To Whom Does the Great Commission Belong?
Posted in: Go
Churches are moving to the front line of global missions. They want more than simply recommending missionary candidates and sending offerings to mission agencies.
I am not implying that churches are pulling away from endorsing “traditional” missionary career paths or supporting “traditional” mission-sending agencies. As far as I know, most of the mission boards and agencies with which we have all become familiar are alive, well, and still growing. But churches are adding to “traditional” mission involvement and leaning into the front line of missions themselves.
At the heart of front line mission involvement is churches’ belief that the Great Commission belongs to them. Among other important roles, God established the local congregation and tasked each group with the responsibility of preaching the Gospel beginning in Jerusalem and always going each time further with the message until there ultimately is nowhere further to go.
From a practical perspective, many churches have followed God’s leadership not so much by a Spirit-led expansion of their geographical reach as enlargement of their responsibility to take the Gospel to the unreached peoples of the world. Geographically, Christians have gone all the way to the other side of the globe and back again many times. There is no point that is physically further to go on Earth than has already been traveled. However, peoples still exist who live cut-off from the Gospel due to linguistic, social, or political barriers. Challenged by God to take the message to every people and every person, churches have followed God’s leadership to “adopt” or “target” a specific people group or geographic area.
Worldwide evangelism efforts by local churches have resulted from different beginnings. Numerous churches began their global reach by assisting the ministries of overseas missionaries and the strategies of mission agencies. In time, those churches found themselves more closely connected to the peoples they went to reach and to whom they went to minister. As missionaries moved and agency strategies changed, the relationships between churches and these overseas locations remained. Other churches recognized the necessity to involve every church and every Christian in order to reach all unreached people groups on the globe. They quickly determined to discover how their local church could be best used by understanding the unique abilities, connections and passions of their congregation.
Regardless of the process God has brought a church through, these missional churches share the belief that they have a direct responsibility to evangelize the lost even to the utmost parts of the Earth. The commitment for these churches goes beyond a short-term mission project or even long-term giving and praying. God’s call on these churches extends to long-term, hands-on commitment and responsibility.
What often results – if not what ultimately always results – from a church’s long-term commitment to global evangelization, is God’s call for individuals and families within the local church to invest themselves by living overseas, acquiring an increased effectiveness in cross-cultural ministry. As God calls these church members to go and stay overseas long-term the church discovers their call to send and support. The next question is, “How does a local church send its own long-term missionaries?”
Everyone understands that sending an overseas missionary long-term requires something more complex than they have tried to accomplish so far. Challenges include:
• assessment of the candidate and the ministry before being sent
• logistics, intercultural adjustment, accountability, and support while someone works overseas
• expectations, debriefing, and US logistics upon return from the field
WorldconneX Front Line Services is designed to provide churches with assistance in every phase of their long-term sending. Our services are custom designed for every church’s unique situation. WorldconneX Front Line Services can help churches send long-term by answering a question, pointing the church to where they can find what is needed, or designing a partnership with a church to “manage” the administrative details of sending while the church handles the details of its missionary’s ministry and support.
As an expansion of our Front Line Services, WorldconneX has established a church-sending mission fund. Designed to help support long-term mission workers, this fund embraces four guiding principles:
• church-based accountability
• donor directed funds
• financial accountability
• church-driven communication
Through this fund, our desire is to match churches that are ready to send missionaries with churches who want to help support those missionaries and ministries. WorldconneX doesn’t deploy missionaries itself, but serves as a broker. We help put the needs of sending churches together with the resources of supporting churches. WorldconneX’ church-sending mission fund offers the best possible balance between autonomy and collaboration for churches that want to invest in missions.
by Walter Justl
Front Line Services Leader