One of the books not on my reading list is Total Church, which I started this morning. (Note to self: blog about procrastination and distraction in reading.) The first two chapters are a great reminder about the importance of the gospel and of church as community. The reminder of centrality of the word in the Christian life was another shot in the arm after the recent minister’s conference I was at.
It’s been quite challenging being reminded often and in many ways recently, of the prominence of God’s word ought to have in the Christian life and ministry. I’ve been encouraged to place the word as front and centre in my life and ministry. As Jesus teaches us in John 5.24,
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Thus the work of God to bring life to the death is achieved through the proclamation of the word, through hearing and believing God’s word. This reminds me of the key verses in Romans 10 we’ve been continually turning to in our Winter Workshop on world mission.
13 For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ 14 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? 15 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!’
Regardless of location, for people to be saved, they need other people to send a preacher, and that preacher is to proclaim the Lord.
Last week we started a bunch of training courses at church that are designed to be practically focussed as we live out our Christianity. I’ve got the opportunity to run one called “God’s Worldwide Mission”. There are a number of goals of the course:
- To remind us of the eternal plan of God to save a people for himself
- To drive us to prayerful dependence on God
- To inspire us to be more committed in our support of world mission
- To be creative in our care for link missionaries
- To empower you to be advocates for world mission at church
In the end I hope that those coming will be theologically informed regarding God’s plan of salvation throughout the world and throughout history. This should remind us of the privilege that God bothers to use us – weak and frail humans – in telling the world about the good news of his Son. Aware of the privilege, how can we best play our part in God’s plan? How can we support our link missionaries? Should we consider going ourselves?
This week we’ll be brainstorming about creative ways to support our CMS link missionaries. One benefit of living in the 21st century is the improved communication methods compared to when CMS started over 200 years ago in the UK. So, this week, in an endeavour to learn from one of our link missionaries how we can better support them, we’ll be doing it through a Skype video call.
I’d like to start brainstorming early. What are some ways you and/or your church have done to support link missionaries? What are some things you’ve heard done to help raise awareness in the regular attender of world mission?
Disclaimer: I’m a big fan of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) as is our church, which is why I particularly mention it. Would love to hear of ideas for supporting any missionary, with associations with any mission agency.