The book of Romans looms large in articulating the over-all plan of God for salvation and for the ages. This book could be considered the backbone of New Testament theology. Chapter 10 gives the marching orders for what to do with all that theology. The Apostle Paul articulates the driving force in his ministry in Romans 10:10: “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” He had previously indicated: “I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3). Paul had no question about his mandate from God, and he was passionate about his mission, which was clearly the Great Commission.
Further in this same chapter of Romans, we read that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). That is ultimately what we want to see happen and why we send out missionaries. But let’s take a closer look at how that happens. Starting with the end goal in mind (salvation), Paul presents a series of dominos that must fall for this to be achieved.
Romans 10:14-15
Final domino: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?”
Third domino: “And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?”
Second domino: “And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”
First domino: “And how are they to preach unless they are sent?”
The first domino to fall must be “sending.” No one will hear the gospel and be saved unless someone first goes with the message, and those who go must be sent. Ultimately, the rest of the dominos won’t fall unless someone pushes the first domino of “sending.”
The question is… who should knock over the first domino? Who is responsible to start the process?
To answer this question, we must look at another subset of dominos in this process traditionally created by the Western church.
Agencies – the sending entity – decry the decreasing numbers of missionary applicants and look over their shoulder to the colleges and seminaries and ask, “where are the candidates?” The training institutions then blame the church for not sending more students. The local church then looks to the families in the church and ask why they are not producing the next generation of willing workers. Each entity blames the other. So with this in mind, here are three suggestions as to who should be the catalyst in this chain reaction.
The Family
Ultimately, some of the responsibility for the decline of missionary numbers may be placed on the backs of families. They can’t take all the blame since the church, the academy and the agency should all be involved in evangelism and disciple-making but imagine what a difference it would make if the families of the church were mission driven.
My grandfather was a farmer in South Dakota, USA. He immigrated from Sweden as a teenager with a vision for a new life in America and had an appetite for the Great Commission. The church he attended regularly had missionaries stop for a visit and he frequently invited them to come spend several days at the farm. The evenings were spent around the dinner table with those missionaries telling their stories from around the world. It was in that environment that my dad caught the vision for Africa where he would spend the rest of his life.
The family is one of the most potent sources of recruiting for missions but parents must have the same passionate focus as the Apostle Paul for the Great Commission. This is not intuitive. It runs counter to all that we would naturally desire. Who would normally want to send their children and grandkids elsewhere in the world and have empty chairs at the Christmas dinner table? Who would want to potentially put their family in harm’s way in some remote corner of the planet? It is counterintuitive to raise your kids and launch them into missions. It only happens because parents have understood and caught the vision of the mission of the church. Jesus put it this way:
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matthew 10:37-39 ESV).
“Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Mark 10:29-31.)
God is not asking us to do something that He did not do. This is as basic as John 3:16. The gospel and our salvation resulted because a Father was willing to be separated from a Son. Thus, it is not an unreasonable request from God when He tells us to send our kids to the front lines.
The future of missions is going to be fueled by parents who say it loud, clear and often that their greatest aspiration for their kids is to do Great Commission work. It will happen because parents model evangelism and discipleship. It will happen because parents take their kids to visit the mission field. It will happen when the family devotional time is dominated by intercession for the peoples of the world. It will happen when missionaries tell their stories at the dinner table to kids who have put down their digital toys long enough to see a world beyond the screen of a mobile device. It will happen because parents stock the bookshelves and video libraries of their home with missionary biographies. It will happen when parents replace sports heroes with missionary heroes. It all comes back to whether we are convinced that Jesus gave us a single mandate. If completing the mission is our priority, then no price is too steep.
The Pastor
Another key person in setting off the chain reaction of Romans 10 is the pastor of the church. Unless the leadership team of the church has a driving desire for reproducing themselves, the church will struggle to become a sending church. Leadership is critical to this process. The pulpit that is silent about the Great Commission will signal a lack of priority. It is rather difficult to persuade others that something is important if a pastor rarely mentions it.
The process is simple. Step #1 is to decide if sending people from your own congregation to the mission field is something you want to do. Step #2 is to over-communicate and strategize for that vision.
There are many reasons why leaders may not want to take step #1. There is a price that the local church will pay to send their own. Imagine what that first Sunday would have been like after Paul and Barnabas left Antioch for the mission field (Acts 13). They had just given up two of their main theologians, expositors, mentors and donors. What if Paul and Barnabas were members and leaders of your church? How ready would you be to send them away? It is incredibly generous for a church to give of their best.
There is no question that sending missionaries from your church will hurt. Most churches highly value their key leaders, and seek to have more leaders, not less. It doesn’t seem to make sense to send them away. It will drain the budget and leave a leadership vacuum. It will mean others must be trained to fill the gaps left vacant. It seems self-defeating to send your best to the mission field. So, the first step is simply a decision… a tough decision. Though it seems painful, it is not coincidental that Pastors who decide to do this will tend to see the blessing of missionaries emerge from the congregation. Those who don’t have this goal, rarely see missionaries launch from their church.
If the church is not Great Commission-oriented, it is likely not a top priority for the pastor and church leadership. A church will not produce missionaries unless the pastor and the leadership team have a hunger to do this. If the congregation doesn’t know this is a driving force for the church, it is not yet a passion, and consequently not a priority.
In the book “Gaining by Losing,” author J. D. Greear argues that the future belongs to churches that send. Chapter 9 is entitled “Your Church Doesn’t Need a Missions Pastor.” The guiding principle of their church is “every pastor is our missions pastor.” Unless the pastor has the mission as his driving force, it probably will not be evident in the congregation. That means the pastor must be a loud voice about the cause. Greear further says: “Vision needs heat, not just light. If light is the brilliance of the idea, heat is the energy the leader puts behind spreading that idea. You not only have to articulate your vision well; you have to repeat it a lot.” He calls for “repetition, ad nauseum.”
He further indicates that the Great Commission must be infused into the DNA of the church by mention in every message, the signage in the building, connecting the offering to missions, including it in the baptismal confession, missionary testimonials, and even in the way every service is ended as people are sent out. Ultimately, the pastor is a critical key to launching missionaries from the church.
The Congregation
The entire church should be involved in recognizing and recruiting missionaries. There is a tendency to view the “call” into ministry as a solo act. Our independent spirit views going into ministry as something that we decide for ourselves. However, the congregation could have a large part to play in identifying future missionaries.
First, every believer needs to view themselves as a recruiter. Jesus gave one strategy for enlisting more missionaries when He said: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2 ESV). That means every Christian of any age or role in the church can get involved in recruiting missionaries. It starts with prayer.
Mission agencies have representatives and full-time recruiters, but you don’t need to be a Mission Rep to get involved in recruiting. Imagine what might take place if everyone in your church was praying every day that God would raise up workers. We are merely thrashing around if the process is not saturated with prayer.
Secondly, the New Testament indicates that identifying missionaries was a collective activity. Acts 13 records the launching of Paul and Barnabas to the mission field. While we recognize that Acts is a book of transition and we are careful to distinguish between sections that are prescriptive and descriptive, this church at least gives us an example of what could be done.
Acts 13:1-3 tells the story. “Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.”
A fascinating part of this story is that the Holy Spirit was not speaking to Paul and Barnabas. It would seem logical that the missionaries should be the ones “hearing” the call. While the text doesn’t identify who the Spirit is speaking to, we know it wasn’t the future missionaries. Perhaps it was the leadership of the church listed in verse one or maybe it was the entire congregation. But one thing is clear, the Spirit was not communicating to the ones who were supposed to go. Apparently, others got involved in discerning direction for future missionaries.
This doesn’t fit well with our independent spirit. We don’t really want someone else telling us what to do and where to go. To be clear, this is not to suggest that people should be hearing voices or that one should become a missionary simply because someone claims to have heard from God. Discernment is needed, but we can at least assume it would be healthy to have other godly people speaking into our lives. We can surely accept that if one feels “called” to the mission field that the rest of the congregation would affirm that. At a minimum we would condone the idea that the leadership of the church must affirm that a person is qualified, and that God seems to have His hand on this individual. This happened with Timothy (2 Timothy 1:6) and Paul’s team members who were all identified by the church from which they came (Acts 20:4). The local church has some part to play in this process.
What might happen if everyone in the church was first praying daily and fervently that God would raise up missionaries from their midst? There would likely be heightened sensitivity to the work of God in other people’s lives, and it is certainly powerful to have the encouragement and affirmation of others as a person steps into international ministry. If the entire church was proactive in recruiting, it might just result in more recruits. Add that to the influence families can have and the encouragement pastors can offer through empowering their members to go, and we can start to close the gap in getting more missionaries to the field.
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