My junior year of high school I decided I wanted to go into youth ministry. I loved God, I loved the church, and I loved high school students. Now maybe I loved high school students at the time because I was a high school student, and thus high school students were awesome. But the passion has stuck with me through the end of my college experience and opened doors for my future. There were always some in my life who were excited for me, but there were others as well.
“Don’t you think fighting for Christianity in America is kind of a losing battle? Why not take your skills abroad and serve somewhere else!”
“People in foreign countries have never heard the Gospel, shouldn’t they be our main priority?”
“Why don’t you want to be a missionary?”
Why don’t you want to be a missionary…isn’t it interesting that the term “missionary” initially conjures up images of men like William Carey, David Livingston, and C.T. Studd? And don’t get me wrong, that’s fine. They are missionaries.
But through a class and a conference last semester I began to rethink the traditional view of mission and missionary.
The significance of mission work has nothing to do with location or even circumstances. It deals primarily with the issue of motivation. Some go out into foreign parts of the world in order to share the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. I want to go out into the forgotten areas of Spokane, of Seattle in order to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The location is different, but the motivation is the same. What does this mean? Our definition of mission has to change. Webster's dictionary defines mission as, “a person who is sent to a foreign country to do religious work”. I feel like they’ve given a definition explaining what a missionary could look like, but not what a missionary is. A missionary is someone who daily submits to the Father, desires to be led by the Spirt, and prays for the heart and perspective of the Son. A missionary is a Christian. A missionary is a mom who plays Christian radio in the van, a teenager who prays with a friend, and a youth pastor attending a soccer match.
The focus point is that God has called us to something; God is calling us to participate in His Kingdom and his plan of reconciliation for the world. Mission work is no longer limited to life abroad, but instead it has been expanded to include any expression of humble service to God based on a passionate love for his people.
Ashley S
Ashley, I love your title! It’s wonderful 🙂 And the gist of what you’re saying is so imperative. And yet it’s so difficult. But I appreciate your examples to show the little ways that we can begin to live this out in our own lives, learning to be “sent” and make a difference where we are.
This is a great reflection Ashley, and quite important for us to get. As Christ followers, we are all on mission!
I think that was one of the most important things I got from Missional Church (edited by Guder) was the concept that Missional is about seeing mission as central to the identity of the church, rather than as an arm of the church.