Missions on Point

The completion of our consideration of evaluating your church's potential as a good sending church includes thoughts that will ultimately help your church rise to that challenge. Start with prayer. End with prayer. Pray throughout the process. Ask lots of probing questions. Understand that you must win the participation and ownership of your church leaders. Seek to find the right resources and partners to become the good sending church the Lord desires to use in His plan for fulfilling the Great Commission.

This episode of Training for the Sending Church focuses on a very important and often neglected part of our evaluation. It zeroes in on discovering our present missions commitments and helps us understand the past and present status of those missions commitments and aim toward the future. The questions here will guide you and your church missions leadership in creating the backdrop for development as a sending church.

Assessment or evaluation of the local church's sending church potential is essential. This episode discusses some dynamics facing the person or entity doing the evaluation. We cover key questions that will reveal doctrine, desires, and design affecting the evaluation. This can be very helpful in discovering strengths and weaknesses. The process accelerates direction and solutions toward seeing the local church prepared and equipped to become a good sending church.

Whether you have a missionary candidate urgently asking to be sent out ASAP or are just growing your church's missions vision, this series will help you. We'll walk through the evaluation, education, and elevation steps to equip you and your church in sending. This episode closes with some key resources to follow up.

It's not your job, but it's also not what the church does. Christians are free to participate in any number of interchurch activities. We are better together than alone. But there must be a clear movement of the ministry toward the centrality of the church for every believer. Why is the priority of the church so important and how can we maintain that?

A Christian's job can also be thought of as a parachurch ministry. It's important to make a distinction between what the church does and what a Christian does, and a distinction between what the gospel is and what the implications of the gospel are. Thus Christians live out their faith in the workplace and around the world while maintaining the primary importance of the work of the church and church planting missionaries.

Churches have two kinds of ministries they operate: essential and support ministries. In this episode, we talk about how to make a distinction between the two and why that is important, along with some potential dangers and some helpful implications. Did you ever consider that your church operates parachurch ministries from within? Perhaps what your church has considered really important should be viewed as a non-essential parachurch support ministry. May all of God's churches be healthy in how we spend our ministry efforts.

Once we understand what the essentials of the church are, then we are able to define a parachurch ministry. The definition proposed in this episode will help us to keep the priority of ministry on the local church. It will help us understand why missions is important for churches as we compare and contrast all churches everywhere. And hopefully, you will be motivated in your own ministry to not exceed its mandate and see how it rightfully sits in submission to the local church. 

Getting the church right sets the foundation for understanding all Christian ministry. The church is God's institution for his purpose of global glory. The church is essential and when we see how important the church is, then everything else we do as Christians will fall into place. What is essential for a church?

Christians do a lot of things, most of it on their own as an act of faith that God has given them a ministry. Yet, Jesus warns us that many will claim having done many things in Jesus' name, but Jesus will reject them because he never knew them. How can we sort through what is a Christian ministry and what is not? Before we can answer that question, we must first understand what ministry the church does. Getting the church right will begin to help us sort through the confusion.

Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. Old Testament wisdom points us to Christ and to the work of the church to go into all the world confounding the wisdom of this world. The wisdom literature gives us guidance for life, teaching us through the schoolhouse of the Old Testament to walk by the Spirit in faith, and not according to the letter of the law. Wisdom is for missions, and missions is only possible with the wisdom of Jesus.

The final history books of the OT, lead us to think about the hard work of building God's temple and kingdom. Clearly the old temple's glory would not be restored, but God's glory is worth our efforts because we look forward to a better temple. The book of Esther too teaches us about the limitations of man. Yet, we are responsible to do what we can, and God may use our works if he pleases. God will build a dwelling place for himself and we must look forward to that one day when people from all nations will worship the Sovereign God of earth and time together. 

The post-exile prophets have a unique message for the church today. Hope in the coming Messiah and the wealth of the nations being brought into the temple of God. Yet with a new temple that doesn't compare to Solomon's, we are taught to look for a glory greater than Solomon's. Today missionaries are God's messengers going to all the world, preaching the law and the gospel, preparing for the final coming of the Lord.

These three prophets each have a unique contribution to the biblical message. And, with as believers today rightly interpret and apply these books, they are led to be mobilized for global missions. God shows us his compassion for the nations. He fills us with his Spirit so that we can preach the good news to all nations. And He promises to defeat every enemy raised against him, especially those who were once his enemies but have now been made subjects of his kingdom. The church must now do what Israel in the Old Testament would never do by going into all the world to disciples of all nations. 

Even though Judah was not like the apostate nation of Israel in the north, they had wandered from God. They too needed to be warned of impending judgment. But through this we learn about the prophetic hope in the judgment of God against every evil, which oppresses all mankind. The day of the Lord will be terrible, for God's wrath is not to be taken lightly. But in wrath, God remembers mercy, so it will also be a day of salvation for all from any nation who would put their trust in God.

The prophets give us a message and themselves as messengers to teach the church about its role in confronting the nations in a prophetic way with the gospel. Amos preaches about the Day of the Lord, a day of gloom and darkness for Israel, but a day of hope for the Gentiles. Hosea preaches about a faithful husband and father who adopts children who were once not his own and gives them mercy. And Micah tells us of the Shepherd King to be born in Bethlehem who would pardon the sins of all those who feared him. And in all of these books the judgment of the Jews brings about a hope for the Gentiles. 

We know the stories of fiery furnaces, lion's dens, and the handwriting on the wall. We may the apocalyptic imagery too of beasts and horns.  And it may all seem strange and far off from us. But Daniel has something to teach us that this world is not our home while a spiritual battle rages on. And surprisingly we learn about God's global mission to rescue those trapped in the kingdoms of darkness, under the dominion of the kingdoms of this world, and bring them into the kingdom of his beloved Son. 

Ezekiel received a bittersweet word from the Lord, a difficult burden to bear as a prophet. Yet he gives us a glimpse into the future glory of the Lord. Missionaries need to keep their hope in that glory, because suffering will come like it did for Israel and Ezekiel. The temple is destroyed, but in the resurrection of Jesus it is rebuilt along with God's army. God's word and God's Spirit give people from every nation a new heart. Don't shy away from this fantastic book full of apocalyptic imagery. And be amazed how it points us to the new temple of Jesus' body filling the earth with the glory of God. 

The weeping prophet leads us to the steadfast love of the Lord, and the Old Covenant contrasting with the New Covenant opens the door wide for global missions. Jeremiah envisions judgment and hope for every nation to find future restoration in the coming Messiah. The prophet himself is an example for preachers and missionaries today who have been called by God to proclaim God's word to audiences who may be hostile to its message.

Isaiah, the evangelical prophet, probably more explicitly than anywhere else in the Old Testament predicts the Suffering Servant who would die for the sins of the world. Yet, this gospel hope is directed toward the nations of the world. Salvation for all nations comes through the exile of God's chosen servant. The missionary's call is quite similar to Isaiah's, yet listen to this episode to find out how they are different.

Right missions methodology is highly dependent on how we understand the kingdom of God inaugurated with Jesus as King. How do we relate to the kingdoms of this world? How is Jesus the king leading his kingdom of priests in this world now? The history books of the Old Testament offer to us a helpful contrast between the failed kingdom of Israel and God's design for the church in the new covenant.

God's story to redeem mankind is a story that spans all of history. If the church hopes to understand its place in obeying the Great Commission now, then we need the history books of the Bible to rightly situate us in time. God is gaining for himself an inheritance of the nations, and the Old Testament faithful did not received what was promised to them because God was insuring that the Gentiles would be adopted into his family. God's faithfulness to save a people for himself should spur us to be faithful to God's call on our lives today.

The law of God is essential for missions. Rather than simply a cultic and ritual code of conduct for the nation of Israel, Deuteronomy shows us the Spirit of the law, which has been made universally applicable for Gentiles through Jesus Christ who fulfills the law for us. Each of the ten commandments leads us to a need to preach these laws to all people everywhere. It is a worthy effort to consider how to apply these timeless principles to particular peoples, because Jesus hid these words in his heart, and he used them in his defense against Satan. The church now stands unified with believers of all places against the darkness of the world around us because we have the same doctrine and morality.  

The Israelites are on a journey from Sinai to the Promised Land. Rather than a book about genealogies, this book gives us the story of the gospel, and the pattern of all of time, where a second generation replaces the first. There is hope in God's mercy and covenant faithfulness. Listen to this episode and learn about four motivations for missions from the book of Numbers.

Leviticus is the central book of the Pentateuch, and at its center it teaches us an important lesson - a lesson which motivates us for global missions - the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. Man is not justified by following the law, his uncleanness is too great. But God's unilateral grace toward fallen man makes us holy. As the nation of Israel once gathered at the one place where sacrifices were made, so now the church goes out into all the world, now already made holy by the death and resurrection of Jesus, to be holy as God is holy. Holiness is missiological.

God's people are called out of their slavery to their sinful cravings, and called to be holy, separated as the people of God, strangers and aliens on this earth. Yet, like Moses, we are called to go into the world and rescue the lost. The book of Exodus lays a blueprint of God's dwelling with mankind, and the church now is the temple of God, preaching God's word to God's people, calling believers to obedience to God. Local churches need to be obedient to God's command to go into the world and preach the saving message of Jesus Christ, the only perfect mediator between God and man who can lead his people to God's holy mountain. The imagery and typology in the book of Exodus is rich, and it has global missions written all through it. 

The book of Genesis begins God's story of his global glory. Jesus Christ completes that story. And now through the church, we get to tell all nations how they fit into that story. Beginning with God's intentions in creation, his plan for a second Adam to rule to world, and for Jesus to be everyone's hope of undoing the curse and reversing the division at Babel. The hope for all nations of one offspring from the line of Abraham starts here. And how every nation relates to this one has eternal consequences. Now we go into all the world and tell them that this hope has been born. Think with us about how to best preach missions from the book of Genesis.

There are dangers when preaching about missions, because we want to avoid reading into the text something that is not there. But how can we preach about it rightly. This episodes offers one primary way we can do that: biblical theology. From this recognition, we explore ten topics that are commonly found throughout scripture, and we see how they are naturally and easily connected to thinking about world missions. Come listen and get equipped for faithfully reading, thinking, and preaching from God's word with an aim for God's glory among the nations through the church preaching the resurrected and exalted Christ.

Is it possible to preach about mission in every sermon? Does every text of scripture lead us to this topic? Certainly you have preached or heard biblically faithful sermons where missions wasn't even mentioned. But once you start to see missions in the entire Bible, you can't help but to see it more. Consider this with us and we explore four ways to think about preaching and teaching missions from a framework of missions. You still might not mention missions explicitly, but at least you'll see the clues that have always been there.

As you get ready to leave for your missions field, here is a conclusion of last thoughts. There are some things that will prove very useful to you and your church, which are contained as Appendices in the print book: A. Practical guidelines for security concerns B. A Sample partnership agreement between your sending church and the sending missions agency C. Questions for missionary candidates, usually applied near the beginning of your journey in missionary training D. Why "church planting" is THE priority in missions Then, some personal reflection encouraging you to keep a personal journal, intentionally build godly friendships that will span time and distance, and, finally, think about recruiting and encouraging others to joy you in eventually become your teammates in ministry on the field.

You may have come to a different conclusion of your plans to go to the missions field. Maybe you've worked hard for quite a while and found that you cannot go to the field. The doors have closed, at least for now. Then what will you do? Don't despair! God is still sovereign! He has plans to use you whether you make it to the field or not, whether you stay on the field or not. Get humble! Ask God what He has for you next. You might be surprised to find how God will use you effectively as an advocate or mentor for missions. Accept and absorb the love of your church family in helping you recalibrate the next stage of ministry in your life.

The capstone of your preparation and qualifications is the grand send-off service or weekend. Traditionally, this is called the commissioning service. You are recognized by the church as having completed all the requirements to go to the field. You are officially SENT from your sending church. It is a wonderful opportunity to praise God, thank all those who have helped in the process, and mark this milestone. Be sure to schedule some recuperation time between the commissioning and the actual travel to the field. You'll need it!

This is one of the hardest topics to deal with. Yet, historically, God has been pleased to use the process of raising personalized support, and the consequent partnership is material and spiritual, which has been the predominant means of missions ministry for hundreds of years. This now becomes an integral part of your ministry. It is not "other" than your ministry. It is a priority part of your ministry. You can find a balance. You need some help to do it. God will be faithful. Both in skill sets and in financial means, you cannot do ministry on the field without doing the support raising to make it happen.

You've already done a lot to grow in life, knowledge, and skills to become a missionary. Now, let's give attention to the last things, the final brushstrokes on the canvas of your training and qualifications. You want to be fully commended and affirmed by both your home sending church and your missions agency before you are free to leave for your field of ministry. Today's episode will help you make that last stretch of this marathon.

There are many necessary questions to ask when researching a mission-sending agency partner. Remember, though, that your local sending church needs to be involved in the decision. The process of becoming a member of a missions agency is a big step. It will frame the context of your ministry into the foreseeable future, perhaps for a lifetime. So, your diligence now will bring large dividends and eliminate surprises later. This episode is Part B of the two parts of "Get a Sending Agency Partner."

Winning the support, relationship, and equipping of your local sending church is important. Now, you turn your attention to selecting the best fit for a sending agency in concert with your church's leadership. It is a very important relationship. You need to have a good sending agency that respects the role of your church in your life and ministry and has expertise and experience in your target field "over THERE." This episode and the next will describe questions and issues to probe to find the best fit. If the agency in which you are interested will not allow a partnership agreement with your sending church, you should run away from that agency!

Church planting among the least-reached people groups of the world is a priority. Very few workers sent to do that ministry have had guided or curated exposure that equips them to do it. You want to be one of those few. Begin your cross-cultural training HERE, before your feet hit the ground "over THERE."  Do the work to discover ways to understand culture, particularly your target culture. Get connected with church planting, even as a short-term volunteer or intern. Learn all you can about the process, the team dynamics, and the ups and downs of church planting. Though it takes time and effort, you will deeply appreciate what you learn through the process when you get sent over THERE.

A startling hole in most missionary training is a broad foundation of personal ministry in the local church content. Church planters desperately need to understand the dynamics, the highs and lows, the disappointments and joys, of ministry with and to real people in their sending church. The rewards are great! Relationships, skills, and growing in grace found in this context are foundational to long-term effectiveness in a missionary context. Take a deep breath. Let's do this right and do it with joy for the sake of Christ.

Somewhat surprisingly, the role of a missionary mentor in your training process as a missionary candidate is almost never acknowledged. For you to have a trusted friend and counselor (or several) as you wrestle through all the various aspects of personal change and growth is invaluable. Pray and ask and seek that God would give you a great mentor from within your sending congregation. This episode is a groundwork description of how a mentor can benefit and ensure your qualification process.

One of the early crucial steps you can take toward the mission field is to become deeply connected and involved in a healthy sending church. College and university students rarely see this as a priority. If you want to be a faithful and effective missionary, you must! This episode describes qualities to look for and how to help yourself, your case as a missionary candidate, and your chosen church. This is a make-it-or-break-it move for you right now.   Read Missions on Point: The Local Church at the Heart of Ecclesiology and Missiology for the biblical apologetic for the centrality of the local church in missions.

After the mountain-top euphoria of commitment to becoming a missionary candidate, the candidate needs a road map to help navigate the unfamiliar path ahead. The mentor helps you, the candidate, take stock of your special calling and position. There are a lot of new commitments that go along with becoming a missionary. Then, there is the careful and wise communication of your new commitment to those around you. Becoming a missionary is not something you do on your own. Leaders, friends, and partners are necessary to affirm and sustain your ministry as you move from HERE to THERE. May God encourage and enable you to become well-prepared for His glory to the nations.

Whether you want to be a missionary or are a friend, family, or fellow church member of a missionary candidate, this series of podcasts is for you. We will walk through the typical qualifying process to get from HERE (your home place) to THERE (your desired missions field). It's a daunting task to become a well-equipped missionary! It takes patience, time, and vision for personal growth and skill-building. It will take discipline, sacrifice, study, and change. Yet, though the standard is high, the results are worth it. Taking time, with a committed local church behind you, will prove to be your best asset for effectiveness on the field. May the Lord help you all to make it so for His glory. You can get the current HERE to THERE (by David Meade) in Kindle version on Amazon. Or, wait for the updated edition coming out in a few months.

There are many streams of influence that affect the big picture of global church planting. We won't be able to address them all and certainly not in great depth. This episode deals with a few key thoughts about church planting around the world. We'll talk about effectiveness, the negative effect of American-influenced pragmatism, and hope for future changes coming.   A key foundation for biblical church-centered missiology is found in the new book:  Missions on Point - The Local Church at the Heart of Ecclesiology and Missiology, available on Amazon.

Church planting in a foreign culture has to consider all the concerns of every other type of church planting and adding both language and culture to the mix. Missionary church planting is the most exciting and most exacting of all church planting. Thankfully, missionaries may be more aware of their challenges than church planters who don't have the obvious stark contrasts. We talk about special considerations for foreign cross culture concerns here. We'll also think about the desired end result: a reproducing local church that is fully indigenous.

There is a huge need and opportunity for healthy biblical churches to consider planting a church in their "Samaria." We continue to see large communities of ethnic people around us. They, with all their extraordinary needs and often tragic personal history, need the Lord Jesus Christ presented to them understandably and lovingly. They need a local church that exalts Christ and expounds the Scripture for their life and walk with the Lord. Though the issues of near-culture church planting are complex, we believe God wants us to consider getting involved, just like commanded in Acts 1:8, for His glory.

Acting on a commitment to plant a church in a nearby location within a very similar culture can feel daunting. Common concerns for the near-culture church plant need to be considered and addressed. Thinking through a number of diametrically opposite dynamics can help you avoid future problems. We address eleven concerns. By God's grace, working through the issues will forge your church planting team and "first members" into a unified group well before the first public worship service takes place.   Check out earlier episodes of Missions on Point that also talk about church planting.

New church planting "keys" or "schemes," models or frameworks, come around regularly. Pragmatism overshadows hermeneutics to produce the next rapid results methodology that will surely be effective this time. Careful, solid preparation of the church planter should enable discernment and careful implementation based on genuine biblical consistency. Adapt what may be good; reject man-centered definitions; take time to build a solid foundation that stands the test of time. Our Western culture tends to be easily swayed by marketing claims and short-term proofs of rapid results. Let's do better than that as we do the steady work of planting biblical churches with genuine believers and qualified indigenous church leaders in every people group on earth.

Let's clear the fog and demystify more about church planting. These issues should not seem new because every vibrant church should have some experience or be working toward getting experience in church planting. In this episode, we'll talk about universal issues every church plant faces: meeting place, model, marketing, money, and melding of the church plant team. Don't miss next week's controversial episode! Check out the Missions on Point book on Amazon.

In this series, we want to lift the veil of mystery and sometimes misunderstanding about church planting. If church planting is a sign of a healthy church, every church member should be aware of some of the issues and challenges church planters face, some of the joys and sorrows, and the needed plans and particulars of the church plant. This episode touches on seven universal challenges beginning with "D" words: distinguish, decide, determine, discern, develop, define, and differentiate. 

Church planting is a surprisingly polarizing topic. It comes at the intersection of ecclesiology and missiology, which is the hallmark of Missions on Point. So, though we may say things that spark enthusiastic discussions, we'll start this series on church planting over these eight episodes, fueled by my own experience in church planting at home and abroad and lots of study over a handful of decades. May you be encouraged in heart and mind to love the local church and become a proponent of church planting.

Parents of missionaries can feel quite left behind.  But don't worry, we haven't forgotten about you.  This podcast is for you.  Emotions are all over the place: excitement, sadness, joy, fear.  How can you follow the Lord in faith as your children or grandchildren follow the Lord overseas?  You have an important role to play, and God has a missions path for you too.  Find some encouragement and help in this episode with ways that you can facilitate your relationship and manage appropriate expectations.  You will be blessed in unexpected ways as God is at work in your heart causing you to trust in Him alone.