by Mike Stroope
And yet, questions about how the local church’s mission activity will look and by what means the church is to go to the nations seem to be the overwhelming concern. I hear pastors and church leaders voice deep conviction that their churches must do missions, but in the end most of them stumble over how it is to be done and by what means. That which we are deeply committed to is left undone because our familiar and convenient mission paths have disappeared. So, we want to do missions, but we don’t know how or by what means. What is needed is a clear mission pathway, a vision of the way forward.
This past month I traveled to Niger, West Africa with a group from First Baptist Church, Arlington. What I saw inspired and challenged me. I offer two observations that I feel could provide us with direction for a way forward.
First, the seed of the gospel is powerful. I saw that a simple presentation of the story of God’s love and sacrifice in Jesus Christ could trigger a response from people who had never heard. A Muslim man traveled from a nearby village, heard the story for the first time, and immediately said, “I want to follow Jesus.” The story is not hard to tell nor is it complicated. It does not require much from us, except accurate telling. This is because inherent in the story is the power to change men, women, and children! The mission of the church is not rocket science. Its mission is to sow the powerful gospel seed and trust that it will produce a bountiful harvest. We need to remember that this gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16), and thus, we do not control or produce its powerful effect. Structures and logistics exist only to serve the seed and are not in themselves the mission or its power. The mission of God is the broadcasting of this powerful seed by faithful sowers. I was reminded that my focus must be the seed and sowing.
Second, I observed rank-and-file, ordinary men and women of the church participating directly in the mission of God. Were they doing it with cross-cultural perfection, according to the latest strategy, or with super pure motives? No, but they were there, telling the simple story to people who had never heard, and they were there, loving men, women, and children in the name of Jesus. And they were there as part of a long-term commitment of the church, and they were the latest in a long chain of church members who had also been there. I saw an engineer, a social worker, a student, and a web designer, all members of a local church, sowing powerful gospel seed into lives of people in an African village. Alongside them were equally ordinary Fulani believers doing the same. These servants of the living God told the Jesus story to people who had never heard. Why? Because this is what the ordinary people of God do. Their calling is to give witness to their neighbor and to the ends of the earth.
While we stumble over the questions of how missions is to look and by what means it is to be done, literally millions of people in Niger, China, Brazil, Cambodia, and Zanzibar live their lives without knowledge of Jesus, and they pass into eternity without being reconciled to God. Scripture poses a set of questions to us: “How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:14-15) The story must be told and story-tellers must be sent, if people are to hear and believe. I have returned from Niger reminded that you and I will not be judged according to whether we correctly answer the logistical and structure questions of missions but according to how we respond to the command to send and tell.
In no way do I wish to minimize logistical and structural concerns. They are real and substantial. We must count the cost, we must responsibly attend to the details of going, and we must care for those we send. But I am afraid that we have become obsessed with these concerns to the extent that they blind us to our commission to tell the Jesus story. In a very real sense, these concerns have become a kind of anti- mission or a wet blanket that dampens or even extinguishes our passion for the mission of God. The truth is that we can miss the mission of God if we allow ourselves to be distracted by less than ultimate concerns or to become paralyzed by our inability to figure it all out. I believe the time for think-tanks and forums has passed. The time for talking is over. In fact, we can fool ourselves into thinking that because we have talked about missions, we are doing missions. We have talked enough. It is time to do missions.
One indication that now is the time to do missions is evidenced by the emergence of Global Connection Partnership Network, a new and unique church- based, sending entity. The goal of GCPN is to simplify the nuts and bolts of mission sending so that ordinary people from local churches are able to sow abundantly the seed of the gospel. As one who knows what it takes to send and sustain long-term witnesses, I am convinced that GCPN is positioned to provide necessary logistical support and structure, so that churches can move beyond these concerns and focus on effective sending of their people.
What is new and unique about this entity is that, unlike sending organizations of our past, GCPN is based in local churches and operates in a mutually interdependent relationship with churches to provide expertise, training, counsel, support, and collaborative sending. It is a hybrid organization that marries the essentials of our mission past with the best possibilities of our mission future. GCPN respects the missionary role of the church and serves its mission to be the people of God among the nations.
The time is now. It is time to be the people of God. . . going to the world, telling the simple story of God’s love and redemption in Jesus, and loving real people in distant villages. It is time to join together. . .walk alongside, assist, and support each other. . . as we collectively pursue our commission to be the sent people of God. It is time for every tribe, people, tongue and nation to worship Jesus as their Lord and God. It is time.
