Yesterday, we had a guest speaker at church. Dennis Melnichuk has served as a missionary to China for the past few years and is transitioning into missions in Ukraine. You can hear Dennis’ message here July 12, 2019. Today, I’d like to reflect on why missions are important.
In this day in age it is easy to think, “Why do we need missions anymore?” After all, the church is present in just about every country in the world. Aren’t the local believers capable of bringing their own people into the faith? Couldn’t missions be construed as a lingering form of American Imperialism (audiences under 35 may have this question)?
Christian missions in the 21st century are extremely important. We will look at three ways in which missions are still important for fulfilling the Gospel mandate.
- Missions Is Still About Reaching the Unreached
- Missions Provides Physical and Educational Resources to Local Believers
- Missions Ensures Relational Connections to the Global Church
Missions Still Reach the Unreached
It is hard to think that the Gospel is absent among whole people groups. Christianity has been spreading around the world for 2000 years. How is it possible that there are still unreached peoples? But there are.
According to Global Frontier Missions 3.15 billion people live in groups completely unreached with the Gospel. Joshua Project estimates there are 16,800 people groups in the world. 6,900 of those groups are unreached. 95% of these groups are located in the 10/40 Window (a.k.a. the Muslim World). Yet less than 10% of all Christian Missions is carried out there. So yes, there is still a need for missions in the 21st Century.
There is such a deficit of the Gospel among some people groups, US Center for World Mission is needed to more narrowly define the phrse “unreached people groups” to reflect those groups most desperately in need of the Gospel. The traditional definition of an “unreached people group” has been a group with less than 2% Christian presence. However, many of those groups (even though less than 2%), do have a strong Christian presence, which leads to an influx of missionaries into areas that aren’t as desperate for the Gospel. New terms are suggested to make the distinction:
- Unengaged Unreached People Groups: ” Those that are less than 2 percent evangelical and have no existing missionary efforts among them.
- Frontier People Groups: Groups that ” have no indigenous Christian movement of their own.”
When we talk about unreached people groups, we are dealing with people who have had very little if no chance of hearing the Gospel. That may be due to highly restrictive anti-Christian laws, or cultural barriers that prevent a Christian witness. But for Christians dedicated to the Great Commission, there is still a lot of work to be done.
Missions Provides Resources to Indigenous Faith Communities
Missions is also about more than the Great Commission. That isn’t to lessen the impetus of Matthew 28. It is a supplement to it. The Gospel, first and foremost must be preached. In tandem with that, is the bringing of resources to local communities. Realizing Missions encompasses more than boots-on-the-ground Gospel sharing, how does one engage in missions providing resources?
By getting Christian materials to native believers. Mission Cry is dedicated to getting Christian resources to natives. To date they have gotten $330 million worth of Bibles and Christian teaching tools to over 171 nations. They have just recently completed development of distributions centers in both Kenya and the Philippines.
Another way to provide resources is to get mentors and disciplers into areas to help develop native believers and raise them up in leadership. Organizations like Christian Aid Mission do such a thing. Their goal is to “seek to establish a witness for Christ in every nation by assisting indigenous ministries based in areas of poverty and persecution…”
A third way to provide resources is to provide physical/material resources. In James 2 it says,
“If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?”
James 2:15-16
One such group that is dedicated to this type of missions is Marion Medical Missions, based in Marion, IL. These missionary teams collect donations to purchase supplies to install water wells in African villages. Such groups seriously put faith in action by providing for the physical needs of people groups. When we show love with our actions, it is an expression of love that cannot be denied. Marion Medical Missions state on their site that a modest $450 will provide a well in a barren African village. Some of us spend more than that for our on-the-go coffees for a year.
Mission Ensures Relational Connections in the Global Church
At TGP, we hold that the heartbeat of the Gospel is “relationship.” Everything in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation shows God’s continuing efforts to bring humanity back to relationship with Him. In every instance of God’s presence, from the Garden, to Mt. Sinai, to the Cross, God is calling people back to Him. The morality spelled out in the Bible are necessary to develop and maintain a healty and enduring relationship with our Creator. We can talk about the theories of sin, ethics, and the law all we want. Yet in the end, they are all descriptors of relationship dynamics. Sin is simply things that we do that cause a break in relationship. When we sin, we are essentially telling God our desires and selfishness are more important than He is. When we are unethical, we are saying healthy relationships are not important to us.
This is all related to missions because of the relationship dynamics. 1 John 4:20 says,
Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen,cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
1 John 4:20
When we engage in cross-cultural relationship dynamics in missions, we learn how to love and build common ground with those who are different from us. We may differ in value systems, political thoughs, and temptations. Good cross-cultural relationships can help everyone involved to point our our blind spots due to cultural blinders. It can also affirm the strengths, talents, and abilities we bring to Kingdom work.
The issue is, relationships are hard. You have a clash of wills, a clash of values, a clash of personalities. But getting relationships right is what the core of the Gospel is about.
We can have all our theology reasoned out and buttoned up. But if we don’t know how to love people in light of their faults, we don’t really get the Gospel. Why? Because the Gospel isn’t about theories, theological treatises, and doctrine. The Gospel is about how to love a Holy God and bringing Holy Love into all our relationships.
These are just a few reasons why missions are important for the church in the 21st century. These are also some of the reasons why TGP gives nearly 20% of its revenue to help fund missions. In addition to living the faith with those who call TGP their home church, we are putting resources in the hands of brothers and sisters who are taking the Gospel beyond the borders of our culture and into the global church.
Thank you for reading this week’s blog post. I pray it has helped reframe the importance of missions in our day. I also pray it has helped you better experience our Lord’s