We worship a God who loved the lost world so much that he gave the most precious thing he had for it (John 3:16)! So logically, if we are living as his children, that same, self-giving love for the lost world will be at our heart, and the heart of the churches we build!
And, we desire to be full of God’s Spirit – and if we are, the number one consequence according to Jesus (Acts 1:8), is a motivation to be his witnesses in our city, our country, across the national boundaries, and right to the ends of the earth. Of all the results of the Spirit’s filling, that according to Jesus is the prime one!
So then: if we’re helping to lead or build a church, how do we help them from the very beginning to grasp the big picture of God’s plan for his world, and find our destinies within it? Some practical suggestions….
1. The first thing needing tackling may well be our church’s vision of God; helping everybody see how the Lord we worship is a missionary God, and so practically caring for the lost and dying world embodies his own deepest heartbeat. This is God’s passion and it must be ours! And so the more we get involved with it, the more we will discover our God-given destiny. Whether we’re called right now to our own country or somewhere else, all of us can be involved into the grand adventure of making disciples from every nation worldwide; because all of us can travel anywhere in the world and help there as we pray! And it’s as we do so that we reflect God’s passionate love for the world…
2. This has implications for our teaching programme. Probably every Jesus-like church should have a good speaker firing up the world vision at least once a year; for example to give an overview of the ‘state of play’ worldwide. (This is important. An individual missionary toiling on some Amazonian tributary or Indian suburb may seem insignificant unless we understand the context of their work: unless we’ve learnt to see that there is a vast area unreached with the gospel, one small sector of which is now being tackled through their activity, and our prayers!) Personnel from missionary agencies can help with such an overview; or, indeed, we can select a team to present one, using resources such as Operation World.
We’re wanting to lift people’s spirits with the realisation that, tough though it sometimes is here, God’s church has grown massively over the last century; she is more numerous in parts of Africa, east Asia, and south America than in cultures like my own that are trying to live without Christ. But then again, not everywhere is like that. Most Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists have never met a real Christian, and as things stand they never will. Having said that, however, we live right now in a brief time of historic opportunity: the cruelties of Isis have alienated many good Muslims from their religion, and we must flood that region right now with prayers and with workers, while the openness is there. And then there’s continental Europe, possibly the most resistant part of the world after the Muslim lands. What is our responsibility if this area, so desperately needy spiritually, is right on our doorstep?
A useful process to remember as we plan a world mission presentation may be: 1 Biblical basis; 2 Vision (listen to some of the great things God is doing!); 3 Challenges (here’s what still needs to be done!) ; 4 Action (here’s how we can do something about it: praying… giving… going… ) Make it as imaginative and colourful as possible. Too many of our members carry an expectation that anything ‘global’ is old-fashioned, colourless, and boring. How to make it stimulating and colourful? What about food and music from other parts of the world?
We should make space also to care and pray about the suffering church abroad, using websites like www.barnabasfund.org . Or occasionally we might tackle the topic of the ‘call’ – how to know God’s will for our particular place in the future?; or stewardship of our money – how best to decide where to deploy what God has entrusted to our care? Another great idea is to set up a task force to run a Sunday night prayer evening devoted to a particular continent (and maybe featuring people, food and music from that continent), with everyone sitting around tables and interspersing input with prayer.
3. Another way to make world vision normal is to include a brief global item each Sunday. One great idea is to use a newspaper as a prayer letter! Someone – pick carefully – can introduce one of the international news items, explain a little about the situation of the gospel there (using Operation World), and then lead in prayer. This can be a great way to help people realise that prayer and world events are part of the same universe! Websites can also help; www.omf.org.uk is great for east Asia, www.latinlink.org for south America, www.arabworldmedia.org for the muslim world. This gives us the essential big picture – `Yes, our prayers here really can affect Greece!` Or a short video: have a look for example at www.vimeo.com/omunitedkingdom or www.youtube.com/user/OMInternational .
Sometimes this can be the `kids’ slot`!- perhaps using the book Window on the World. Another week, someone might lead us in prayer for a missionary we’re supporting, or for a former church member now elsewhere. (Use Google Earth and skype!) Another week someone might share who went on a team during a summer vacation, and present the challenge for the following year.
4. If global concern is a ‘normal’ part of authentically following Jesus, then the question is: how we can include it as a ‘normal’ part of every activity? Is someone deputed to bring a world missions component to each prayer meeting? Can a missionary family (even from another church) join your youth camp or church weekend away? (It may be the first time some of your folk have ever talked to a “missionary”!) In particular, what about homegroups? Can each one adopt some aspect of global involvement for regular prayer? Can they have a creative, globally oriented event twice a year?- eg on east Asia: Chinese food, Chinese music, China prayer issues? And who do we know in our church (or churches we’re close to) who has inspiring stories, that we can field occasionally in different homegroups? Or who grew up in another country and can help our homegroups pray for it? Sending a group e mail to our missionary is a great idea. Have a laptop at homegroup meeting so that everyone can contribute – or send a physical letter on which everyone has written or drawn something. Or, pass around a mike to record something on which everyone can speak. Or better still a Skype phonecall? Where our kids can talk to their kids?
5. The key thing in all this is to avoid world evangelism being relegated to a ghetto for people who happen to have it as a specialist interest. However, it may still be worth having mission prayer groups targeted at particular regions or types of activity (for a year perhaps?), building on enthusiasms people already have. We don’t need to force them into existence, nor keep them going once the enthusiasm’s gone. But where someone has a heart for China, for the Islamic world, for outreach to refugees, let’s build on that vision…
6. How can we show our missionaries love as human beings? Let’s be creative… Maybe you know them well enough to know what hobby magazines they – or their kids – might enjoy being sent. Or when you see a new book they’d enjoy, especially if it’s their birthday! And not just spiritual books (indeed with some countries you would need to be very careful; it wouldn’t be good at all to send someone in the Middle East an exciting new book about muslim evangelism!) But secular books too; funny books; books for their kids. It’s so nice (and easy) if their kids get a card from you on their birthday (and is there a game that can be sent them by post?); or indeed their aging parents. (Just why don’t we do that?) Or if they’re in a place where it’s not easy to download, a new CD of their favourite music, or their kids’? Is there special food from your country you could send them, that will neither perish on the journey nor cause problems at customs? (Marmite?!)
People living outside their own culture tend to be busy, so we want to get prayer news in a way that doesn’t increase their workload. In fact there are ways we can pray without getting information from them at all: just think what’s hard for you, and pray about the same things for them. Having good times with God and his Word, for example; sharing our faith; having a fruitful church life; health and physical safety; friendship and loneliness; singleness; sexual temptation; marriage tensions; parenting; relationships with colleagues; plans for the future – we know how to pray these things for ourselves, and we can be there for them in prayer on exactly the same topics. And for their language learning; for good contacts with unbelievers; for their preaching; for their relations with the nationals in the churches and with fellow-workers; for their children, perhaps, or for good health for elderly relatives at home; for their financial support… Or, for variety, use the prayer topics in Eph 1:15-20, Phil 1:9-11, or Col 1:9-12. Or (if they’re in a country where it’s safe to ask this – ask their agency), send them an e mail in which you ask for one-line prayer requests in eight categories, to use in eight successive weeks. For example on: health issues; adapting to the culture; the children/family; their outreach plans; people they’re discipling; money coming in (and could a couple of homegroups help with this by a fundraising walk or ball?); the missionary’s parents…
And of course, celebrate colourfully (balloons?) when the missionaries are home, and plan an event with them; and have someone arrange for them to tour some of the homegroups…
7. What about ‘twinning’ with a church in another country, sharing ideas and prayer concerns? It’s best to set a specific period – 2-3 years seems to work well. Could some of your homegroups `twin’ with homegroups in your missionary’s church abroad?- link up on Google Earth, Skype, exchange photos, postcards, Instagram… have your kids be in touch with their kids and your youth with their youth?
8. How else can you expose your church members to things that will expand their vision? What world evangelism magazines should you arrange a regular eight copies to give away? Or books, like Matthew Skirton’s (very funny) Missionary, Me?, or Simon Guillebaud’s Dangerously Alive? Take a moment to think strategically: who should you lend them to? If you have a good missionary speaker coming to speak, who are the people you should be inviting to meet them for a meal? Could you send your teens to join the teens from all over Europe who gather at OM’s Teen Street event in Germany each summer, and help them grasp what Europe is really like? Or, who could you prayerfully challenge to learn through joining a summer team abroad (OM’s website has lots of options [see www.uk.om.org], and there are many other great agencies); or, to dig in for a fruitful gap year with a missionary agency?
One exciting trend is the openings for many of us to use our professional skills abroad in a career break. OM, for example, have needed accountants, therapists, IT mentors, teachers, people with skills in publishing or catering, electricians, welders, vehicle maintainers, business developers, health educators… No preparation or language skills needed necessarily, just a heart for Christ!
And what about you yourself? Agencies like OM are keen to make opportunities for church leaders to come or bring a small group to somewhere interesting for 5-7 days, just to taste and see. When the enclosed world (and politics…) of a single church can be a bit stifling (or worse), having a link with somewhere abroad can be deeply refreshing psychologically!
9. Above all, make it a goal for specific prayer that your work will bear fruit in this area; and find a few others to pray with you. As Jesus said, Pray for God to call forth labourers into his harvest! Unless your church is tiny, it’s unlikely that there aren’t some members who should have a future abroad for a few years at least. Challenge your members to a conscious assessment before God of whether his plan for their immediate future lies in a secular job or in fulltime service, and in their own country or elsewhere. After all, if this happens in a way that just two members catch the vision and go to a frontline abroad as a result — then that’s possibly 60 person-years of impact that wouldn’t have happened otherwise!
You can imagine that Satan will discourage and sabotage such efforts if he can! But God is with you. It is he who loved the whole world and gave his only-begotten Son (John 3:16); it is his Spirit who works through us now as His servants to call our church to pray, to give and to go with him in world evangelism. There are many ways for us to do our part imaginatively and creatively (which ones of these might be most relevant for you right now?); but above all it is our loving God who is at work…
(PS If you found this useful, Mike Frisby’s excellent book Reaching the Nations is full of practical resources for churches’ involvement in world mission.)
