GlobalCAST Resources - Mentoring Missions Advocates

All People Are Equally Lost But Not All AreEqually Needy Affirming the equal lostness of all people while informing about unequal neediness of unreached people groups with little to no access to the Gospel.

Every disciple has a role in Jesus’ Great Commission Www.globalcastresources.com

We'd just like to stop and acknowledge something. There is a dark side to missions mobilization. Think about it, when people hear of a missions event, often they're going to find something else to do. Why? Because they're expecting some guilt manipulation. Maybe pictures of overwhelming need, maybe being shown that they're not giving and praying and going enough and they're thinking I' already know I'm falling short, Thank you very much! I don't need more of that. And yes it's true that missions mobilizers have often resorted to guilt, shame, fear, need, as ways to try to motivate people to step up into their roles in the great commission. And we keep using those tools because, they kind of work... but only in the short run. And they really aren't Gods heart for the long-term motivations for engaging with his mission. And so what is a life-giving way to motivate and mobilize people into their roles in the Great Commission. One way we have kind of looked at this is to think about the two trees and the Garden of Eden. You've got the Tree of Life and The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And perhaps the tree of life in its roots is the motivation of love. But perhaps the tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil in its roots the motivation is judgment. We are putting ourselves in the position of determining what's right and what's wrong what's good and what's bad. And often as missions mobilizers, we are coming in operating out of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Where we're putting our selves in a position of judge and evaluating what's good and what's right. Evaluating if they're doing enough or not. And the interesting thing is you could be technically correct in your judgment, in your evaluation, that this community is relatively clueless about missions. But if you're operating out of judgment it's just not going to bring life… ever. And the defenses in people's hearts and minds will come up. Right? So what would it look like to mobilize out of the Tree of Life? One story that helps get at this is the story of the Moravians. Many of you have heard of the story of the Moravians their first fruits were two young guys who took a one-way ticket on a ship to an island of slaves who had no access to the Gospel. And as their ship was leaving the shores they called out over the rails to their loved ones "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering". And that became the rallying cry of a whole movement that lost so many to the utmost parts of the earth. But we love that the motivation was, The Lamb, the worthiness of Jesus, not ultimately the lost but Jesus's worthiness. And perhaps this is one life-giving tree of life motivation for missions is to highlight the fact that Jesus is the one who is worthy. We're not alternately calling people to lay down their lives for the lost, we're calling people to lay down their lives for Jesus and do it by reaching people and bringing the worshippers in. Because he's worthy of the worship of every single unreached people group. So "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering" might be a tree of life motivation for missions.

Did you know that the word mobilize simply means "to put into motion"? And we found it very interesting to think about this idea in light of the nature and character of God himself. When you think about it God is the one who is put into motion everything that is. Right? He spoke the universe into being. He spun those galaxies into motion and from that time until now he is the one who has been putting things into motion and moving His story forward.   He's the one who called, or mobilized, Abraham into uncharted territory. He's the one who said 'I want to set my people free from Egypt' and then mobilized Moses to do it. He's been sending and mobilizing Prophets to come at key points in His people's journey to confront or to lead. God is the one who mobilized His Son because of His great love for the world. Mobilized his son to come to earth and then the Son taught his disciples and mobilized them out sent them out two by two, right? And when He said I'm going back and the Father said "Don't worry, I'm going to mobilize... I'm going to send the Holy Spirit to come and help you". And the Holy Spirit empowered his disciples to be witnesses to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and even to the outermost part of the earth.   And later on in the Book of Acts, I love that the leaders in Antioch are just praying together and the Holy Spirit just out of the blue speaks and says I want Paul and Barnabas to go out to preach the gospel to the Gentiles across the whole known world. So God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are always working to invite His people in on what He's up to. And when we invite people in on the Great Commission to help them find their role we are doing nothing more than just partnering with God who is the un-mobilized mobilizer or is the mobilizer of all mobilizers. And we want to keep on partnering with God and in His cause and in this until we see the whole Church bring the whole Gospel to the whole world.

Elsewhere we’ve made a case that missions mobilization is actually more than recruitment. There’s nothing wrong with recruitment, it’s like picking fruit, right? You’ve got people who are ready to pray, and give, and go, and you help them step into those opportunities. That’s great! I hope you have a whole lot more of that. And yet, missions mobilization actually, in the long run, has much more in common with discipleship and disciple-making than you might think. As followers of Jesus, we should be disciples of Jesus and a disciple of Jesus, is one who obeys the commands of Christ, right? John the Beloved made it very clear in multiple ways. Those who say they love Jesus, they’re gonna to show it by obeying the commands of Christ. Those who obey the commands of Christ, those are the ones who love Jesus. He just makes that absolutely clear. And so as a disciple maker I need to be helping my disciples grow in their capacity and obedience to what Jesus taught. And of course one of those commands very clearly is, “go make disciples of all nations”. Now, am I going to turn every disciple of mine into a cross-cultural missionary? No, we are not saying that. Not every believer is called to cross-cultural missions. But every disciple obeys the commands of Christ and one of those is “Go make disciples of all nations”. So every disciple has a role in the Great Commission and that’s missions mobilization! A component of discipleship must be… IS, helping those disciples find their role in the Great Commission that’s mission mobilization. So actually missions mobilization is kind of just another word for discipleship. There’s… everybody is in this journey of understanding who Jesus is, who they are, and what they are called to be and do in the Great Commission, in the kingdom of God. And so we as disciple-makers are helping them in that process. From the very first week of their journey they should be understanding “Oh, this is not just for me. I have freely, freely received and now freely, freely call to give and not just to my neighbors locally but even cross-culturally to the uttermost parts of the earth. I have a role to play”. We can build this into the DNA of our disciples from the beginning. That’s where mission mobilization and discipleship really overlap if we understand things correctly.

There’s a great community development principle that says “God is already there”. It’s just reminding us that we didn’t bring God into that context, He was already there and He’s already at work. And we should come in in a way where we stay present to that reality and try to evaluate what He’s doing and come alongside that. 

So how do you create ownership and buy in? Well, this is a really important question especially again for those of us who are leading volunteers, who are leading a movement where you cannot just tell people "do it because I said so!". And We actually don't want that. We don't want people to just do it because we said so. We want people to have a sense of what God is doing and actually get involved and stay involved and be motivated to stay involved because God is up to something great. And they see it and they want to be a part of it. We're talking about sending people to the hardest places. We don't want them to go just because we told them we want the sacrifices they make to be made for Jesus. He is the only one worthy! He's the only one qualified to really tell them to go. And He's the one who made the sacrifice first and He's the one we are making the sacrifice for.

One community development principle goes like this. "Community development starts with me". So in our case, it would be "Missions mobilization starts with me" This might be the principle I like the least because on a regular basis it confronts me to say am "I doing it first?" Do first then teach. Am I living out what I'm asking others to do? Because if I'm not I have little to no authority to continue to challenge and invite them to do likewise. So as parents we know this, right? The kids will see our life. They will follow our life not just our words. They will follow and emulate what we model and so we have to find ways to regularly, honestly, evaluate ourselves and say "How am I doing?"