A missionary is a God chosen person who spreads the word of God across the world. The mission entails sharing the gospel as driven by passion, vision, and focuses on an embodiment with Christ. Missionaries are called by God as the source of their inspiration, controlled by the command of Christ and not the needs of people they serve. Missionaries are called not for the elevation of the people they take the mission to but the quest to retain true discipleship of Christ, as noted in Mathew 28:19 (New N.I.V, 2011).The genuine call of God into ministry is, however, influenced by a few factors such as maturity compelling one to serve for the benefit of others without the personal benefit being an issue of concern. Missionaries are consumed with the urge to portray their gratitude for Christ by passionately winding up the task that Christ apportioned to man- building and expanding his church. Utilizing and recognition of spiritual gifts harbored by each individual determines their suitability for the call into missionary and the participation of God’s sovereign work in the world. Heeding to the call of God into the missionary work is obeying and responding to faith put into man through affirmation by the almighty, his desire that man uses his life to serve him.
The role of women can be considered as tent-making because as a gender, they have proven to be spiritually dedicated working per the bible. Women missionaries consider the opportunity as a golden chance to serve God. With many of them working oversees, their sole intention has been discipleship and spreading the gospel of Christ. They are thus called to the pastorate and Christian service of a full-time basis. Using vocational ministry, women mobilize non-believers into turning to Christ. Notably, in many world religions, women are permitted to do whatever God calls them to do in missionary work, provided they are cautious about handling cultural issues in some communities they serve and carefully examining safety issues so that they do not encounter barriers while fulfilling their call. Numerically, today’s world population has more women than men and hence are likely to minister and attend missions even more than men.
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Presently, approximately 29% of the world is only believed to be Christ-followers, with some being just religious adherents. The latter are people who can access the gospel but have not embraced it due to numerous reasons. This statistics indicate that typical Christianity missionary is changing. Evangelicalism has also experienced a lax, making it less tangible. For instance, social projects are being handed to the discerning population, lesser translated bibles are available, and also the lesser conversion of the non-believer to Christianity. The reasons are because missionary work may be facing a greater threat of the new generation that has redefined missionary work, demanding that it be liberalized. Therefore, the significantly dwindling number of missionaries carries a stigma tag, of individuals who want you to believe what you don’t want to. Therefore, serving with a purpose in Christian missionary and the wish to do good in the world is being challenged as the primary goal of missionaries.
Crossing cultures comes into play when taking gospel to other nations become crucial, requiring interactions with others. Firstly, a missionary needs to understand their own culture so that they can learn about the cultures they are entering for the successful articulation of understandable gospel. I believe that it is contextualization that makes it possible to communicate gospel that has a sensible context. By recognizing the cultural practices of the new culture, an awareness of the cultures to be entered is cultivated and thus articulating the foundation gospel message becomes feasible. Contextualization becomes synonymous with language learning so that bridges and not barriers are created and for the gospel message to remain central and very clear. I also believe that contextualization is an opportunity of celebrating the beautiful God’s creation because through learning other people’s way of life different from own, a new language for communication is learned. It is a chance of stepping out of the normal and getting into some else’s way of life.
Crossing culture allows missionaries to participate in what God is doing in other cultures and can thus adapt to ii for the sake of practical helpfulness using Jesus as the contextualization model. Notably, even God sent Jesus to become a Jew. He spent over three decades as part of the Jewish culture, assuming a familial role and working before his ministerial work began. When missionaries enter into a new culture, they should start with observing and imitating behavior. In itself, stepping out of their own norms is a sign of respect for other peoples’ culture. As such, they are likely to receive the gospel of Christ warmly. After all, transcending culture and context is what gospel does thus cross-cultural missionaries can also adopt a culture
The role of the local church in mission is to raise up, train, send, and support missions globally, in the small capacity given to them. While it’s common to make distinctions between local church and missions, they all serve the same purpose of staying in missionary. Local churches pursuing missions are healthy and not stagnant. Reaching the world’s church of Christ is supposed to be done from the local level by having the churches cultivate an atmosphere that promote the love of God for the local and global church.
While local churches are primarily influenced by the pastor and his fellow leadership, they lead the charge in all areas maximizing the efforts of having the local church’s efforts of reaching the world for Christ. In ministry, local churches embrace the philosophy of carrying the mission of the church by providing the minister with vision. In the New Testament, over 90% of the references are to the local churches because they are valuable organs in the life and ministry of Christ. Local churches are mandated to reach the world chiefly via individual believers. The churches glorify, evangelize, and worship God and reach the world with the gospel. Still, the local community is granted a chance to seek God’s desire and to have all the local people know him, by having their actions behavior and inner self to express the passion for Christ. The church is also charged with fulfilling its role of empowering devoted Christians in preparation for missionary work of transforming lives (winter, Hawthorne, & Dorr, 2014). Therefore, local believers synergistically eventually fulfill the task of reaching the world, locally for Christ. On a higher notch, the local church may support overseas missions, not be in the form of prayer only but also finances just like believers in the bible who sold properties and possessions and shared with all that were in need.
Mission sending agencies are organizations whose work is mobilizing missionaries all over the world while partnering with local churches when missionaries are to be sent. The agencies are biblical because regard to being church structures; they only offer a framework for members to worship, deepen their faith, and witness God. The agencies are constituted by evangelism agents, who are believers and share the gospel wherever they are sent. Mission agencies may be playing the role of an employer, clearinghouse, ministry accountability, and guides the ministry. Due to the rapid development of the world in missionary involvement, agencies have become vital organs as a missionary society. The enormity of the tasks the church is facing is distinctively eased by agencies significantly playing the role of spreading the gospel and partnering with churches on the ground.
The priorities I see for missions today include God’s glory, expanding the body of Christ, and extending the kingdom of God. Missions were born in God’s heart because his is reaching out to a diverged lost humanity. Salvation comes from Christ himself, and hence it is what missions pursue and not own goals. It is also the goal of missions to expand God’s people followership through the communities of faith. Missions grow the church by continually transforming communities to follow Christ. Evangelism is meant to have a multiplier effect, where one convert reaches out to others, multiple times especially those who have never heard the gospel of Christ at all. Thus, it should also be a priority for the mission to get to the unreached people who do not have access to the Gospel of Christ and whose indigenous churches do not impact them. As his disciples, Christ charged us with the responsibility of reaching all that need his gospel so that they can join in his table, worship, and glorify him too. Therefore, missions should focus on transforming the lives of the communities who are unreached missionaries. We are called to show numerous good efforts, and that means it is crucial to living beyond the gospel .it is the wish of God that not a single creation of his perishes, but repents. Tragically, 39.5% of the global population does not have access to gospel or a culture-impacting church. Such people only have us, as missionaries to save their souls by delivering the most incredible needed gospel. By extending the kingdom of God, missions are obeying God’s commission and shows that his glory is prioritized. Through earnest and continued prayer, the Holy Spirit empowers missionaries to be the vessels for his glory.
I will personally get involved in mission by praying that God keeps me out as his worker for harvest and I be sending a monthly pledge to support the missionary work in my local church. I will step out of my comfort zone and expand my ownership in my local church, assisting the leaders in developing goals and setting expectations for my local church body. I will always ask if the missionaries have special needs so that I can help whenever possible. Since my church has a mission program, I will be actively involved and have some tasks designated to me to contribute to the missionary directly. Accompanying the missionaries on short-time trips will also be my priority so that I can get a better understanding of their needs and also offer assistance. I will do so because God commanded man to go and make disciples and thus am ready to get involved in his plan of taking the gospel to all people. Markedly, my local church also has church mission pastors working overseas, who I can contact regarding how they do their missions. It will be another opportunity for me to grow and learn through their interaction as well as learning the programs they are involved in. By the end of these all, my personality will be transformed and will have a broader perspective, where I will no longer focus on myself, but on others in the kingdom of God. I am ready to be to reach beyond my boundaries and be positioned in a place where God can use me, at every level. The point of it all is that God will be glorified by my missionary involvement as I will do it as significantly as I can while serving the best interest of my local church.
Missionary work requires me to make lifestyle adjustments so that I can experience success in an unfamiliar world. It is a task that will make me shed my old beliefs, friends, and even my family. The way I dress, talk, and conform to routines will change. Specifically, I will be psychologically prepared to discover the unexpected by exercising emotional resilience to help me in navigating my daily mission routines. I will take each step at a time so that I can develop and increase my desire to serve. After shedding the old me, I will spend more time reading the word of God so that the relationship with my heavenly father is strengthened. The schedules to run my life will be planned by me to reflect the mission activities to be executed. There will be no more aimless hobbies with friends, no unnecessary expenses, and no idle time. I will live for God.
I envisage situation where a big percentage of my time will be spent on reading my patriarchal blessing, listening to uplifting music recitation of prayer. To avoid surprises, I will also expect the unknown. Missions are unique experiences from person to person, and things must not always turn out as expected. Therefore, a re-examination of my expectations will open me up to change and make me receptive. The lifestyle adjustments will mold my life into a wholly sacrificial one, having God to direct my life. I’m hoping to take gospel even to the third world countries where I may not have the luxuries I am enjoying today. As such, all the changes that I will make will assist in the mission work of reaching the diverse world population as I change the mindsets, traditions, beliefs, and lifestyles of discerning mankind. Turning all the people, I encounter to follow Christ, when at home and away will be the utmost goal. When at home, I will teach families in my neighborhood how to pray, work, and help missions so that the young generation can grow up having an “all in” heart for missionary work. To this cause, I will develop a scheduled session for meeting the students when schools are closed with the hope that their parents will join in, therefore prioritizing missions in their homes, as they deepen their love for God. These changes will be the begging of my onset of a journey with God.
References
New, I. V. (2011). Niv popular hardback bible .
Winter, R. D., Hawthorne, S. C., & Dorr, D. R. (2014). Perspectives on the world christian movement: A reader . Pasadena: William Carey Library.
