Things I've been thinking about:
1. I hear all the time, "The Bible commands us to go". Well, who specifically was Jesus commanding to go? His disciples. What did he command them to go do? In Matthew, it says He commanded them to go teach all nations, to observe the things He commanded and to *baptize* them. In Mark, He commanded them to go into all the world and preach the gospel to everyone and baptize them. It also says those who believe will show these signs: they will cast out demons, speak in tongues and heal the sick. In Luke, He says to preach the repentance and remission of sins.
So, if we use the great commission of the disciples and say "We have to go!", then we have to go tell people the whole truth, not just that God loves them, but that they're filthy sinners who need to repent and have they're sins forgiven. Not just building them a school and hoping they will somehow come to the conclusion that they need to repent and turn to Jesus. Then we have to baptize them. I never hear about baptisms on mission trips. My uncle is a pastor and long term missionary in Portugal (they've lived there since before I was born) and they baptize new believers, but that's the only time I hear of them. And I hear a lot of stories about mission trips but I never hear about someone accepting Christ and then immediately casting out demons.
Has the whole world been reached with the gospel? No. So, either Jesus was only talking about the "known" world at the time or we are meant to carry out the work they started. I'm guessing the latter because we know Jesus died for all and wants all to be saved. The disciples only knew about their little part of the world and didn't travel very far on their mission trips (not by today's standards). They were the only ones who knew the gospel and if they didn't spread it, it would die with them. They had to start where they were and go further and further until they reached everyone they could.
So, it seems what we need is brave, mature Christians to go to the remote, completely unreached places to spread the gospel. That's where the focus should be. Shift the focus from the places who have already been reached and focus more on the unreached. The whole purpose is to spread the gospel, not build buildings or get a good feeling or even have a life changing experience. If you're a Christian you've already had a life changing experience and your heart is already changed/changing. Paul and Peter didn't go on mission trips to have a life changing "experience". They went to preach the gospel and get people saved. They were mature, devout men. Not rebellious or complacent teenagers who needed a wake up call. Is it responsible use of resources to send someone who is not spiritually mature and prepared to do something as serious and important as preach the gospel? There is at least one example in Acts of someone who they basically had to tell to shut their mouth and educate him because he was was not educated enough on the gospel to be preaching it. Are we sending out kids, hoping to change them, and not taking the best interests of the people they're going to into account? I have wanted to go with my ds mainly because I thought it would be good for HIM to see how other people are living. How selfish of me. It's not about that, but about winning souls. There are other ways to teach compassion: visiting soup kitchens, elderly people, poor people, etc. in our area. And if I really want him to see other cultures first hand, fine, lets take a trip someday if we can afford it. But lets not use church resources and call it a mission trip, unless the main "mission" is the gospel.
2. Another thing I've been thinking about is how we go to these places and think theses people are so bad off because they're not living by America's standards. We had a girl return from Uganda this week and watched a slideshow of pictures that I realized afterwards were supposed to show how "poverty stricken" they were. I didn't see anything wrong with the pictures. Sure it didn't look like America, is that what we want it to look like? Do we want them to have nice big expensive houses and cars and credit cards and debt like we have? Some people are legitimately poverty stricken and to me that means either starving or disease ridden. The people in the pictures looked happy, were clothed, were healthy looking, had food to eat, had shelter. My pastor said the notebooks they write in look like old newspapers. SO? Their notebooks don't look like ours, they aren't up to our standards? So what? What about their souls. Not to sound critical of my church. I know their hearts are in the right place. But I think America's churches as a whole have started focusing more on what we think needs to be done in these places, instead of the gospel, and turned missions into humanitarian missions. Anyone can do those, and they do! I hear about a mission trip to go build this or that, to do this or that. Biblical missions is spreading the message of repentance of sins and baptizing new believers and having them carry on the work in their area. Period. While there, should we help with immediate needs? Of course. The disciples healed people on their mission trips and took care of immediate needs. But you don't see them saying, "We need to go to Corinth and build a school and if we can tell a few people that Jesus loves them, great!" I'm not saying all missionaries or mission trips are like this, but a lot are.
In some places, it's illegal to preach the gospel. In some places it's illegal to preach the gospel unless people ask you about it. So? What does Jesus say? Preach the gospel! Who should we obey? What would Paul and the other disciples who were jailed, beaten, and martyred say if they were here right now? Would they say, "What are you doing? Get out there and preach the gospel! Stop hiding it behind projects, stop watering it down, and stop worrying about man's laws that go against God's laws. So what if you're thrown in jail or killed? So were we. Didn't Jesus say He would be with you?" But if we do that, we might not return to our church and our family. Is God still reaching people even with our discreet gospel preaching? Yes. Am I willing to go be killed and leave my children motherless? No, and I don't think a woman with children should do that.
And we need to stop doing things for people that either don't need to be done or that they could do for themselves! Are these people happy with their houses, their food, their schools, their notebooks, etc? (If not, maybe they're more like Americans than we think) Do we forget that they don't know what America looks like and they're probably not sitting around grumbling, going "Gee, this house is too small. I wish I had a two story with a garden tub." or "Man, I'm tired of this rice. I could really go for a Big Mac right now." Different cultures have different ways of living and different resources. They're going to look different and to us, probably poor. We would think the Israelites were poor. They lived in tents, caves, houses made out of mud/brick. Indians lived in Teepees. Deep remote jungle people don't even wear clothes, nor do they want them and they live in little stick huts. People use the resources they have, that God has given them, and don't need us coming along saying, "This is completely unacceptable. You need to do it this way. How can you live like this?" What they need is the gospel!
3. One glaringly obvious problem flies in the face of the belief that every single Christian must travel overseas to spread the gospel. If "Go into all the world..." applies to every single Christian (as many pastors and books are now saying), what about those new converts that we reach on our mission trip. Are they then supposed to turn around and leave their country to go preach the gospel elsewhere? They're a Christian, right? What if they own nothing but the clothes on their back? Maybe they mean every single AMERICAN Christian? It's just silly to take something that was said to a certain group of people and apply it to everyone. The apostles obviously had the message to preach and the means to travel. If not, the gospel would have died. America is a privileged nation (maybe not for long) and God has used America to send out so many missionaries and reach so many people. But making a mom feel guilty for staying home with her kids or a disabled person feel guilty or a person who has other commitments and can't go for whatever reason, it's just wrong. I hear people say that we are all called to go overseas and preach the gospel. Really? Where is that in the Bible. Again, people come back to "Go into all the world" which has been so distorted and taken out of context. It means whatever people want it to mean now, so they can bash other Christians who are living their lives for God, but not in a "radical" way.
4. How many people that go on a mission trip, consult God before they go. Do they just say, "Hmmm, I want to go here" or do they go where God sends them? And if God isn't sending them, they shouldn't be going. People forget that God is doing behind the scenes work, too. Preparing places/people for the ones he has chosen to go there. If we're not working with Him, we're working against Him. Paul didn't just get to go wherever He wanted. His heart was in a certain place and he didn't get to go there until he had gone where God wanted him to go and done what God wanted him to do. People think, "As long as I'm doing something, I'm helping" and that's not true.
So, yeah, those are things I've been thinking about. There is more to the command "Go" than us just "going". I don't fully understand those passages. They take studying, prayer, context, etc. and people just throw the words around without really thinking about them. This article and discussion has got me thinking and looking more closely at these verses and the examples of the first mission trips in Acts, which is a good thing.
_________________ Mom to Christian (13), Saphira (10), Xavier (5), and Adrian (2).
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