Month: May 2014

Mission is the activity of God himself. It has its source not in the church but in the very nature of God. Mission is not just an activity or a department of the church. It is an attribute or a character quality of God. God is a missionary God.

[The word “mission” is not used in the Bible. It comes from the word “to send”, which in the Greek language is “missio”]

1. God the Father sent the Son into the world. Jesus was the first missionary.

John 3:16-17. … God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

2. The Son sent the Spirit.

 John 16:7. “… It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counsellor (Comforter – the Holy Spirit) will not come to you, but if I go away, I will send him to you.”

3. Together, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit send the church into the world to do the work of mission, spreading the message of good news.

Matthew 10:16. I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.

John 20:21. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.

4. The Holy Spirit also selects and sends individuals to specific tasks within God’s mission. We are “saved” and “called” (2 Timothy 1:9).

Matthew 9:37-38. Jesus said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

When we get involved in mission, we participate in the sending of God. Our mission has no life of it’s own. We simply partner in mission activity, an initiative that comes from God alone.

“It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfil in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church.” [Moltmann]

Mission is to be seen as a movement of God to the world; the church is to be viewed as an instrument for that mission. To participate in mission is to participate in the movement of God’s love toward people, since God is a fountain of sending love. Mission has its origin in the heart of God. This is the deepest source of mission. There is mission because God loves people.

Specific examples of God’s mission activity (the book of Acts is really the missionary “acts of the Holy Spirit”, often through people):

1. Philip and the Ethiopian (Acts 8:26-40). God sends Philip to a place where he becomes instrumental in bringing understanding to an influential man who is already spiritual hungry.

2. Saul’s conversion (Acts 9:1-19). Jesus himself appears to Paul to save him and to call him to the work of mission (specific target: Gentiles).

3. Cornelius (Acts 10:1-48). Here is an good man who has not heard of Jesus Christ. God appears to him in a dream and tells him to send for Peter. The very next day, God gives Peter a vision preparing him to preach the gospel to Cornelius and his household.

4. Lydia (Acts 16:11-15). This businesswoman believed in God and followed the teachings of Scripture. God now causes Paul to cross her path (praying on the Sabbath outside the city at a place of prayer) and she believes the gospel message. As a result many people come to Christ and a significant church is born.

We are here because of mission (what’s your story?) and we exist for mission. There is church because there is mission, not visa versa.

Missio Dei – we get to partner with God’s mission in the world.

God is already at work with mission. We can choose to be involved or not. When we do choose to be involved, we are not starting something new. We are simply joining in with what God is already doing.

Worship is ultimate, not mission. Mission has a short life span – it won’t exist in heaven. Worship alone last forever. However, now the focus and priority is mission because time is short.

Let’s make heaven’s priority our first priority.

William Carey was one of the main instruments in God’s hand for the restoration of mission into the mainstream of Protestant Christianity through his writing, emphasis on prayer for world evangelisation and promotion of practical structures for mission. He was not the first to preach on missions, but he was the one used by God to lift the lid of the church preventing it overflowing to the world. He was preceded by great preachers and theologians such as Jonathan Edwards, and also a few significant missionaries like David Brainerd.

The month of May 1792 was a pivotal time for church and world history. An impoverished pastor, named William Carey, in rural England was about to impact history. Carey preached a passionate and well-reasoned sermon to fellow ministers meeting in Nottingham, England. His vision was for the evangelisation of the whole world.

Isaiah 53 shows us the Suffering Servant giving his life for our salvation. Most people stop at the end of chapter 53 and fail to read on. Remember that the chapters and verses were put in as a helpful addition but were not part of the original inspiration. We should be grateful for them, but at times they obscure the continuity God intended.

Isaiah 54 moves from the salvation of the Suffering Saviour to the mission of seeing an abundant and joyful harvest. The barren woman (symbolic of the church – God’s people) rejoices at the overwhelming fruitfulness God gives to her. The church is to enlarge its borders and spread out to influence the nations and cities of the world.

The message had a profound effect on those who heard it, but they had neither the faith nor the courage to do anything about it. The meeting broke up with no decision. The immensity of the task seemed overwhelming.

Carey turned to his friend, Andrew Fuller, who was also a pastor, gripped his arm and cried out, “Is there nothing again going to be done?” This sudden outburst broke through and Fuller persuaded the meeting to reconsider their lack of response. That turned the day around. A resolution was passed that “a plan be prepared at the next Minister’s meeting for forming a Baptist Society for propagating the gospel among the heathen.”

Four months later that meeting took place and 12 men committed themselves as the first members of the new missionary society. They contributed the, then, large sum of just 13 pounds – collected in a small snuffbox. So was born the modern missionary movement, which despite its many weaknesses, was to lead to an astonishing and unprecedented expansion and growth of the church over the following 200 years. Over this period the largely isolated, introspective Protestant church in northwest Europe was transformed into a global multi-cultural family of churches in which those of European origin were to be a distinct minority.

Why was William Cary so influential and so effective?

1. His years of pastoral ministry and church planting in rural England.

2. His perception of mission as the heart of God and the message of Scripture.

He passionately believed that the Great Commission was just as valid for modern Christians as for the apostles to whom Christ addressed it. The prevailing attitude for the previous centuries had been that the Great Commission was exclusively for the apostles to whom the words were originally addresses.

There was plenty of room for discouragement. In one minister’s meeting when he raised the issue, his old pastor, John Ryland, retorted: “Young man, sit down, When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid (help) or mine.”

3. His study and understanding of the modern world.

He lived in a time when Europe was discovering the existence of the wider world. Explorers were returning with detailed maps of new worlds and descriptions of peoples and cultures. The published accounts of Captain Cook’s discoveries were a significant contribution to Carey’s thinking.

The trading companies were sending their representatives to every corner of the world for financial gain. The industrial revolution was gathering momentum. Amazingly, this poor rural pastor acquired the reports, books and information to carefully craft a coloured wall map and a personally hand-sewn leather globe reflecting the latest discoveries of his time.

He did the first real statistical global survey ever undertaken and published it in 1792, in his 87 page book Enquiry. It was a masterpiece of factual accuracy, balanced assessments and global comprehensiveness. Patrick Johnstone’s influential book, Operation World, was birthed from Carey’s example.

4. His ability to communicate the vision by word and print.

His book the enquire became the most convincing missionary appeal ever written, and a landmark in which deserves a place alongside Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses in its subsequent influence on church history.

5. His proposal of a mechanism for mission work to be initiated and sustained.

He saw the need for practical structures to assist the accomplishment of the task. He created a strategy and a structure for mission work. He actually modelled his mission agency on the big international trading companies that were carving out powerful trading empires across the oceans. He motivated the church to action and provided a simple, but effective framework to channel church planting ministry.

6. His example in going as a missionary himself (to India).

Despite many obstacles with finance, opposition, disease, setbacks, he plodded on with unswerving dedication to become one of the greatest missionary Bible translators and church planters of all time.

7. His faith in God.

He allowed no discouragement from those around him to deflect him and no obstacle to hinder him. He lived the words he preached in his famous sermon, “Expect great things (from God) and attempt great things (for God)”. He was a visionary, researcher, theologian, linguist, writer, preacher and an effective communicator all rolled into one. He claimed to be no genius, just a plodder – but what a plodder! What appeared to Carey’s contemporaries as an impossible dream is becoming an attainable reality. 

Next: Mission – the Work of God

[Gleaned from The Church is Bigger Than You Think by Patrick Johnstone]

What Happened to Missions?

D espite the clarity of Jesus' commission to his followers, we have seen a “marginalisation of mission” over the last 2,000 years.

1. Mission has been belittled in the church.

Many Christians have inherited mindset in church that has almost excluded mission altogether or has pushed it to the sideline of what church is all about. For years, mission has had little importance to the average Christian. Our own needs are so great that we easily neglect the mission mandate, leaving it to the few “mission-heads” who feel the call. Mission’s reputation? Boring slide shows from the jungles of Africa. Unfortunately, for too long mission has not been seen as a priority for the church or for every Christian.

2. Mission has been overlooked in the Scripture(s).

Our understanding of Scripture is often viewed through spectacles that filter out mission. We focus so easily on the blessing God as for us (salvation) and miss our mandate to be a blessing to others (mission). Most people, when asked why does the church exist, answer, “To meet my needs”.

God’s promise to Abraham – “… in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Gen.12:3).” In the previous chapter, we have the account of the Tower of Babel and the confusion of languages. Ethnicity and cultural diversity became the dominant characteristic of the human race. The very next incident is the calling of Abraham and the very purpose of his called was a promised blessing of every variety of those human cultures. This covenant promise is repeated to Isaac and Jacob and finds fulfilment in the book of Revelation where we see God’s redeemed people – from every race, tribe, people and language gathered around the throne of the Lamb (Revelation 5:9; 7:9-10).

Galatians 3:8. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."

Paul interprets this by saying that God was preaching the gospel to Abraham so that through him it would reach all the peoples in the world. This thread of revelation about the gospel and God’s covenant with Abraham runs through the entire Bible (a huge narrative of mission).

We have tended to focus on salvation to the exclusion of mission. We have been saved because of mission and now we have the awesome responsibility to win others as part of our mission. The doctrine of salvation (soteriology) must not be separated for the doctrine of missions (missiology). Salvation and mission are not to be divorced from each other. What Jesus has done for us must move forward to an embracing of what Jesus wants to do through us.

3. Missions has been sidelined in church history.

Notice the slowness of the disciples to catch the vision for world evangelisation. God’s love for the Gentiles is constantly stated in the Bible, yet the people of Israel failed to see their role as a blessing to the world. This is why Jesus appeared so radical – he reached out to the despised Samaritans, Greeks, traitorous tax-collectors and the hated Romans. Even just before Jesus’ ascension, the disciples wanted to know about when God would restore the kingdom to Israel.

After Pentecost, the disciples were so caught up in the amazing revival and enormous church growth that they failed to move to the wider implementation of the Great Commission. It took a number of years and much persecution to finally get the church to actually move outside of Jerusalem with the intent to bringing others to Christ. In fact, it was through the martyrdom of Stephen and the preaching of Phillip, both deacons, that they finally spread outside Jerusalem. Even then, the apostles stayed in Jerusalem and the ordinary believers went out.

It took the church at Antioch, rather than the Jerusalem church, to finally become a launching pad for world evangelisation. Then the apostles began to go to distant lands and peoples with the gospel. The NT church eventually obeyed the Lord Jesus.

Unfortunately, after the end of the first century, mission almost disappeared from the church for 1700 years. There was little interest in world evangelisation during this long period of time. Mission has been sidelined from the central place it has in God’s heart. The focus was on doctrine, church structures and personal spirituality.

The mainline Reformers and those that followed them assumed that the key Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) had been obeyed and achieved by the apostolic church and that all that remained was to evangelise locally. WHY? This was because of wrong priorities, coldness of heart, blindness, a distorted worldview. There has been missionary effort throughout the history of the church but usually through a FEW, and not through the mainstream of the church. Historians, when writing about church history, had little focus on the importance of missionary advance.

Something significant happened a little over 200 years ago that dramatically affected the history of the church. There has been an incredible escalation in world evangelisation, both local and global. Research has led to mobilisation, goal-setting and staggering growth in numbers of Christians and churches around the world. The good news of Jesus has spread through radio and television ministry, Bible translation, prayer ministries and church planting. After many years of barrenness and retreat, the church started to obey Jesus' commission – at least, in parts.

What happened?

Read part 3 to find out.

[Thoughts gleaned from The Church is Bigger Than You Think by Patrick Johnstone]

The dominant theme of Jesus' last 40 days on earth was world evangelisation and included a Great Commission:

Matthew 24:14. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. NIV

Acts 1:8. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. NIV

This is an incredible global mission given to 11 people!

• Minister locally in Jerusalem, their city (streets and neighbourhoods where they lived – local community).
• Minister nationally, in Judea (wider state areas and national borders).
• Minister to ethnic minorities in their land, like the despised Samaritans (difficult sections of the community, they would normally avoid).
• Minister to other lands and continents, even to the ends of the earth.

Jesus didn’t emphasis one task over the other. He commissioned his followers to do all of them simultaneously. This was not a range of alternatives, but rather an overall concern. It was a wide-ranging comprehensive task – including all kinds of ministries (church planting, evangelism, community outreach, teaching, training and missions) in all parts of the world.

Whatever happened to mission?

Read part 2 to find out.