Some time ago I read a provocative quote about cross-cultural missions that piqued my curiosity and got me to reading the author's words more carefully. He wrote, “Churches who continuously indoctrinate their people with ‘your mission field is right where you are’ without simultaneously challenging the congregation to follow Christ into cross-cultural missionary service are effectively splashing an ice-bucket challenge on the global, ethnē-centered words of the Great Commission.”
To be honest, my first reaction to these words was negative, and I almost put them aside without any further consideration. The reason I felt this way is because I didn’t read carefully enough his entire statement at first. So, just in case you are about to put away this article before finishing it, let me note that the author of this quote did not deny the necessity of teaching people that the “mission field is right where you are.” What he said is that if we do this without ALSO challenging people “to follow Christ into cross-cultural missionary service” we are “splashing an ice-bucket challenge on the global, ethnē-centered words of the Great Commission.”
What he is trying to help us realize is that the Great Commission is not an either/or proposition when it comes to evangelizing our world. He’s not asking us to forget the mission field where we live. He’s asking us to remember that it’s not the ONLY mission field that needs to be evangelized with the Gospel. He wants us to understand that our responsibility as Christ’s witnesses is both in our own neighborhood (“Jerusalem”), as well as to the “ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8)...and all parts in between.
I think when we say, “Your mission field is right next door” and/or “across the street,” we are saying it with the best of intentions in a sincere effort to motivate people. We want them to see the potential harvest of lost souls that are all around them (at least, that’s my motivation); and let’s be honest, too often we haven’t done a very good job at reaching those within our own sphere of influence. However, the danger in primarily making the mission field about “wherever you happen to be right now” is the potentially crippling effect it can have on the church fulfilling the global call of the Great Commission. Just from my observation as a pastor for more than 30 years, I think we in the American church are dangerously close to turning a worldwide message of hope into a truncated, provincial one.
God’s mission is not just about our present location at this particular moment. It is also about showing the love of Christ through the preaching of the Gospel to every man, woman, boy and girl wherever they may be found on this planet.The responsibility for taking this message to all those people in our own community and the farthest reaches of the earth is that of the church (you and me). We should even be willing to make ourselves available to be that cross-cultural missionary if God so chooses to call us to that specific task. Even if He doesn’t ask us to leave our place of birth to head to a distant land, it is still our responsibility to help others go that have been called by partnering with them to make the global reach of the Gospel a possibility.
In the early days of the New Testament church, the new believers all wanted to stay around Jerusalem. Jesus intervened and broadened their geographic perspective and enabled them to see that the Gospel had to be carried to “Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Yes, it started where they were, but it didn’t end there! They were to be involved both in the process of making disciples at home and abroad as part of the Great Commission of Christ.
I think we have to be careful when talking about Christ’s commission that we don’t stamp out the “burning embers” in local churches for the cause of worldwide missions. Sure, you can “serve Christ anywhere,” “there are lots of people right here that need the Gospel,” and “moving overseas doesn't necessarily make you a missionary.” However, we have to balance our appeal for local outreach with the regular reminder about the global outreach of the Gospel so that we don’t inadvertently dismiss the clarion call given to the church to make disciples among all the nations of the earth (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15).
The fact is that where we cannot go cross-culturally to take Christ’s love, we have to be willing to help those that can go in our stead! We should even encourage our children and grandchildren to make themselves available as God’s instruments to carry His glorious Good News to those that have never heard of Christ and “sit in darkness” (Luke 1:79). Making disciples of Christ from every ethnic group of people throughout the whole world has always been and still is the work of the church!
As we celebrate the work of cross-cultural missions during the month of September, we should make our best effort to hear from the missionary guests each Sunday evening of the month. We need to be reminded that while we are seeking to reach out through our own networks of people God has placed around us, there is a great need for the Gospel where people have little or no opportunity to network with anyone that can bring them the Gospel. Think about that for a moment and then put yourself in their place!
Throughout these coming weeks, we should also be seeking and asking God to show us how we can financially partner with our missionaries through our Faith-Promise missions program to enable our church to continue reaching to the “ends of the earth” with the only message that can truly change people’s lives. Faith-Promise giving has always been the primary way we support cross-cultural ministry and church planting. God has blessed our church through our missionary endeavors, as well as those that have given to missions through our church.
It’s time to make the commission (Matthew 28:19-20) great again in our church, and in each of our lives. It’s time we reached out to those around us while reaching out to others in distant lands...at the same time.
