During recent days we have hosted several visitors from one of our regional mission partnerships. These people came from a difficult and remote area where to be Christian is to be in a distinct minority and to be under a real and constant threat of persecution. They are humble folk who had not had the life opportunities common to most of us. But they are our brothers and sisters in the Lord and thus we welcome them as equals and count it a joy to be identified with them.
It has been our privilege to host these people. Some ORPC worshippers have taken them into their homes. Others have hosted meals. Others again have given their time and everyday professional expertise and experience to help train these visitors in various self-help projects. This fits with a wider pattern where a number of both younger and older church members give of themselves to go to this remote area and serve our brothers and sisters in the faith. This partnership has been, and remains, a rare hands-on mission experience for the congregation at large.
This is a positive experience on both sides as we are blessed by contact with these folk and as they are blessed by us. As such it links with some themes as the Scripture talks about the work of the gospel.
Gospel work is suffering work (2 Tim 1:8,12). It is a shared work in which we stand and suffer with brothers and sisters from other places. Far from being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus, or of suffering fellow-believers, we are to be shameless and proud. The reasons for this are clear: the shameful and foolish message of Christ crucified and raised for our salvation is God’s power for salvation (1 Cor 1:22-24).
Gospel work is difficult and sometimes dangerous in places such as those our visitors come from. However, we are to persist for the gospel brings life and immortality (2 Tim 1:10). In all this our confidence is in God’s enabling, for it is he who gives the grace of the gospel, who sent Jesus to enact it and who is more than able to guard the gospel trust (2 Tim 1:9,10,12).
The difficulties and dangers of gospel work mean that we sometimes share the discouraging experience of seeing people desert the field (eg 1 Tim 1:15). Let us be like the largely unknown figure on Onesiphorus who remained a loyal gospel partner (1 Tim 1:16-17).
The Lord will give us gospel opportunities. So let us be sure that we guard the faith and remain heralds, apostles and teachers of the sound words that bring life (2 Tim 1:11,13,14).
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Missions in Motion – the People Who Go
God’s mission is done through people. There are those who stay where they are to sacrificially pay, pray, promote and publicise. Then there are those who go.
This going may be a sacrificial leaving of what the world calls ‘prospects’ and serving in some kind of full time missionary service in the home country. We have two examples of that in our congregation. Others will ‘go’ in the sense of leaving kith, kin, culture and comforts for varying periods of time.
What kind of people are called to ‘go’? Overwhelmingly they are ordinary people. Think of the 12 apostles who were rather average men. Listen to Paul’s word: Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. (1 Cor 1:26-27). Think also of his reference to people like himself who were hard pressed, perplexed and persecuted (2 Cor 4:7-8).
Think also about some of these people used by God in his mission:
• A domestic helper serving a powerful family in a foreign land
• A church deacon taking a surprising opportunity to witness
• A new graduate giving up party and holiday time for a short term trip
• A professional person using their annual leave and their own money to serve short term with specialised skills
• A farmer leaving his farm to a manager and going to serve a remote indigenous people
• A widow making her first trip abroad to settle and serve in a poor country
• An early retiree being a self-funded missionary using pre-retirement skills in a difficult environment
• A promising scholar going to an arduous field, forgoing career, disappointing his family and facing an early death
• A mid-career person walking away from their pension to be a missionary
• An 85 year old going to a stubbornly hard people in Jesus’ name.
Perhaps we excuse ourselves from a lack of missionary skills? Read 1 Corinthians 12. All kinds of skills are needed and can be used. Further, we can all readily learn new skills to be of greater use.
Get the point? All manner and kinds of persons can be used on the mission field. We often speak as though missions are an ‘opt-in’ activity? Maybe it should be the reverse and we should ask ourselves: why am I not serving in missions? Most of us are not called to go. Some of us are. Are we listening? Are we available: Lord, here am I, send me (Is 6:8).
This going may be a sacrificial leaving of what the world calls ‘prospects’ and serving in some kind of full time missionary service in the home country. We have two examples of that in our congregation. Others will ‘go’ in the sense of leaving kith, kin, culture and comforts for varying periods of time.
What kind of people are called to ‘go’? Overwhelmingly they are ordinary people. Think of the 12 apostles who were rather average men. Listen to Paul’s word: Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. (1 Cor 1:26-27). Think also of his reference to people like himself who were hard pressed, perplexed and persecuted (2 Cor 4:7-8).
Think also about some of these people used by God in his mission:
• A domestic helper serving a powerful family in a foreign land
• A church deacon taking a surprising opportunity to witness
• A new graduate giving up party and holiday time for a short term trip
• A professional person using their annual leave and their own money to serve short term with specialised skills
• A farmer leaving his farm to a manager and going to serve a remote indigenous people
• A widow making her first trip abroad to settle and serve in a poor country
• An early retiree being a self-funded missionary using pre-retirement skills in a difficult environment
• A promising scholar going to an arduous field, forgoing career, disappointing his family and facing an early death
• A mid-career person walking away from their pension to be a missionary
• An 85 year old going to a stubbornly hard people in Jesus’ name.
Perhaps we excuse ourselves from a lack of missionary skills? Read 1 Corinthians 12. All kinds of skills are needed and can be used. Further, we can all readily learn new skills to be of greater use.
Get the point? All manner and kinds of persons can be used on the mission field. We often speak as though missions are an ‘opt-in’ activity? Maybe it should be the reverse and we should ask ourselves: why am I not serving in missions? Most of us are not called to go. Some of us are. Are we listening? Are we available: Lord, here am I, send me (Is 6:8).
Thursday, September 2, 2010
From Mission-Minded to Mission-Motion
Today is the start of our mission’s emphasis month. Being ‘mission-minded’ is on every church’s lips and in our statements of core values, ministry plans and such like. However, it is one thing to say we are mission-minded but another to embody ‘missions in motion’. It’s sometimes true that the more we assert we are mission-minded the less motion we have for missions.
What is mission-motion? It’s going beyond talk to actions to fulfil the command that we make disciples from of all nations (Matt 28:19). Three mission actions come to mind:
1. Pray for missions. Disciple-making is spiritual warfare on the front line. Only God can move people to believe in the Lord Jesus (1 Cor 12:3). We need action to pray consistently and specifically for this work. This includes praying for more missionaries and for missionary workers to be protected. Just today I received an email from my missionary brother speaking of his underlying weariness from serving on a field where 1,000 plus people have been killed in the last 12 months. This work needs prayer!
2. Pay for missions. Most mission works and missionaries need to be entirely supported by people outside that mission field. It’s expensive. Missionaries need to eat, educate their children, have medical attention and travel to see their folks just as much as any of us. Their costs in all these things are often higher than for those who stay at home. And there’s the cost of the mission projects themselves. This work needs money!
3. Go for missions. There are mission fields at home and we need to be intentional about going to them. Think about the many non-believers among our fellow-Singaporeans and also the outreach opportunities among foreign workers and students here. However, the larger and needier mission fields are abroad and we also need intentionality to go to them. This includes short-term missions exposure visits (such as our PaCE trips) but goes far beyond that. We need people who make a long-term commitment to go from home comforts and familiar things and serve the Lord in strange lands. This work needs people!
Because God is mission-minded, all his people should be mission-minded. God also shows mission-motion. The prayer of his heart is that all are saved (1 Tim 2:4). He paid the price of sending his one and only Son to the mission field (Jn 3:16). The Son left the comforts of his heavenly home to go and then come among us as a servant on the father’s mission (Phil 2:6-8). Let’s imitate our father God and add missions-motion to our talk of being mission-minded. Let’s pray, pay and go!
What is mission-motion? It’s going beyond talk to actions to fulfil the command that we make disciples from of all nations (Matt 28:19). Three mission actions come to mind:
1. Pray for missions. Disciple-making is spiritual warfare on the front line. Only God can move people to believe in the Lord Jesus (1 Cor 12:3). We need action to pray consistently and specifically for this work. This includes praying for more missionaries and for missionary workers to be protected. Just today I received an email from my missionary brother speaking of his underlying weariness from serving on a field where 1,000 plus people have been killed in the last 12 months. This work needs prayer!
2. Pay for missions. Most mission works and missionaries need to be entirely supported by people outside that mission field. It’s expensive. Missionaries need to eat, educate their children, have medical attention and travel to see their folks just as much as any of us. Their costs in all these things are often higher than for those who stay at home. And there’s the cost of the mission projects themselves. This work needs money!
3. Go for missions. There are mission fields at home and we need to be intentional about going to them. Think about the many non-believers among our fellow-Singaporeans and also the outreach opportunities among foreign workers and students here. However, the larger and needier mission fields are abroad and we also need intentionality to go to them. This includes short-term missions exposure visits (such as our PaCE trips) but goes far beyond that. We need people who make a long-term commitment to go from home comforts and familiar things and serve the Lord in strange lands. This work needs people!
Because God is mission-minded, all his people should be mission-minded. God also shows mission-motion. The prayer of his heart is that all are saved (1 Tim 2:4). He paid the price of sending his one and only Son to the mission field (Jn 3:16). The Son left the comforts of his heavenly home to go and then come among us as a servant on the father’s mission (Phil 2:6-8). Let’s imitate our father God and add missions-motion to our talk of being mission-minded. Let’s pray, pay and go!
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