How To Eat Junk Food and Still Lose Weight
How can you eat junk food and still lose weight?
You can’t! So stop trying.
It is an illusion and a fantasy.
For 2014 let’s give reality a chance.
Now, get up and get going. Life is waiting for you.
Four Things Every Missionary Needs, pt. 2
Photo Credit: Filippo Venturi via Compfight cc
In my previous post I wrote about Paul turning his attention to the harvest fields of Spain and writing to the Roman churches to garner their support for his mission to the ends of the earth. This new field was requiring a new strategy that included a new level of partnership between Paul and the Roman churches (see Romans 1:1-17; 15:8-33).
In seeking this partnership Paul expressed the need for fellowship (Romans 1:9-11; 15:24), mutual ministry (Romans 1:11-15), material support (Romans 15:24), and prayer (Romans 15:30). These are “spiritual nutrients” every missionary needs and these can only be found in the local church.
Consider our need for fellowship.
Apostolic missionaries are on the front lines of the Gospel’s global advancement, generally serving with little or no fellowship like the average church member or minister enjoys. Apostolic missions is pioneering work of plowing, planting, watering, and harvesting. These men and women are serving in the trenches, advancing the scope of the Gospel at great personal cost with few to share the responsibilities, burdens, joys and fellowship. While never alone apostolic mission can still be lonely.
Imagine Paul as he is dictating Romans to Tertius (Romans 16:22). He is tired and weary. His body is worn down from the hardships of travel, ministry, and persecution. He bears in his own body the marks of Jesus Christ (Gal.6:17).
He is in Corinth, a sinful place broken beyond all measure and imagination.
Yet the Gospel burns brightly in him. He longs to begin his next assignment. But first he needs a sabbatical of sorts, a season of rest and restoration brought only through fellowship in the body of Christ.
Frontline ministry takes a toll because all feeding is sacrificial. It drains you in ways you are not aware of: placing demands on every physical, mental, and spiritual resource you possess. Sometimes you just need a season of refreshing rest and restoration. Paul longed for this time with the Romans churches (see Romans 1:8-12; 15:22-24). Fellowship within a supportive, loving, prayerful, and faithful church would restore and renew him before he launched into his next mission. The churches in Rome must have been quite the community of believers.
The fellowship we need restores us. Our hearts, minds, bodies, and emotions get banged around while on the frontlines. The bruises and abrasions need to heal. I vividly remember sitting through a service at Northwest Church in Federal Way, Washington, and the Spirit of God bringing healing and grace to me by being in a church that loves missionaries so much. I could feel my own bruises and abrasions giving way to healing and life.
The fellowship we need renews us. Recently I was at New Horizon Church, the Foursquare Church in Reseda, California. They are so filled with love and faith I left that day renewed for the demanding days ahead of me. I was built up because of their faith.
No matter where we go, now matter how much we do, no matter what our level of ministry responsibility and effectiveness, we will always need the vital nutrient of fellowship that can only be provided by the local church. Today, I am thanking God for the churches who are making a difference around the world by making room for missionaries in their midst.
TO BE CONTINUED….
Subscribe to my blog to get updates delivered straight to your inbox.
Post a comment below about ways you are providing fellowship for missionaries.
Missionaries, post a comment below about how churches have ministered to you by providing restorative and renewing fellowship.
Four Things Every Missionary Needs, part 1
The great missionary was facing a major ministry transition. Paul spent years planting churches in strategic cities throughout the Mediterranean world. His basic strategy would be to find the local synagogue and preach the Good News that the Messiah had come. A handful of Jews and “God-fearing Gentiles” (Gentiles who revered and followed the God of the Jews without themselves becoming Jewish converts) would believe the message preached and a church would be planted.
Now, the winds of change are blowing across the Apostle’s spirit. There is no longer any room for him in these regions. His mission is coming to completion. He needs a new field to proclaim Christ as Sovereign and Savior.
His eyes are cast upon Spain, the final frontier.
Today, we don’t think of Spain as the ends of the earth but in the days of the Roman Empire it was. The Rock of Gibraltar was one of the two Pillars of Hercules that marked the ends of the earth.
Spain was on the edge of the world and its people were on the edge of humanity. They were, after all, barbarians. They were not educated, civilized, and honorable people like the Greco-Romans of the Mediterranean world. These were barbarians, people hardly worth considering. Except to the Apostle Paul. Christ had redeemed for himself people from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue, and surely this included the barbarians of Spain.
It was a new field of questionable worth to those whose mindset and culture had been shaped by the Greco-Roman world.
It would also require a new strategy: there were no synagogues in Spain. This mission would require a new level of partnership with the Roman congregations.
It was this discovery that revolutionized my approach and understanding of Paul’s letter to the Romans: The Book of Romans is a missionary appeal letter unlike any missionary appeal letter I have ever seen.
As a missionary I began readying Romans with “missionary eyes,” looking for clues and insight from this greatest of all missionaries. The synergistic and dynamic relationship that exists between apostolic missions and the local church began to emerge. The Letter to the Romans is Paul’s manifesto on global missions and the mutually necessary relationship between apostolic missions and the local church.
I discovered, for example, four things every missionary needs from the local church: These are fellowship, mutual ministry, material support, and prayer. These are nutrients every missionary needs that can only be found in the local church. Because the missionary is on the field, away from the local church, these “nutrients” must be intentionally pursued and protected. Otherwise, the missionary may fall into the “out of sight, out of mind” trap.
I will unpack this more in my next post. Stay tuned.
TO BE CONTINUED…..
Nations shall come.
God is intimately involved in bringing the nations to himself. He has set the boundaries and the season of all nations for the purpose of his redeeming love: In this the church serves as witness to the Good News of God’s work in Christ. This is “the Gospel:” the Good News that God was in Christ uprighting a world that had fallen over.
Acts 17:26-28
And he (God) made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
As I travel throughout Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and a host of other European nations I see God at work. In most places He is working the night shift, and though the days are dark the Light is coming. I have hope for God has already fashioned the time and boundaries of these nations in order that they might “feel their way to Him”. They may not know Him. They may not see Him. But they feel Him. They feel Him in the grace of life. They feel Him in beauty and mystery. They feel Him for He is not far from each of us. He is the very Substance of life. We bear witness to Christ as the Substance of those things longed for. He is the reality all things outlined as shadow.
We chase shadows but long for the Substance. It is here we “miss the mark.” This is what the Bible word “sin” means, “to miss the mark.” We crave union and intimacy but we miss the mark… We crave joy and bliss but we miss the mark… We long for successful and meaningful lives, relationships, and work, but we miss the mark. Christ has come to remove our missed marks and to give us the abundant life God hardwired us to desire.
“I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”
Joseph Campbell
As missional people we see God already at work and since he is working we work. He has sent therefore we are sent. We are sent at this time and this season to participate in the story of God uprighting a world that has fallen over. We see history is “His story” of moving kings and nation, principalities and powers, things in heaven and things on earth, toward His own purpose: the revelation of His righteousness in up righting the world in Christ.
He has set their time; he has an appointment with them. He has set their boundaries; he is guiding them toward Himself.
Entering nations and people groups with the Gospel requires that we ask,
• What was God’s dream when He formed these people?
• How has He written eternity in their hearts?
• In what ways has God’s creation fallen over here?
• How do we bear faithful witness to God’s uprighting that which has fallen over?
Look around you my friend, lift up your eyes and look. The harvest is ripe. God is at work.
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around, and see; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be carried on the hip. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.” (Isaiah 60:1–5, ESV)
Going Out and Growing Up
It is Biblically inconceivable to think of global missions without the local church. The apostolic mission and the pastoral ministry are complementary to one another, like two wings on the same bird. Never once in Scripture were these to be separated.
True, the “apostolic mission” has a different focus than does the “pastoral ministry.” The “apostolic mission” is focused on going into the world to make disciples and plant churches. The “pastoral ministry” focuses on building up those who have responded to the gospel and now form the church, the body of Christ. This specialization is a kingdom example of the “division of labor,” where each “laborer in the harvest” is assigned specialized tasks to advance kingdom purposes resulting in the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Just as marketing and manufacturing complement one another, apostolic mission and pastoral ministry complement one another.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t always worked out this way. Mission focused ministries sometimes break away from local churches. Other times, local churches become so focused on their assignment they begin to see themselves as the whole, rather than as a part of the Mission of God. Two thousand years of church history demonstrates this again and again.
Perhaps you have known someone who has been part of a “mission” organization or movement who has a very difficult time re-adjusting to life in a local body of believers once they return from the field. You have seen how awkward they are in dealing with the daily grind of local church life: the petty squabbles and pet projects that come with being a family turn to bitter criticism and harsh judgment against the church. Sometimes they never learn to fit. Somewhere along the way they lost the heart and language of the local church.
Or perhaps you have known a pastor who thinks the sun rises and sets on his or her congregation. When the subject of “missions” is brought up, their immediate response is, “this church and this city are our mission!” End of discussion. Sometimes they give a token to mission outreach, generally just enough to keep the mission-minded members from storming the castle with pitchforks, axes, and torches. Compared to how much time, talent, and resources are spent on themselves, their mission partnership is in reality non-existent.
It is what happens when we grow apart: we loose the very gift to one another God intended for us to be. When the pastoral ministry looses its life-giving relationship to the apostolic mission it will move to the dark side of pastoral life. Pastoral life at its best excels in the spiritual care and guidance of a congregation. Pastoral life at its worse is when the pastoral ministry exists only for itself. It is idyllic, peaceful, and comfortable. Unfortunately, it is strolling towards death.
When the “apostolic mission” separates from local church it looses the spiritual nutrients and stability that are only found in the household of God, the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15). Yes, pioneering and planting are exciting cutting edge ministries that require a specific gift mix, but this cannot be separated from the body of Christ. Otherwise, what are we doing? Trying to make disciples who are not connected together as the body of Christ?
There is a better way. Think of the Mission of God as a circle. In the northern hemisphere you have the “apostolic mission” to go into all the world to make disciples and plant churches that plant churches. Let’s call the southern hemisphere the “pastoral ministry.” Here we focus on developing healthy local churches. As these churches mature, they will eventually begin to send out their own missionaries to reproduce the work of God in other places. (Recommend “Disciples of All Nations: Continuous Mission Until He Comes” by John Amstutz.)
When local churches and missionaries grasp the strength and beauty of this synergistic relationship we will enter a new season of fruitfulness in going out and in growing up.
Debbie and I serve as the FMI Global Associate Director for MENACA and Europe. We focus on cultivating disciples, leaders, and church planting movements.
Subscribe to My Podcast
