How To Have A Mission-Hearted Church In A Mission-Minded World 1
Posted by wagardner - 24/03/08 at 04:03:33 amI found the following article by Greg Locke on an old blog that I think he must have just let lie stagnant but it is good and I wanted to bring it to light again. I will share it with you over the next few days. Why don’t you comment on what you learn from this. I would love to hear what you think.
My Friend, there really is a difference between someone who is mission-minded and someone who is mission-hearted. Far too often in our society churches proclaim to love missions and pretend to play an active part in financing the Great Commission.But as the old timers used to say, “The proof is in the pudding.” If one were to take a look at the budget and the books, they would find a great inconsistency of character. While on one hand churches say they truly support missions, they are forevermore spending overwhelmingly more on themselves than they actually give to the Lord’s work of missions. They may well call themselves a local church with a “mind” for missions. But they most certainly cannot say that they have a “heart” for missions. Jesus said in Mathew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there will your HEART be also.” It works on a personal as well as a collective level. Whatever a church spends the most of its resources on, is exactly what it loves and emphasizes the most. For many, that would be buildings, bills, banquets and bulletins. While all of these are certainly expenses, and we should make sure everything is First Class for our Lord, they are only a means to an end of getting the Gospel around the world. May we as God’s people never lose sight of the fact that the mission of the local church is local church missions. The following statements are twenty-one simple ways to make a local church mission program absolutely explode and move forward in our race to reach others for Christ. All of the points will begin with the letter “E” to provide uniformity and easy remembrance.
EMPHASIZE MISSIONS OFTEN. There are many ways to accomplish this task. Bringing in missionaries to speak and share their burden is the most effective. Indeed you have to be selective because of the great volume of missionaries available, but bringing them before the people on a regular basis will give the congregation a sense of burden and passion for others. Mention missions often in announcements and certainly in the bulletin. A good idea is too have missions’ pictures in the bulletin or on the wall if you use announcement screens. People will emphasize whatever their Pastor emphasizes. They will not be enthusiastic about missions if the Pastor isn’t. Because missions primarily deals with money, it must be dealt with biblically and regularly. Find imaginative ways to emphasize missions. It is the life blood of any thriving church. As Oswald Smith once said, “If you have a sick church, put it on a missionary diet.”
EXPOSE THE CONGREGATION TO THE FIELD. There is absolutely NO better way to give a church a heart for missions than to actually take them there. A slide show, a tearful story and a few missionary prayer cards will only go so far and only do so much. However, when people can see for themselves. When they can eat the food, smell the smell and experience involvement with the people, that is what will get the hook in their mouth. Any church of any size can save up and raise the money necessary to get their people on the field. It ought to be a staff requirement in every local church to go on a mission’s trip with the Pastor and see firsthand what the Lord is doing around the world.
EXTRAVAGANTLY GIVE TO MISSIONS AS A CHURCH. You will notice that I did not say to tip missions or just make it a simple line item in the budget. We should train folks to go over and above the Lord’s tithe and amazingly give to the work of the Lord. A church should be willing to give great volumes of its own income to missionary causes and let the people know publicly and dogmatically that it should be done that way. A church cannot proclaim to be a true New Testament church unless it is extravagant in the way it handles the giving away of financial resources. In the Book of Acts, they even sold their homes to meet the needs of others. Many hide behind the old cliché, “Well, there is a fine line between faith and foolishness.” I for one believe that the line is so fine, it is actually non-existent. A church could never over give or even come close to giving too much money away to missions. I can promise you that at the Judgment Seat of Christ, we will not fret over having given too much. But many will be greatly rebuked for having given far too little. At least one Sunday a year, and preferably much more often, a church should give its entire Sunday offerings to missions. I mean every tithe, every check, all the cash and change and it should all go to a missions work. We don’t think that way because it is against nature. But it is most assuredly not against the Word of God. If a church cannot operate on faith, then it shouldn’t operate at all!
Vision Baptist Church is a Mission’s Church
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