What You and Your Missionary Have in Common

As we listened to and talked to many short term missionaries over the summer, I was reminded again of the fact that we are all in this together, and that we all have the same challenge to face. Sure, we all have different lives, but it’s the hard thing that we all have to do – die to ourselves, and serve the Lord Jesus.

If you don’t want to “be a missionary” because you don’t want to “give up” something, or because you could “just never do that”, you need to face the question – are you actually willing to die to your sin, and take up your cross, and join the death march (Matthew 16:24-25)? If not, you shouldn’t be asking if you’re missionary material or not. You should be asking if you’ve really found salvation in Christ (Romans 6:2; 1Peter 2:24; 2Corinthians 13:5).

No, there’s no one on this side of the keyboard who has perfectly died to all his sin, who is living in perfect saintly harmony with Christ. But – like I say – we all have the same challenge, the same call, and the same Saviour.

I appreciated the perspective I recently read in The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne. They’re talking about how we need to be training people to serve the Lord in what they call ‘gospel ministry’, and they mention two mistakes that we often fall into . . .

In challenging people about gospel ministry, there are two errors we commonly fall into. One is to create two classes of Christians–those who are really working for the Lord and seeking to proclaim his kingdom (the ‘recognized gospel workers’), and the rest. In this model, making disciples is like Formula I motor racing. There is really only one driver, and the rest of the people involved do their bit in the background. They might work in the pits, they might help to finance the team, or they might find sponsors and organize the logos to be painted on the cars. But the driver is the superstar and the focus, and the rest of the team members are background boys. No wonder they feel like second-class citizens.

As we’ve already seen, this is not how he Bible envisages gospel work. There are not two classes of disciples–we are all both disciples and disciple-makers. All Christians are called to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus to death; to give up their lives to his honour and service. It’s more like a football team, where each person does all they can to advance the ball downfield. There are leaders and captains, but fundamentally and above all else, everyone is a player. In fact, in many teams, it’s not necessarily the captain who is the best player or the most valuable contributor to any given game.

The second common error is to react to the first by dissolving the distinction between gospel work and other work . . .

The authors go on to explain the second mistake – to ‘baptize’ secular work to the extend that we feel it’s never appropriate to call someone to ‘full time gospel work’. And if you want to read the rest of the explanation, go read the book!

Bottom line? We’re all in this together. And my biggest problem is yours too – killing my sin. And we’re also all in this together – this Great Commission that has been given to us by our Saviour. And so we can all look forward to the joy of the harvest (John 4:36)!