World Missions

The role of the Missionary in World Missions

Even though the words mission, missions and missionary are not in the Bible, the concepts of world missions are there for each. The word missionary comes from the Latin “missio” meaning to “send”. The linguistic equivalent of the Greek apostolos is “sent ones”. A noun translated “apostles”, “messengers’, or sent, 80 times and verb translated as sent, send, sent forth, sent away, etc. 138 times. The word apostle comes from 2 Greek words being put together. One means “from” and the other means “to send”.

A missionary is not someone who goes, it’s someone who is sent on a mission (Matthew 10:1-2). The missionary is someone completing God’s mission in his own church, then sent out to reproduce that church among other people. This is what is referred to as missionary work.

The missionary cannot stop with winning people to Christ and establishing a church. That alone is not fulfilling the Great Commission. The ultimate goal is to establish a church and disciple the believers. Even though the country may not allow it, God’s plan has never changed and we must never loose sight of that. It may take several generations for a church to be established. You may never live to see it, but never loose sight of God’s plan.

The efficient missionary must know the language and culture well and be sensitive to the differences. Recognizing and identifying the differences between peoples is to proclaim the Gospel more effectively. Don’t change the doctrine, what you believe about the Bible, Paul didn’t but he changed his culture. The missionary must be sensitive to the different people groups. Paul became all things to all men that he might save some. The missionaries job is to reach them, changing the things culturally that need to change in order to more effectively reach them. Lay people who convert to Christianity must be mobilized so Christianity is not seen as a “foreign religion”.

If the missionary does not have the proper Biblical training in the scriptures and ministry, he will make costly mistakes and will hinder the work.

The purpose of global missions and Christian missionaries is the Great Commission. The message is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The power is the Holy Spirit and the vehicle is the church. If the church is to accomplish God’s mission in the world for its day, every Christian must be a world Christian with the focus on the mission of the Great Commission. The personal consequences for the believer in denying the mission are devastating.

You will find yourself sitting on the bench while you could be in there playing the game. Missions is the cutting edge of excitement in the Christian life. Being left out means a dull existence as a child of God. It is less than God’s best for you.

1. You will lose authenticity as a Christian. You say that Jesus is your Lord, but yet you will be failing to obey Him at a crucial point. It’s hypocrisy.

2. You will be poorly prepared for the judgment day when what we have done here on earth will be tested by fire and only the gold, silver and precious stones will survive (1 Cor 3:12-15). Jesus will not say to you “well done thou good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

It is the churches responsibility. It should be the emphasis of everything the church does. Yet many churches are more into building numbers and programs instead of building lives. The consequences of this is a lack of true disciples following the Lord Jesus Christ. A lack of disciples produces a lack in the mission.

The life of a missionary program in a local church depends largely upon the leadership. Someone has to have the interest, the vision, the initiative to inaugurate a program, plus the persistence to carry it through. The pastor should be that leader.” Harold Cook

If the leaders in the church do not have their focus on the mission, the people won’t either. If there is silence on missions from the pulpit it will be difficult to stimulate missions interest or missionary support in the pew. Unfortunately, I believe this is common place today. The following missionary statistics reveal why:

* Annual church embezzlements in this country exceed the entire cost of all foreign missions worldwide!

Church leaders embezzle more money each year than spent on missions worldwide. Churches spend more money on annual audits of churches and missions organizations and missions agencies than all their workers in the non-Christian world. What does that say about our priorities?

* World population has reached the 6 billion mark. Today there are over 400 million evangelical Christians in the world. That is still less than 7% of the world population. Less than a quarter (22%) of those evangelical Christians are here in North America. Although the church of Jesus Christ is increasingly becoming non-Western, most of the 2/3rds world peoples are not now effectively being reached for Christ. The estimate today is that there are probably at least 3 billion people who are not being reached for Christ. There is a need for international missions.

* 818 un-evangelized ethno linguistic people groups in the world have never been targeted by any Christian missionary organization.

* 40% of churches entire global foreign missions resources are deployed to just 10 countries that are already over-saturated with the gospel. Many of whom have more as many or more born again believers in their country than we do in America. To the tune that 40% of all missionary resources are deployed that way.

* There are 124 million new souls each year. The 4000 known Christian mission agencies baptized only 4 million new people a year.

* When adding in America more than 70% of Christian effort in ministry is directed at people already professing to be Christians.

* Less than 5% of world missions resources for Christ are used to reach those who have never heard. The rest is used for ourselves.

* 61% of the world’s people are Asian. 99% of the unevangelized live outside of the U.S. and Canada. 91% of foreign missionaries minister to professing Christians.

* 9 out of 10 Christian missionary workers are ministering to the one-tenth of the world which is most evangelized while only one out of ten workers are thinly spread through the nine-tenths of the world which has the greatest need!

* Half the world has still never had a legitimate chance to accept or reject Christ as Saviour. Over 95% of missionaries work among countries that have already been evangelized. There are plenty of missionary opportunities among people who have never heard.

* Dr. Oswald J. Smith, former pastor of the Peoples Church in Toronto, Canada, when he was still alive said “Why should anyone hear the gospel twice before everyone has heard the gospel once?

The church as a whole only deploys 5% of our resources to do it. We spend our time reaching people who are like us. We need to bridge the culture gap to reach people who are not like us. Personnel resources should also be considered since less Americans lack interest in becoming a missionary.

Today there are more missionaries coming out of the 2/3rds world than the U.S., England and Canada combined! Where has the church failed in the mission? God forbid that we would come face to face with people in judgment who ask why didn’t you tell me?

When the church understands the role of the Missionary in world missions, the Christian church and each individual missionary will be more effective in it’s purpose of fulfilling the Great Commission.

Read more:

• Great Commission
• Church Missions
• Missionary Church
• Holy Spirit in Missions

Posted: 12|24|09 at 1:42 am. Filed under: Christian Missions.
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