<< Things your Missionaries wish you knew but were afraid to tell you.
Missions–The job for every Christian
Missions is called missions because of the job given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. We were told to go into all of the world and preach and teach the gospel. To many people the concept of missions is supporting some celebrity who came and wooed us with a heart felt presentation. It is a “check box” on the offering envelope for other people to “check.” Some see the concept of missions is when a guest speaker comes thru to tell about things happening outside of their area of influence. Sadly, many people like a missionary coming to their church simply because they get a break from their pastors preaching.
Even in the most mission minded church with the most mission minded pastors, people are seldom taught the concept of missions. As with anything else, it is usually easier to throw money at something than to get personally involved in it. Therefore, most believers who are “mission minded” are active in supporting missionaries financially. There are usually no other outlets for them go get involved. But they are missing a great opportunity.
Wherever God has placed a person in the world, they are on a mission field. Most missionaries would like people to know that they are on a mission field, and can be personally involved in missions right where they are at. Missionaries would like to tell people that, but they have no place to do so. That is their pastor’s responsibility and it would not be appropriate for a missionary to take such a liberty as to “educate” a congregation on the concept of missions.
What the missionary yearns for, is for God’s people to get so close to Him that they see the need to serve Him by their obedience to what He commands. Too often in the Christian “community,” people see God as a type of Genie in a bottle for them to call on when they need Him. They fail to see Him as their Creator. They do not see themselves as a created object; totally at the mercy of the one who created them.
If you create a cake, the cake must do as it’s creator commands. It cannot operate outside of it’s designed parameters. If you created a doll, that doll is constrained to do what you (it’s creator) determines for it. The doll doesn’t determine it’s activities and then call on the one who created it to get it out of a jam.
There are too many “jammed up” Christians filling the churches today and not enough designed objects (i.e. Christians who reckon themselves as a designed entity.) Because of this, Christians take lightly the Lord’s command to go into all of the world and preach the gospel and teach others about God. This is where the heart of the missionary lies: in getting this very message across to God’s people.
Churches today are filled with trophies. Churches want to keep their people appeased so they will stay right in the pew. Any missionary who would voice such a message as the “designed/designer” message, would cause churches to empty out as more and more of its people understood this concept and began obeying their Designer.
So, there are things that the missionary would like to tell people if he could. some of these things the missionary cannot talk about because he knows the people would not be able to relate to it. Other things they have no liberty to talk about, even when it is in their heart to want to say something.
Suffice it to say that missionaries are people who have given their life over to God; they have accepted God’s command to go into all of the world because He is their Designer and He commands it.
There are very few missionaries and more often than not, they can only relate with each other.