Global Missions at Home?​

“Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”  – Mark 16:15

Can you construct a church building in an instant?

Establishing a community of believers to occupy such a building may not be instantaneous either. 

Now, imagine that you want to establish that community in another country, without a common language, without transportation, infrastructure, water, electricity, a home, and without a Bible in a common language. What kind of team would you need to complete your work? 

How can you serve in missions where you are?

If missions is about access to the Gospel, then “missions right here, right now” is difficult because none of us Christians speak the language or know the culture of the people who have no access to God’s message. The Unreached Unengaged People Groups (UUPG) do not live near you, but the people who could work together to reach them do. 

Everybody around us here and now already has access to the Gospel. They have you. They have Christians in their workplace. They have Bibles in languages they understand. They have churches in their communities. Radios. Internet. Churches. Etc.

Not all have heard. Not all have believed what they heard. Yes, they do need messengers to go tell them. Again and Again. They do need us to reach out to them personally in addition to the thirty other ways people are reaching out to them each day: church billboards, highway advertisements, tracts, radio broadcasts, web sites, online videos, email messages, cable television, magazines, movies, videos, news stations, podcasts, door to door visits, tracts, and Bible distribution. 

Is that missions, or the normal, ordinary, expected ministry of Christians as part of local churches in their communities? 

How about those people who live, work and die outside of the edge of the church — people who have no messenger? These people have no access.

That’s where we must function as a Body. The missionary is a necessary part of preaching, baptizing and teaching people who have no access. Romans 10, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4, along with many other passages of Scripture, paint a picture of a Body working together under the Head, Jesus Christ, to complete a specific task among every ethnolinguistic people group. (Rev. 5:9, Mt. 28:17-20, Mark 16:15, Lk. 24:46-48, Jn. 20:21, Acts 1:8.) We must establish representives of the Body to minister there where Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Holy Bible, is yet unknown.

Do you believe that God listens to your prayers?

If God does answer prayer, what are you asking Him to do that matches His purposes in the Bible?

Prayer is more about aligning our hearts with God is doing so that we can join Him in His work than about asking for what we want.

In regard to His global purpose, what would you like to see God do? 

What would you like to see changed?

What can you pray about now that will bring much rejoicing later?

Have you ever prayed for an ethnolinguistic people group who have no access to the Gospel; that God would prepare their hearts to receive His word, that God would raise up messengers to tell them about Jesus, that God would establish a thriving church among them? They need a community of believers, witnesses, who can proclaim God’s glory to their language group, sending new missionaries long after the the missionaries that taught them are gone. 

The Maliyali is one of many people groups for whom we prayed. They heard the Good News for the first time in December 2022. https://stilluntold.org/hewa/

Here are more people groups who have not yet heard about Jesus. No one told them.  https://peoplegroups.org

What will you see God do because you aligned your heart with His mission in prayer?

Right here, right now, you can engage in missions by preparing and planning. 

What can you do today that will help you and other people to rejoice tomorrow? 

The missionaries of tomorrow, maybe even you, are being prepared now for what God has for them in the future. Your instructors desire to guide you toward good knowledge, habits, and activities that will help you to bear much fruit for God’s glory in the years ahead.  

What are you doing today to build the faith of people around you, strengthening their confidence in God and His written word, so that they will bear much fruit for His glory in the days to come? 

Are you sharing stories of what God has done?

— https://stilluntold.org/testimonies/

Are you reading books of what God has been doing in the past and sharing what you have learned with other people? 

— https://stilluntold.org/books/

Are there people in your life whom you can disciple right here right now? A huge part of missions is helping God’s people see that He has a purpose and a plan where each of us can engage.

(Discipleship resources)

Are you taking steps today to prepare yourself for investing in eternal things tomorrow? (So you want to be a missionary?) 

Matthew 6:21 – “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

What resources do we have that we can share with other people?  Money, time, physical strength, knowledge, and power?

Money is one of the small ways that we can transfer what we possess so that other people can convert that resource into labor in faraway places. Money is the transfer of work. 

Our knowledge can be used to invest in the lives of other people. Do your missionaries who look like they are out of style?  Having been out of the country, maybe they don’t know what you know and will not know until you come alongside and share what you know or assist them with fitting in. 

Are you engaged in communities where missionaries are outsiders? What can you do to invite them into your circles? How can you include them in your communities? Where can you invite them to engage?

Do they need transportation? A place to live? A room for the night? A community to connect with?  

You might have just what they need if you will provide it. 

Will you travel to heaven alone?

Who will be in heaven with you because you engaged with God is His mission?

What are you preparing yourself to do to engage in His mission?

What are you doing to prepare other people to join you, by faith in God’s word, to engage with Him in His work? 

Missionaries don’t grow on trees. They are ordinary people who respond to being intentionally discipled by other believers. They learn to exercise faith and practically apply God’s written word to what they think, what they value, where they live, who they associate with, and what they do. 

By intentional effort, you could help prepare the next generation of willing-hearted people missionaries.

Are you preparing yourself to go as a missionary? Who are the people you are allowing to speak truth into your life? Who are the church leaders  you are engaging with to be discipled and taught by them? What are you doing in your preparation and planning to be more effective in the years ahead?  Who are the community of believers you are inviting to engage with you in prayer to accomplish what God has placed on your heart? What ministry activities are you engaged in today that will help you gain experience for what you will be doing overseas in the years ahead?

Are you actively developing a community of believers, where you live now, to send missionaries to people who have no access to the Gospel? Do the people in your community understand that there are entire language groups of people who have no way to learn about Jesus? Do they care? Are the working as a team to make a difference? What can you do to help them lay up treasure in heaven? How can we work together to multiply the missionaries and the people who have a heart to send them?  https://stilluntold.org/equip/

Romans 10:14-15a –  “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? …”

Motivated by the love of God for us and other people, God has designed the church to function as a Body under the direction of Christ as the Head to send messengers of the Gospel to people where Christ is not known.

To have people in our community who can be sent, we need to be intentional about discipling people, cultivating their confidence in God, and casting the Biblical vision of God’s purpose for us as the Church during our short time as witnesses on earth.

Furthermore, having a church Body that is prepared to equip, send, support, and sustain ambassadors who can establish thriving churches in faraway places, requires adopting a culture of sending based on the foundation of Biblical knowledge of God’s purpose in the world.

How can you help prepare messengers who are qualified to be sent?

How can you help develop a church culture of senders?

(See “Serving as Senders” by Neal Pirilo)