Missions: Local and Abroad

I’ve been wrestling for a few weeks now on the topic of missions. As a missionary kid now living in the US, I have often found myself struggling with where I belong in Christian circles when it comes to world missions. I am not obsessed with the ongoing, ever pressing needs of the developing world, I am not one who really feels drawn to return overseas long-term. Yet I do get homesick for the cross-cultural lifestyle, I’ve been strangely blessed with the independent, entrepreneur spirit of missionaries as well as the desirable quality of being adaptable and resourceful—also useful for living overseas. So why has God not directed me back to my childhood lifestyle? It is a question that many MK’s struggle with—I know I am not the only one. As our church has had world-missions on the mind recently, so too I have sought God for clarification and direction for my role in Missions. And this is the conclusion I came to:

Missions is not living overseas. Missions is not learning another language and culture. This I have known for quite some time. But missions is also not just ministry. Missions is a way of life—an attitude, a posture of the heart, an orientation. So often the term gets designated one way or another—either it’s the people going across the globe to bring the Gospel—or its that we’re all missionaries, in whatever context. Both are good associations…but if you take one without the other, you’re losing out on the full meaning of the word. Somehow both concepts need to be aligned, combined to build a beautiful picture of the attitude of our hearts—our whole lives are oriented around the goal of seeing Christ known, exalted and glorified, in whatever context God has put us in.

So what is this life-style, this orientation, this posture of the heart? I’m still working that one out. But I will start by saying it is a lens by which you perceive your life and your circumstances. It is asking the question, “how am I furthering the glory of Christ around me?” It is looking for opportunities to point to Christ’s death as the Final and Complete Atonement, the ultimate solution to all of life’s problems. It means making decisions about how I spend my time and energies, ensuring that my whole life revolves around the name of Christ being magnified (seen as greater than currently perceived—like a telescope). If my life is oriented around this, it does not matter if I live in China or I live in California; God will lead and direct me as He sees best. It’s not about location, it’s about perspective. All that I do should be about the Gospel of Christ becoming more and more known.

I do not want to discredit overseas missions in any way. I know first hand that life as a missionary is difficult and that we living here in the US need to be all the more supportive of our overseas missionaries!

But I also do not want to reserve for only missionaries the lifestyle of sacrifice and evangelism that characterizes world missions. We living Stateside are not let off the hook to care about the fulfillment of the Great Commission; if anything, as Senders, we should care about it all the more, since we're the ones pushing people out the door to do it internationally.

We too have a choice—we are not without suffering, nor are we without opportunity to sacrifice our comfort for the sake of Christ. For those of us being led by God to send and support our globe-trotting missionaries, let’s adopt the perspective that God’s love is much, much bigger than our little community, let’s not forget that the world around us suffers much, much more than we can ever relate to ourselves; let’s keep that global worldview in front of us at all times, not because we’re necessarily being called to go live there, but because we’re being called to see that “God’s love is much bigger than you and me” (Caedmon’s Call, Two Weeks in Africa). I say—put world missions in front of us all the more. For it is too easy to lose sight of the Bigger Picture of what God is doing in this world. Let’s join up with that, wherever we are, in whatever circumstances God has placed you in, living a life of reckless abandonment for the name of the Only One worthy of our worship.