Mission Minded – Part 1
I am going to write a series of articles for the Online Bible Institute about the importance of being mission minded. What I mean by being mission minded is that all of us are to be a people of mission. We all have a purpose in the Kingdom of God. We have tasks that we are specifically called to and created for by God. The mission statement that I live by is simple, “One More”. One more lost child back to Dad. One more in to the Kingdom of God. One More. In writing about being mission minded I want to be careful to not in any way make it sound like there is no difference between being mission minded and being a missionary in the traditional sense of the term. A ‘missionary’ in the traditional sense is someone who crosses geographical boundaries to obey the calling and leading of the Lord in their lives. This is an extremely important function in the Kingdom of God as there is a need for people to go and preach the gospel to people in places that have not heard the Good News of Jesus. There is also a need for believers to engage with people in the communities they live in. As believers we need to be willing to reach out in our communities, often crossing cultural boundaries, to impact people with the Gospel. This is the idea I will be writing about in being mission minded. There are some things we can learn from people on the mission field to help us as we learn to be mission minded. I was reading an article recently that was written by a missionary who mentioned seven things that they wished they had known before going on the mission field. Click here if you are not seeing the list.
1. A country can be diverse.
2. When arriving on a mission field, you are entering into a fierce spiritual battle.
3. Foreigners are not always welcome.
4. Be humble.
5. The other side of number 4 is that it is also a mistake to go “too native.”
6. You need to accept that you can’t always fix people or churches.
7. Finally, you will miss home!
We will look at these seven things and more in the days ahead and see how they impact our thoughts of being mission minded.
