Monday 11 January
Today, I had the opportunity to walk through some of the Bible lands. Its days like these that make me smile and see how much through serving God that He spoils me and pours His blessing on me. It is through serving him, in the midst of giving up worldly possessions I get to meet some awesome people, be in places one can only dream of.
Chapter 2
Call to Missions
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I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done for China… I don't know who it was… It must have been a man… a well-educated man. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn't willing… And God looked down… and saw Gladys Aylward… And God said- "Well, she's willing!"
Gladys Aylward
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Let us start by laying a foundation to what a ‘call to mission’ is. There are many views of what a call is. If you speak to missionaries who have this call to missions, you will probably never hear stories of many supernatural events. Many will tell you that they heard someone share either at a missions’ conference or in church about their work on the field, or met someone who is a missionary. As they heard the stories something stirred in their hearts. Their hearts clicked into the heart of God for a particular people group or country. That interest grows as people hear more and more of what God is doing in a nation, hearing the needs, through spending time in prayer and spending time with people that are involved on the field or going on a short-term outreach. This becomes the doorway for their call to missions. This call has a call to sacrifice, giving up the right to your nationality, the right to being with your family, the right to some of the things one would consider luxuries of life. The misunderstanding of the call to missions is one of the biggest challenges to people going for missions. We are expecting to hear a loud voice calling; “Shirley, Go to Pakistan,” God guides us to where and what he is calling us to. As we move, he stirs us in the right direction.
When God called Abraham, he had to leave behind his family, his country, his people, his culture, and his security. We leave behind as we are called into missions these same things. Family or cultural ties will keep us from completely following God and pursuing the call to missions. Are we willing to give up our plans and careers to pursue God’s plans for the nations? When I made the decision to go into missions, I was made an offer for a good job that would have being a stepping-stone to a great career. It had a higher salary, and high position in the company. In the midst of the lucrative opportunity, I had to make a decision to either go for the career move or follow GOD’s call into missions!
We see missionaries being sent from USA to Zimbabwe, from UK to Kenya, from Australia to Zambia, from Brazil to Mozambique. Yet as the spiritual demographics of our world change, traditional missions continue to think only in terms of sending missionaries from the ‘West to the rest of the world. Rarely do we question as to why this is the case, and we are comfortable to let it be so. Why do we never think of sending a Gambian to Canada?
Missionary work has being going on for centuries now, but in Africa, to some it is still a foreign concept. Challenges of raising support; challenges of supporting their families back home are what African missionaries face often. Cultural pressure to get married for singles at a certain age, and the need to support your family (especially if you are the eldest in the family, where you are required to help look after your younger siblings and put them through school, when they themselves do not even enough support to see themselves through the month). Many African countries struggle with visas. This affects African missionaries getting onto the field, and actually staying long term. However, we serve a great God and He is opening doors for these missionaries to get into countries that He is calling them to go to. Is there a different approach that as Africans we should take, instead of following the western way of missions? What role should be our churches be playing in the sending of missionaries? Is there a possibility for churches to be sending out missionaries when their congregations themselves are struggling, and possibly cannot even put food for themselves on the table?
There are some exciting developments happening in African missions that are challenging the common misconception of missions. To Africans, the term ‘missionary’ brings up a variety of pictures to mind. Whenever I get to speak on missions to an African setting, I always ask the question of what a missionary looks like. The answers are always along the lines of white men tracking the land with a pit helmet, to a white westerners bringing in aid; and bringing the tools and resources necessary for carrying on the task. Even when people ask me what I do for a living, I get a strange look when I tell them that I am a missionary. It is still a mind-challenging concept to see an African missionary!
What is missing in African missions? Most churches will not support missionaries because they have not grasped the concept of sending out people as missionaries. We are great at sending out Pastors for church planting more churches under our denomination or church name. Please do not get me wrong: there is nothing wrong with this type of church planting. Nations that send out missionaries have a blessing on them. As a nation reaches out to another nation, that nation becomes its inheritance. What is our inheritance as a nation, as a church or as individuals? Are we one day going to stand and bow before the throne of God, presenting to Him the nations that we have sent out missionaries to, as part of our crowns?
We need to make a paradigm shift towards the mandate of God in the Great Commission. We need to differentiate the difference between evangelism and missions. In most instances, we have looked at missions as evangelism. The two are separate, though interlinked.
Evangelism Vs Missions.
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"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world
as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."
- Jesus
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Everyone is called to evangelism -whether it is to our friends, our families, or work-mates. Evangelism happens when we share the Gospel as part of our daily lives in the countries where we live.
Missions happens when a believer goes to a different culture (often where a different language is spoken) to spread the gospel, although some missionaries do stay within their culture and work amongst their people. Yet another level of missions is Frontier missions; this is going where no evangelist has gone before – to people in a different culture who have not yet heard the gospel. For example, a person from Zimbabwe taking the gospel to South Africa or Sweden is a missionary. Another person from Zimbabwe, taking the gospel to a Hindu people group in India without a viable church, is a frontier missionary. ‘Missions’ does involve evangelism, but the context and nature of evangelism is different. With missions, one is required to learn the language and culture, in order to make the gospel relevant; and different evangelistic means utilised - whether it is using Business, teaching English or community development.
For the purpose of this book, when we say ‘missionary’ we mean someone who has gone to a foreign country or within their own country for the purpose of the Gospel. Missionaries today, including, African Christians, are reaching out to Muslims in the Middle East; university students spend their summer teaching English in Asia; health workers responds to an international disasters, meeting both physical and spiritual needs. All these are missionaries! Missionaries are becoming harder and harder to stereotype, but they have a call; and they set aside their personal ambitions in order to share the Gospel.
Although technically a Christian missionary is one specifically called by God and sent out by the local church, every Christian has a ‘mission’ to make disciples. Missionaries these days do more than just evangelism. They do church planting, discipleship, teaching English, relief projects, health care, humanitarian work and various other tasks.
Why should we be involved in Missions?
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"There is something wonderfully misleading, full of hallucination and delusion in this business of missionary calls. With man
y of us it is not a missionary call at all that we are looking for; it is a shove. There are a great many of us who would never hear a call if it came."
- Robert Speer
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The word “nations” in the Bible, does not refer to national borders, it is about people groups, like the Shona or the Ndebele of Zimbabwe, the Zulu or Xhosa of South Africa, Swahili or Masai of East Africa. Our efforts for World Missions will be complete when every single people group hears the gospel in their language or in a language they can understand, not matter how small that people group is.
With frontier missions, the goal is to plant an indigenous church that can become self-governed and self-supported. This is not a church as we know it, necessarily; it can be a group of 10 people gather together to worship in a house. As is the case in most countries where the gospel or Christianity is illegal (closed countries), a huge church is not possible. Once this first church, the “mother church,” is strong, then its members are sent out to plant other churches, which will in turn plant other churches – until all of the individuals in that people group have had a chance to respond to the gospel. Meanwhile, the frontier missionaries will have gone to another unreached people group to start again. These churches are contextualized churches. The churches make the message and methods relevant to the culture they are ministering. For instance missionaries working in India, when taking a church service (and communion), familiar things in the culture are used. People sit in a circle on spread out leaves of bananas. Fruits representing the fruit of the Holy Spirit are put out. Flowers are spread to represent God bringing beauty from the dry places in our lives. A lamp represented the light of Christ, while incense rises as the prayers do. As the believers prepare to take communion, a machete opening a coconut makes the first sound, to remind them of the hammer nailing Jesus to the cross. As the coconut juice flows out it is a reminder of Jesus’ bloodshed for our sins. The white meat of the coconut represents the cleansing work of Jesus. Then communion is taken, with the coconut flesh representing the body of Christ, and the coconut milk representing his blood. Such practices are the Gospel contextualized for the people to understand and accept the Gospel. Therefore, the missionary takes time to study the culture, and the significance of things in the culture, in order to be able to reach the people. God has put signs in each people group’s culture that point towards him. We need to seek these things with God’s help and wisdom, in order to be able to reach the people, and not bring in a foreign Gospel that the people group will only reject in the end. As missionaries, we need to be careful that we are not taking in our view of the gospel based on our culture and national background. This is the most efficient method of reaching the world. Please note there is a difference between contextualized gospel and syncretism.
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Winning souls out there is the same thing as here, only more difficult. The devil comes to one and says, "Why don't you go home? You can save more souls there than here?" But I received my marching orders to go to China and I had to have God to give them as plain to go back.
CT Studd
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William Carey, who is called the father of modern missions, constantly discussed the need to carry the gospel to the unsaved with his fraternity. At that time, the great commission (Matthew 28:18-20) was considered for the apostles only. Carey thought differently. He was discouraged by his church for years from going to the field, and was once rebuked by his minister who told him, “If the lord wants to convert the heathen, he can do it without your help.” Carey went on to publish a paper in May 1791, entitled “An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen”, in which he outlined the scriptural teaching and strategy for missions.
Even today people considering foreign missions often hear, “Why do you want to go there; aren’t there plenty of hurting people right here?” In Africa the missionary’s family is often a barrier because family does not understand the concept of missions or of someone working and not getting paid per se; with parents expecting their maturing children to get jobs to help support the family and pay school fees for siblings.
As Christians, we are lacking knowledge:
Hosea 4:6 (ESV) my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
Many Christians do not know what is happening in the world. We will not watch the news because we do not want to feed ourselves with bad news. However, how are you going to be praying effectively without knowing what is happening around the world. On the other hand, we do not want to feed our Spirits with the wrong things, so we will not learn about Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc. I was at one time reading the Koran and I offended a number of people. My reading the Koran has enabled me to be able to get into discussions with Muslims and not be in arguments with them. It has being an open door to be able share the Gospel with Muslims. When I was in Central Asia, I met a pastor who studied Islam for 3 years at University. He is a highly honoured man among the Muslims and he is invited on national radio for religious discussions. He has earned this respect among the Muslims because he took the time to learn about the people he is ministering and living with.
Missions have always been at the core heart of God. When we talk of missions, it is not something that started with man but with God. It is part of His plan and purpose. From the book of Genesis to revelations, God’s heart for nations is revealed and unfolding. His heart has always being and still is, for drawing people to Himself - desiring to forgive and seeking all peoples to Himself. Missions flow from the character and nature of who God is. Revelation 7 shows us the picture that God desires:
Revelation 7:9-12 (ESV)
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen."
Chapter 3
The Bible and Missions
Genesis 12:1-3(ESV)
1 Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
The Abrahamic Covenant consisted of two parts: 1) Top Line Blessing – “I will bless you”, based on what God will do/God’s responsibility. 2) Bottom line Blessing – “You will be a blessing” to all the families: To ALL the "mishpachah" (families, tribes, peoples) of the earth will be blessed. It was Spiritual, multiethnic and was without conditions.
So often we choose the first part and loose the second part. Both parts are important, if we don’t give out the blessing we will lose the blessing, we become stagnant waters. We are called to go. Where to? To the nations, to people who do not yet know of Him, who are still to encounter his grace, love and mercy. We can look at this as the first missionary call. When God called Abraham to leave his country; God was calling Abraham to be ministering across cultures, across his race, across borders. The bottom line blessing was to bless all families, tribes and peoples.
Israel was chosen as a nation for all peoples, not because they were great in number. In Deuteronomy 7:7 they are mentioned as the weakest and least. God saw their potential to be an example to the other nations. They were to reveal His name to the other nations and the nations surro
unding them. This can be viewed as the first Great commission. This covenant is so important that it is repeated several times - to Abraham and his descendants!
Deuteronomy 7:6-8 (ESV)
6 "For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Genesis 18:18(ESV)
18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
Genesis 22:16-18 (ESV) – Sworn with an oath!
16 and said, "By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice."
Genesis 26:4 (ESV)- Inheritance passed on to Isaac
4 I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,
Genesis 28:14(ESV)- Inheritance passed on to Jacob
14 Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
The Whisper That Echoes Through Africa Page 2