A church that says no to missions is not just saying no to men. It is not just a matter of leaving men in their sins. It is saying no to God’s greatest concern: the spreading of His glorious name among the peoples of the world. This is His passionate concern; it must be ours.
Missions and the Glory of God’s Name.
[God] did not come up with a mission for His church as much as He formed a church for His mission… If a church is not engaging in mission, it really has no point in existing.
Gaining by Losing, Zondervan, 2015, p. 152.
We want our facilities to communicate that Jesus’ commission was not to build a gigantic monument to Him made out of bricks and mortar. He commissioned us to reach the world. Buildings are only facilities. Facilities facilitate the mission. They are only tools – means to the end – not the end itself.
Gaining by Losing, Zondervan, 2015, p. 157.
The Great Commission is not a calling for some; it is a mandate for all… When it comes to a calling, we don’t need a voice; we have a verse (Mt. 28:19). It is now our responsibility, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, to evaluate how we are best suited to fulfill that call… We…see every member of our church as a potential missionary to be equipped and mobilized. Our goal is not to send some, or even our best, but to send all into the mission – to our city, across the country, or to the other side of the world.
Gaining by Losing, Zondervan, 2015, p. 80.|Gaining by Losing, Zondervan, 2015, p. 80.
“I am going down into the pit; you hold the ropes,” said Carey the pioneer missionary. They that hold the ropes, and the daring miner that swings away down in the darkness, are one in work, may be one in the motive, and, if they are, shall be one in the reward.
The church which is not a missionary church will be a missing church when Jesus comes.
The church which is not a missionary church will be a missing church when Jesus comes.
There is need of a great revival of spiritual life, of truly fervent devotion to our Lord Jesus, of entire consecration to His service. It is only in a church in which this spirit of revival has at least begun, that there is any hope of radical change in the relation of the majority of our Christian people to mission work.
Factors taken into consideration [when evaluating the potential for missionary support]:
1. The strategic nature of the work.
2. Relationship to “our” church.
3. Amount of money already in hand.
4. Competency (Mark Dever and Paul Alexander).
The Agenda: What to Talk About, taken from The Deliberate Church, © 2005, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, p. 183-184, www.crosswaybooks.org.
No man is truly awake today who has not developed a supra-national horizon to his thinking. No church is anything more than a pathetic pietistic backwater unless it is first and fundamentally and all the time a world missionary church.
Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 182.
The true greatness of any church in not how many it seats but how many it sends!
The best remedy for a sick Church is to put it on a missionary diet.
Missions is not the “ministry of choice” for a few hyperactive Christians in the church. Missions is the purpose of the church.
