Missions in Action
You cannot take a picture of the mission of the church, unless it is a moving picture. Missions must always be in action.
Christians are to worship God, witness to His Gospel of salvation, serve the needs of hurting people, bring comfort to broken hearts, release to the captives and hope to the despairing. We are to help His Kingdom come and His will be done until He returns in power.
The primary task for us is to fulfill the mission of God in Word, deed and Spirit, and what He made primary, we dare not make secondary.
Our primary task is not to educate people, heal them physically or psychologically, nor make them neither happy nor even good. These are things that accompany salvation in its fullest sense, but our mission is to help people into the right relationship with God and others.
The mission of God includes the proclamation of the Word of salvation, the deeds of grace empowered by the Spirit of God. In the Prayer of Christ recorded in John 17, Jesus prays for His Apostles and all those who will believe “in me through their word”. His commission is “as you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (John 17: 18-21). Basically physical needs – food, drink, shelter –have a priority because hungry people do not have ears to hear.
When I was teenager I was challenged to financially support overseas missions, home missions, inner-city missions, rescue missions, Aboriginal missions, denominational missions, inter-denominational missions until I realised there were many human organizations, but God had only one mission. Missions are the agencies God uses to fulfill His mission.
How do you decide which to support among the multitude of worthy organizations? Choose one whose work appeals to you, that meets a real human need, that does not duplicate what others are doing in the same area, that has a transparency of operation, and an accountability in management, that sends every donor audited annual financial reports of their whole work, that uses the gifts of volunteers, that has low-cost overheads, which will pledge at least 80% of their income gets to the people they seek to help, that give you a regular update on their progress and prayer needs.
As your financial commitment goes, your heart will follow. Give, but also regularly pray, and be prepared to go yourself, for either a visit or for service.
“There is no other Church, than the Church that is sent into the world, and there is no other mission, than that of the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus is chosen for the service of bearing the message of salvation to the entire world.
She is to perform for the world the service of being a witness to the Kingdom of God, which has come and is coming in Jesus Christ. It is impossible to separate the Church from mission. The Church is only the Church when it is the Church in mission.”
-from “Leaving A Legacy” Gordon Moyes. Chapter 1 Evangelist.
REV HON DR GORDON MOYES AC MLC