missional/sending God reframes our orientation to see mission as bigger than merely a “job” of the church, but to see mission as part of the very character of our God.
Along this line, we shared the following quote:
“Our task as His people is to discern what God is doing and join with Him. It is not so much that the church has a mission but that the mission has a church.”
– Alan Hirsch (The Permanent Revolution, p. 148)
Don’t we need to be reaching out in my neighborhood before we go to the rest of the globe?
The tension of Global mission and Local mission is a one that everyone sensitive to the mission of Jesus feels at a gut level.
In China, the country with the most Christians on the planet–87 million– hasn’t really made a dent in the total population of 1.3 BILLION people!** So we are delighted that there is great progress of the Gospel, but there are millions (a billion!) more people to reach!
Even here in the USA where there are approximately 84 million evangelical Christians, a much higher percentage than China, yet we still have 234 million people to reach!** So do we need more disciples, leaders and churches in China and the USA? Absolutely! We need to take serious the opportunity to reach those in our community who don’t know our Jesus yet!
At the same time, we must know about the plight of billions of people outside of the easy reach of the Gospel. Billions of people on our globe don’t have a Bible, Body of Christ or even a Believer in Jesus in their lifepath! We must be informed about this reality!
To close our time we watched the following CONVICTING video–You Should Know:
We hope that sharing this outline of our workshop has been helpful to you! If you would like to chat with John or myself, please reach out to us via email at the links on our names above!
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John 20:21 ESV)
As the Father sent Jesus, so Jesus has sent us. That means that if we can discover how the Father sent Jesus, then we will see how we have now been sent.
Being an on mission church is not about size, staff or structure. Neither is it about a specific program. The magnitude of its mission giving or the multitude of its outreach efforts does not make a church an on mission church. An on mission church is more about a congregations passion than its percentages. It focuses more on its burden than its bigness. Gods mission in the world and His biblical mandate drives an on mission church to become a world mission strategy center.
An on mission church embraces the Great Commission and engages the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a church committed to starting new churches, strengthening existing churches and sending workers into the harvest fields. It is a church that encourages, equips, empowers and expects every member to be personally involved in Gods mission enterprise. An on mission congregation prays, gives, knows and goes on mission with God. Its a church of people burdened for the lostness of all nations that seeks to create ways to reach its Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Most of all, its a church with the glory of God as its ultimate goal and primary purpose.
For the conference on RISK (
The tension of Global mission and Local mission is a one that everyone sensitive to the mission of Jesus feels at a gut level.
So, how was Jesus sent?