Perspectives on the World Christian Movement

As part of the requirements for being sent as missionaries by our church, we just signed up for the Perspectives course taking place this Spring semester at our church’s Denton campus. If you’re in the Dallas area, I highly recommend signing up! (You can find out more here). It not just for future missionaries, but for anyone interested in what’s going on with the Gospel’s global influence and for anyone who wants to understand the viewpoints of other cultures to see how the unchanging Gospel can be shared in their context.

This video from the Perspectives website makes a good point of explaining that we are all called to be part of the Great Commission in one way or another, whether to go, to send, to pray, and/or to welcome— no believer is excused from it. John Piper is famously quoted as saying you can either “go passionately, send passionately, or be disobedient.”

Note the words passionately there— doing something passionately isn’t throwing money at a cause and praying for it a few times a year when it’s brought up at church. Do you have passion for the spread of the Gospel?

Regardless of your role, it’s important to know what is going on in the world Christian movement and to not succumb to tunnel-vision, especially in a culture like ours that gives way to checklist morality and places a major focus on personal comfort and “looking out for #1.” We easily get so caught up in our normals and get so wrapped up in what we’re doing that we completely forget about the rest of the world… but the Bible doesn’t leave room for us to do that.

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. 
(Acts 20:24)

For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” 
(Acts 13:47 ESV)

If we know more about what’s going on in the world and how the Gospel is (or is not) being spread, we can grow more passionate about the fulfillment of the Great Comission. But we cannot balk at the state of the world while we sit and do nothing about it.

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 
(Romans 10:14-15)

Luke and I know how strongly we feel about what God has called us to, and we covet your prayers during this interim season as we prepare to go, but we also invite you to do some soul-searching and see what role you are called to play in the Great Commission.

Living missionally can be done so many ways— I think a lot of people picture someone from the U.S. moving into a hut in Africa and think “Well, I’m not called to that, so I guess I’m not called to missions.” Can you mobilize friends and your church to support other churches overseas in some way? Can your business partner with people around the world or even across the street to help the impoverished majority population earn a living wage? Can you get to know your neighbors, like actually (gasp!) talk to them and share the Gospel with them? Can you eschew the unbiblical American Dream of “more, bigger, better, now” and move to the not-so-nice part of town to minister as a family to needy people around you? Can you get together and pray, earnestly and often, for the global Church? You can do something, and your obedience to the call will not only bless God and others but you as well.

In this season as we celebrate the Lord descending into our lost and needy world, we urge you to pray about what way you are called to be like Jesus and serve those who don’t know Him.

As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
(John 17:18 ESV)

Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
(Psalm 96:3 ESV)

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:19-20 ESV)