Mission Minded – Part 2

I am writing a series of articles for the Online Bible Institute on being Mission Minded. In the first article I incorporated a list of seven things that missionaries have learned and wanted other missionaries to know. The seven things are: 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! I think that we can apply these same ideas to the ministry that we are all called to in the places where we live. Let’s look at idea number one and talk briefly about a country being diverse. Living in America I would say that this is true. As we are entering another election cycle the tension between political parties and candidates runs high. I am often asked why I don’t publicly express my own political viewpoints. My answer is fairly simple. The moment that I share my political views I potentially lose my opportunity to share with half the population about what I think is really important. I want to spend my life telling people the Good News of Jesus. While I think it is important to have thought out political perspectives and to be a good citizen, it is far more important to do whatever I can to preach and share the Gospel with as many as I can. So to the best of my ability I try to keep my opinions to myself so that I don’t alienate a significant group of people who might have differing and diverse viewpoints.