Missions is about Worship

Anyone familiar with John Piper's landmark work knows this already... but it's worth a post.

The passion of a missionary-as distinct from that of an evangelist-is to plant a worshiping community of Christians in a people group who has no access to the gospel because of language or cultural barriers. Paul was one of those "frontier" missionaries: "I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named... But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions... I go to Spain" (Rom. 15:20, 23-24)

Then this:

The first great passion of missions, therefore, is to honor the glory of God by restoring the rightful place of God in the hearts of people who presently think, feel and act in ways that dishonor God every day, and in particular, to do this by bringing forth a worshiping people from among all the unreached peoples of the world. If you love the glory of God, you cannot be indifferent to missions. This is the ultimate reason Jesus Christ came into the world. Romans 15:8-9 says, "Christ became a servant to the circumcised... in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy." Christ came to get glory for his Father among the nations. If you love what Jesus Christ came to accomplish, you love missions.

That, right there, is the heart of the book, Let the Nations Be Glad. And if you want to know more, the entire book is his case for every aspect of those statements.

The urgency is such when you study this issue, that individuals and churches who are not in some explicitly involved way (prayer? money? GOING? supporting? encouraging others to go? informing others? studying? networking? All the above?) a part of God's global undertaking are badly missing the point of God's purposes for all of creation. Read Revelation 5 (the last revealed chapter of God's story of redemption) to get some idea. And then get out of your neighborhood, and hop on the global missions bandwagon.

A Relevant Message

Paul Washer is a man on fire. I was just introduced to him, but he's famous (or infamous) for a message delivered in 2002 at a Southern Baptist youth convention in Alabama. I recommend taking the time to watch. I don't believe he was invited back.)



He's a missionary as well. And I think the interview below summarizes his ministry well. The Church would benefit greatly from the ministry of more people like him. His sense of urgency is indicative of someone who gets the importance of the task at hand and how far we have drifted from it.



Relevance isn't about preaching what necessarily wants to be heard, but preaching what needs to be heard, even when its not in season.

For world outreach, passion.

Jan Comenius was a missionary pioneer born in in Moravia in 1592, one of the first to begin developing a world scope for missions. The following is a quote from a short biography, which challenged me.

In 1461 Comenius visited England in the hope of gaining support for one of his more idealistic scheme, an encyclopaedic 'pansophic' college. This would embrace all knowledge, including scientific knowledge and biblical, and would teach the peoples of all nations the truth which would bring an end to war and discord! His optimism knew no bounds though we may feel he was rather naive in his expectations! The programme as he envisaged it would start with Christian nations and go from there to Muslims, pagans, and finally to the Jews, who, as the apostle Paul hoped in His Letter to the Romans, would come to faith in Christ through jealousy, when they saw the gentiles enjoying God's blessings. As he says in The Way of Light:

The result of that light which is promised is the conversion of all peoples to the Church, so that Jehovah shall be king over all the earth... Then the Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole circle of the world, for a witness to all the peoples, before the end shall come... Then the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God as the sea is covered with waters... And then there will be universal peace over the whole world; hatred and causes of hatred will be done away, and all dissension between men. For there will be no ground for dissenting, when all men have the same Truths clearly presented to their eyes.

And he closes the book with the following paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer:

Our Father who art in heaven, may thy name be hallowed in the whole world! let Thy Kingdom come even now to the whole world! May Thy will be done even now in the whole earth as it is in whole Heaven! through the whole of Europe, of Asia, of Africa, of America, through the Magellanes [the southern parts of present-day Chile and Argentina], and through all the islands of the sea, may Thy kingdom come, may Thy will be done!... Raise up men to write Thy purpose in books, but books such as Thou Thyself mayest write in the hearts of men; make schools to be opened in all parts of the world to nurse Thy children! And do Thou raise up Thine own school in the hearts of all men in the whole world that they may ally themselves together for Thy praise; be Thou Thyself leader of the choir of Thine elect.

Whatever we may think about the viability of Comenius' hopes there is no doubt about his worldwide vision and missionary zeal.

From A Heart For Missions: Five Pioneer Thinkers
Ron Davies