Nov 3, 2009
What's The Problem With Missions?
O.K., before I write, I confess that I don’t blog much. Actually, this is my first blog. I’ve come to the belief that blogs are simply simplified editorials on things, and as such, can biased and even rambling. I’ll try not to do the latter, but will definitely do the former.
In thinking about writing on MISSIONS, my first thought was to write something in an admonishing way. This is usually the case with anything written or spoken about missions. Mark Redfern just preached a sermon on orphans and widows. While he was preaching, I thought strangely enough about missions, because I thought how similar the two were. In my opinion, they are two of the most difficult and hard-to-grasp commands we are given. They’re things about which few of us do anything, yet know we ought to. We may dread even hearing about them, because they remind us of how little we are working on these two “near to God’s heart” subjects. It’s hard to do much beating-about-the-head-and-shoulders, however, because I need admonishing more than any brother.
So this question is the blog. Why is it that most things written on missions are necessarily admonishing? I don’t ever see teachers telling us to pull back on missions for the sake of our health, or stop giving to missions so much because we’re neglecting our families.
It’s also not as if we can’t think of good enough reasons as Reformed thinkers to be involved in missions. The Catholics owned missions for centuries. Now, many countries are evangelized by cultists. We recoil from the theology of both groups, as the theology of the Catholic and cultist murders the soul of the unbeliever. Yet we don’t feel badly enough to try to mitigate their efforts.
I believe there are several reasons why it’s hard for us:
1) We’re scared of evangelism, even here, and much more so in places foreign to us.
We’re afraid we’ll say the wrong thing, afraid we’ll somehow look foolish or weird, afraid people will not like us. We’re just afraid. But what did Christ say? “… I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20b). Not just as a companion, but as a source of strength. He even told His disciples shortly before that, “Stop being afraid…” (Matt 28:10).
2) We have the wrong idea of who does missions.
We may think it’s only for young people as a career choice, or old people whose kids and jobs are gone. We may think it’s only for “spiritual” people who walk around very phlegmatic and somber, or single people who are unencumbered. Or maybe it’s only for pastors, for men, for women. It’s just for others. But what did Christ not say? He didn’t say “Go therefore, you pastors / teachers / men / young people / you old ones”. He left it where He left it. “Go therefore and make disciples…” (Matt 28:19)
How do we fix this? Lots of ways, but here’s a couple.
Firstly, we don’t have to throw ourselves into missions necessarily. That’s what scares a lot of people. But we have to at least look (ourselves) into it. Start with something very simple. For instance, save the BBC news website or Al-Jazeera news as one of your favorite places. Pick a country, and just follow it regularly. Pray, with the gospel in mind, for that country as you read about it.
Secondly, we must stop thinking of life as ours. We were not saved to simply pray for peace and safety. I’ve tried to stop praying for those things, because my time here and my family is not supposed to be something I keep walled up with guards surrounding it, as desperately as I want to do that. It is to be invested. Not given away without thought – that would be foolish – but wisely spent on behalf of the Owner to whom it belongs. We must stop thinking “it’s all or nothing” when it comes to missions, and instead think, “it’s something or nothing”. All of us can do something, can’t we?
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