Tag: missions

See previous parts here, here, and here.

To be honest, a lot of us don’t feel qualified to be referred to as a missionary and are nervous to share about God with other people. What if they ask me a question I don’t know the answer to? We don’t have to know all the answers, you can just tell them you will learn together. What if they push back and call me crazy for my beliefs? It’s understandable to feel insecure, but the best cure for insecurity is knowing the Lord. As you spend more time with the Lord and your relationship gets deeper, there will be highs and lows, moments of great clarity mixed in with moments of silence. We all have mountaintops and valleys, it’s part of life. The mountaintops are great, they give us energy and encouragement, but the valleys are where we learn things. That’s where the magic happens. That’s where we grow in our relationship with God. As we’re trudging our way through those valleys, we focus on staying near Jesus and we’ll know we’re on the right path. When you are secure in the Lord and confident in your beliefs and then you share honestly and prayerfully, that alone sends a message. Paul talks about this in his second letter to the Corinthians. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:9-10) 

This goes against everything our society tells us. When was the last time you delighted in being insulted or when life got “lifey”? I have never stopped during one of those times and thought “Well that was delightful!”. But the truly delightful thing about those moments is that we never have to face them alone. And those are the times where we learn about our dependence on God, as well as His faithfulness. 

Matthew 4:19 says “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”. This short sentence has 3 significant parts: We follow Jesus, Jesus transforms, and multiplication happens. We make the choice to follow Jesus, that goes back to our primary calling we talked about before. Then it says that Jesus will make us into something that we weren’t before. This transformation happens through the power of the Holy Spirit in those moments where we’re in the valley. Those moments where we’re supposed to be delighting through our hardships. Those moments of insecurity where we start to feel the nudge from the Lord that gives us courage to finish the conversation. Then we become fishers of men. We “go fishing” by planting seeds and sharing about the Lord, and the Lord hauls in the catch.

Application: Before you talk to people about Jesus, talk to Jesus about people. Prayer should be something that we start with, not use as a backup plan when things aren’t going our way. Who are you praying for today?

The last thing I’ll leave you with is this: We need to step out of the safe, and into the brave. God gives us the strength that we need to be brave, we just need to ask for it and be willing to step out when He asks us to. That is what makes us all missionaries.

See parts 1 and 2 here and here.

There’s a quote by Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest that says “The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him”. Read that again. He then asks “Are we being more devoted to service than to Jesus Christ?” We get so wrapped up in serving Him that it becomes a to-do list, but that’s not what God wants from us. We need to keep both of our callings in the proper order (God is primary, things like location/vocation is secondary), because when we do, everything becomes sacred ground, including spreadsheets, classrooms, coffee shops, living rooms. Imagine the impact if every believer saw their daily routine as an opportunity to be on mission. We are ALL called to be missionaries in our own mission fields.

So what does it look like to live our lives “on mission”? We’re going to do a short exercise, kind of like Mad Libs. Remember Mad Libs, where you had to fill in the blanks before you knew what the rest of the sentence said? I want you to think about your profession (teacher, dentist, lawyer, barista), and if you don’t work outside the home, then a short phrase to explain how you spend your time. For example: a student, a stay-at-home parent, retired mechanic, etc. Now here’s the rest of the sentence where you are going to fill in the blank: I am a missionary who is a  ___________ . This sentence is great because it encompasses BOTH aspects of our calling. If we are Christians, we are all called to share the Good News with others in our own ways within our own spheres of influence. We don’t have to move to the other side of the world to do this. The great commission calls all believers to make disciples of ALL nations, that includes the city where you live. That makes us all missionaries. 

The meaning of missionary work is simple yet profound: to live with purpose, seeing every moment as an opportunity to make an eternal difference. All of us can do that, no matter how we filled in that blank. It does not require a seminary degree or an outgoing personality, only a commitment to being obedient. God already knows your skillset, your personality type and your weaknesses, but gifted you according to how He knows you can bring glory to His kingdom. 

Application: Evangelism tools can be great, but they aren’t necessary. Take away the “stuff” and just share Jesus with people. What He taught, how He loved people, how He went to the cross for our sins…. Formulas and strategies might give us structure and ideas, but can get in the way. Jesus is enough.

In our last post, we talked about how our primary calling is to God, and our secondary calling is to something like a specific vocation or location.

So what happens when we get these two callings out of balance? If our “thing” exists without the Caller, then it’s “just a job”. Maybe it’s something we chose like a specific profession or choosing to be a stay at home parent. Or maybe life chose for us, like the fact that you live where you do because that’s where your family is from. We go through life doing what society says is expected of us. Maybe you attend church, but faith and belief doesn’t seem to extend past Sunday morning. It’s really easy to get wrapped up in the mundane things of the world, like spreadsheets and emails, laundry and chasing the lost Cheerios, and keeping the grass mowed and the car gassed up. But we forget that God sees us being faithful in the little things, and that everything we do is done for His glory. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” When we elevate the secular over the spiritual, we cause problems for ourselves. 

Work becomes our identity, productivity becomes proof of our worth, and success becomes our salvation.

We see this in the church as well, either with those in vocational ministry roles or those in the pews. They focus more on the calling, or ministry, than they do on the one who called them. That’s both exhausting and unfulfilling. They can check all the boxes, serve in various ministries, lead VBS classes, make coffee every Sunday, but their good deeds aren’t what saves them. Paul argues against this in Galatians where he says “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing” (Galatians 2:20) If we could “earn our way in”, what was the point of the cross?

Application: We need to live our lives from God as opposed to for God. We don’t do what we do for God’s benefit, we do it out of the overflow of what we have received from Him. Our lives and interactions with people should flow out of the love, grace, and power in the Spirit that comes from God. Because here’s the thing: what you love the most, you share the most.

This is the first of a 4-part series. Check back soon for part 2!

Why do we call positions for people who work in the church “full-time ministry”? As Christians, aren’t we all called to full-time ministry? There are no “part-time Christians”. In Matthew there is a passage of scripture referred to as the Great Commission: “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.” (Matthew 28:19-20) It was an instruction given to all of the followers of Jesus after his resurrection, but many people feel like it’s best to leave that to the “professionals”. We aren’t only Christians on Sundays when we come to church, and we all have a specific calling on our lives. 

Maybe it’s a good idea to define some terms. The word “ministry” in the Bible comes from a Greek word that means “to serve”. We see this word translated in the ESV to mean ministry like when the angels ministered to Jesus in the wilderness (Matt 4:11) or at the crucifixion where it says the women had ministered to Jesus throughout his ministry (Mark 15:41). We also see it used in the story of Mary and Martha when Martha was asking why Mary wasn’t helping serve their guests (Luke 10:40). We often use this term now strictly in a vocational sense, like for people who work for the church or serve as missionaries, but that is only one part of its full meaning. We are all called to serve one another in a variety of ways. 

That brings us to the word “called”, which comes from a word that means “the divine invitation to embrace salvation in the kingdom of God”. This means that our primary calling is to be in right relationship with God. It’s also used throughout the Bible to say that someone was “set apart” for a certain purpose or task. For example, Paul was “called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God” (Romans 1:1). So first and foremost, we are called to be in relationship with God. When we become a follower of Christ, we are all given spiritual gifts and are called to use them to serve others (1 Cor 12:11-12). This calling is secondary to the calling to God. 

So our primary calling is to someone: God, and our secondary calling is to something: a specific vocation, location, etc. We use whatever vehicles or opportunities we have to do the work of Christ, but it’s important to remember the reason we do what we do and to keep our priorities straight.

Application: Don’t strive for success, focus on impact and significance. What will outlive me? Our goal should not be for our name to be remembered, but for the Lord to be glorified. Success is often focused on ourselves, impact and significance is focused on others coming to know the Lord.