Discovering Missions Chapter Summary

Subsequently, the church has a mission which is to go into all the nations making disciples, baptizing them, and to teach them to observe the ways of Christ as noted in Matthew 28:19-20. When looking at the differences between the missional model and the attractional model is the missional goes out to win the lost, and the attractional seeks to bring the lost in not focusing the cultural boundaries. Stetzer and Hirsch state, “Missional represents a significant shift in the way we understand the church. As the people of a missionary God, we are entrusted to participate in the world the same way He does—by committing to be His ambassadors.” In retrospect, Hirsch cites that, “The attractional model, which has dominated the church in the West, seeks to reach out to the culture and draw people into the church—what I call outreach and in-grab. But this model only works where no significant cultural shift is required when moving from outside to inside the church.” Both have their uniqueness, however, they are designed to seek and make disciples.

Moreover, God calls us to make disciple. People should be far more important than task and project. Simply running around and get occupied by activities do not mean we are leading people to a deeper relationship with God. Spending quality time with our congregation and our neighbor is a must to build up a missional church. If we do not know how they struggle spiritually in the world, then how can we lead them with gospel wisdom? Gibbs states that the church leaders must have significant life experience in the secular world. We find it very true in our own ministry. Those who can only talk but fail to walk produce more trouble than good to the church. Ministry is disciple making not decision making. The church leaders must earn the trust from the congregation

In David Hesselgrave's book: Planting Churches Cross Culturally, he gives Biblical and practical advice for local and foreign missions. He formerly taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois. While offering good insight, the book is a bit lengthy and the illustrations can be confusing. Nevertheless, it's good for all Christians who are called to evangelize.

If missionaries say that their authority comes from Jesus Christ, they must answer to who Jesus is. Newbigin recognizes Jesus as the Son of God, who is anointed by the Spirit to spread salvation. As his followers, missionaries are implored to do the same. Newbigin then discusses three different aspects of the Christian mission, in which mission acts as a force of faith, love, and hope. In recognizing that mission is faith in action, one recognizes that God has chosen to entrust certain people with the task of sharing the Gospel.

This purposeful elucidation proffered the need for the church to become missionaries within the context of their local community. Rethinking mission and ministry is required in breaking the missional code. Stetzer and Putnam stated that if a church does not regularly examine its culture, it ends up as a culture unto itself (Kindle Location 481). The one thing that appears to be certain in their exposition

Escobar says that “the heart of mission” is the drive to share the good news wit all, to cross every boarder with the gospel. We live in a multicultural world where western Christianity is being confronted by the Christianity of the Southern hemisphere, which is “marked by a culture of poverty, an oral liturgy, narrative preaching, uninhibited emotionalism, maximum participation in prayer and worship, dreams and vision, faith healing, and an intense search for community and belonging.” As a result,

Leadership development is a key factor in the progress of a cluster of churches on the journey from pioneer to participants. I do agree that we have to have a level of being taught how to be a missionary. We go through teaching individuals how to become a ministry, likewise knowing the Words of God is as important to the missionary.

While emphasizing Scripture, Christian tradition, and most important element – the triune God – are the core foundations of mission and spirituality, I now make a connection to the cultural aspects of Christian spirituality. There are two kinds of “mission spirituality,” which exists in each of missionary disciple. Encountering mission spirituality is the way to embrace and practice the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm in community building for working at the margins. Considering the explanations of Gittins, following is my application and connection to the two kinds of mission spirituality.

Good missionaries know that they must contextualize their ministry to their receiving culture. Missionaries seek to present the eternal truth of the gospel in a way that a non-Christian culture can understand and respond to God’s voice. The most obvious form of contextualization (though not always the simplest) happens when a missionary crosses a language barrier to communicate the truth.

Still, Carey pressed on recognizing that “a price must be paid for their success”. However, the reality is that for the missionary today on the foreign field, when persecution, loneliness, despair, frustration, and temptation manifest themselves it can take its toll physically and psychologically. In Luke 14:28, the Lord instructs in the biblical text to count the cost of an endeavor before you undertake it. This not only should be done financially, but emotionally, physically, and psychologically as well. It is recognized that wherever God calls He will give that individual and family what they need holistically to accomplish the task at hand. At the same time, a call to serve is a call to prepare oneself for service and it should be recognized that there are always consequences to our decisions. This preparation time includes not only a seminary education and experience in ministry, but psychological stability is paramount for these missionaries. Many sending agencies have a thorough psychological screening process in place and some do not. Hall & Sweatman (2002) recognize that psychological assessment is only one piece of a larger assessment strategy for the missionary candidate. Along with the psychological issues to be tested are the assessment of doctrinal unity with the sending agency, a unity in the vision of the mission work, and proven leadership just to name a few areas. This same research by Hall & Sweatman (2002) also understood that the

I loved learning about all the different words and phrases used in the missionary world through the readings. I have become so interested in learning about the different people groups and how to help reach the 2.1 billion people. Knowing the words that are being used has already helped me in having better understanding of what I am researching and it hasn’t even been a day. A quote I really liked was from the article Finishing the Task, “All that can and should be done cannot be brought together into a single human plan; yet it calls upon our best planning efforts, creative approaches and all the sacrifice we can muster” (Perspectives 542). Missions is not easy. It definitely isn’t a vacation. It is hard work. Missions requires you to give your all physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We cannot accomplish God’s plan of reaching all ethne without God. His plans are better than our plans. This leads into Patrick Johnstone’s article, Covering the Globe. He speaks about the three challenges we face. First, geographic challenge. He was very encouraging in this reminding his readers of God’s promise that all nations will know Him. Even though we look at the big task and it seems daunting and some places seem to distant, God says, “Even they will hear about Me.” One thing that has been weighing heavy on my heart throughout this class is how we can just sit here and stay and live so comfortably. We can ignore the facts of how many unreached people there are. We can go

This book was written by Lyman E. Reed. “Preparing Missionaries or Intercultural Communication” is a book for missionaries who want to prepare for being a cross-cultural missionary and provides the necessities for adequate preparation of missionaries. One of the clearer imperative for missions was pronounced and is recorded in Matthew 28: 19-20: Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

We believe that the normal way to think about global missions is that missions = discipleship. A lot of people believe that global missions is only about evangelism, but to be effective evangelists, we are to be devoted disciples first. A fully devoted disciple will naturally be an evangelist from the overflow of their hearts and souls as they are grounded in the Word and attuned to the Sprit of God. If you are a disciple, then missions is your DNA and you will live daily on mission with Jesus. It is who you are and how you choose to live: living radically, passionately, sacrificially for a God who wants all to be saved.

Secondly, we are to meet the basic needs of that community and of those around us. These needs may be physical, financial, or spiritual. Most often these needs will be physical at first and the later that opens the door to the spiritual need. The Gospel of Christ is designed to meet all the needs of man. It provides salvation for the soul and requires helping/loving those who are poor or destitute. One of the first tasks for the missionary is to provide a Bible in the native tongue if one isn’t available. This is the sole mission of the parachurch group Wycliffe Translators. Other ministries to the native church will be covered later in more depth. (Kane 297)

3.     The cycle of missionary service can be divided into seven stages: commitment to go to the mission field, general training, field selection, focused training, initial adjustment, long-term missionary service, and reentry to the home culture. In the first step, the missionary is often questioned by peers, family and co-workers about the need to go as far as they do. This can be a difficult and awkward as people who are close do not understand that it is a difficult thing to go through. General training is the next step; it is in this step that people study classes that give the basic foundations for their chosen work that as well as written courses that help them have a better understanding of the bible. The third step is the field selection. It is in this step that the place of missionary work is to be chosen or found, this can be a difficult time for the student as there are so many places to choose from in the world. The fourth step focuses on training. Formal and