Let The Nations Be Glad

I chose to evaluate my home church's missions program for this paper. A big part of this decision was curiosity; I had never in my five years at my home church heard anything of a well-formed missions program, and upon receiving this assignment became very intrigued. I interviewed a good friend of mine, who is also an elder at Kentwood Christian Church, by the name of Mike Boumis.

The idea behind the book The Great Commission To Worship by David Wheeler and Vernon Whaley is the combining of worship and evangelism, “Thus evangelism and worship have a unique relationship. … many times in Scripture it appears that while God is always our object of worship, the concept of obtaining salvation (evangelism) appears to be the motivation” (11). As stated by the authors this book is the result of an argument between them as to which was more important, worship or evangelism.

God has a plan to reconcile His relationship with man after sin entered the world. This plan revolves around making His name known throughout all tribes and nations. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, the Bible presents God’s missionary purpose for humanity. For this reason, Christians involved in missions will travel to dangerous places to proclaim God’s name and saving power.

My personal view of mission revolves around Servant Leadership or what can be better called “Incarnational leadership”. This is rooted in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, as “He took a towel” (John 13:2-5) and washed Peter’s feet. He was efficient with people, had goals in sight, but was also relational over being task-driven. This kind of leadership produces new churches filled with real purpose and motivation as people are called, appreciated, loved, encouraged, discipled, involved by mentoring and discipleship before they are deployed in ministry (Prov. 27:23; Mark 10:35-45; Luke 22:26; John 13:2-17; 1 Cor. 3- 4; Eph. 4:1-16; Col. 3:13; 1 Thess. 5:13-14; 1 Peter 3:8;

In the first chapter of “Christianity Rediscovered” by Vincent J. Donovan he is introducing us to the idea that missionaries now have a poor reputation due to their history. He says “History has offered the opportunity to deflect and distort the meaning of missionary work in every age”. For a long time a missionary was a person spreading the word of God and after years of doing so we have diminished many different beliefs, practices, cultures and history. At the time it was thought to be the right thing, to spread out and share the gospel to help people find meaning and acceptance. In today’s age a missionary is a lot of different things, in many cases it is more focused on the health and physical wellbeing of the people. Many people still share the gospel through missionary work, but in other cases it is more of a material aid. Donovan introduces the book as a voyage of discovery he wants us to put our normal beliefs aside to see his perspective of living a missionaries life and struggling with the fact of if you are helping or hurting.

It has been said that worship is the core or center of mission. The ultimate goal of any missionary is to bring people (entire people groups) into a passionate, relationship with God. John Piper states,

In their book, The Great Commission to Worship, Vernon Whaley and David Wheeler takes an in depth look at commandment from Jesus for His followers to go out and spread the Good News of salvation. Today’s Christian seems to have a misconception about their role in evangelism. As the authors stated, “many times in Scripture it appears

“Now those who were scattered abroad went about [through the land from place to place] preaching the glad tidings, the Word [ the doctrine concerning the attainment through Christ of salvation in the kingdom of God].” In the teachings of Peter in this letter, he is teaching about a heavenly inheritance or a living hope, “and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,” Additionally, he is teaching the people that they should live holy towards God. “Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. 15 Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1st Pet.

Mission was very important in the development of the early church. The goal during this time was to spread the Christian Faith and to help those in need, just as Jesus did. The people that undertook this mission were sent out by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Jesus and God.

Hawthorne describes the mission further as completing the task given to us by Jesus. This task can only be completed when there is a “movement of baptized and obedient disciples capable of evangelizing their entire people.” The task, then, is not to win as many individuals as we can, but rather, as John Piper indicates, “to reach all the peoples of the world and thus to gather the ‘sons of God’ which are scattered (John 11:52), and to call all the ‘ransomed from every tongue and tribe and people and nation’ (Rev 5:9), until redeemed persons from ‘all the peoples praise him’ (Rom 15:11).” The term used for nations and peoples really refers to people groups separated by language ethnicity, or tribal

Family is an illustration of unity. Naomi and Ruth best describes a story of unity between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Naomi and Ruth story is evidence of two people willing to go the extra mile for one another in spite of the circumstance. Paul was expressing that the church at Philippi do to same, which require having love for one another. Paul’s efforts to help the church was for the glorification of God. Ideally, the gospel of John had the same expectation of God and Jesus Christ. The gospel of John is the illustration of followers of Jesus Christ today. God’ people cannot glorify God in human wisdom, but as true disciple of Jesus Christ in love and fellowship. Therefore, the “big idea” overall, is the hook to engaging believers, as well as non-believers into each sermon. The purpose of each sermon is to make disciples for Jesus Christ, explaining the importance of knowing God, and serving Him with a humble spirit. As a result, a person will observe the choices made and practice daily. A person can see the loss of integrity and obeying God’s word. More importantly, the Body of Christ should purpose to fellowship in love as an example of God’s love for

The main question posed by this chapter is “whether the supremacy of Christ means that he is the only way to salvation” (133). Within this main question, three questions are contained in it: the question of hell, the necessity of the work of Christ, and the fate of the unreached. The answers to these questions are significant to the cause of missions because they revolve around the missionary’s effort to preach the gospel’s message. Piper sets out to biblically answer these questions to prove that without missions, the more likely it is that less people will be saved. Piper uses Romans 3:9-20 to explain the phrase, “the universality of the work of Christ.” Which is basically Jesus’ death for the salvation of His people. Romans 3:9-20 points

Now consider the woman who believed she would be healed "if I only touch his cloak" (Matt. 9: 21). Jesus, at the time, was on a mission to heal the dead daughter of a ruler. Similarly today, God has assigned the Church the same mission he gave Jesus. . . .a mission that cannot wait. The worshiping church therefore cannot stay in one place simply because a few stubborn parishioners who, like the woman in Matthew 9, want to touch something

(Romans 15:6; 1 Corinthians 6:20; 10:31) He continues by sharing how “the purpose of the church is for the born-again believers within, as well as for the church’s community outside of the local body, whereas the mission, is reserved for the believers and it is what they are supposed to be doing, (110) Malphur also provides the five elements of mission; “first, it is broad, comprehensive, overarching, it is the primary goal which takes precedent over any and all other church mandates and goals. Secondly, it is brief, consisting of a sentence in length. Thirdly, it is Biblical, Fourth, it is a statement, and the fifth element-it is what the ministry should be doing.” (112-113) “Once the mission is developed, it must be communicated.” (126) Vision must be clear, compelling, a picture of what the mission will look like, (128) and it is the ministry’s future. It is personal and once developed it too must be communicated. (143) According to Malphurs, “it can and must be” (128- The author shares how “the mission under no circumstances changes, however, the visions detail and the words used to express them will

First of all, any missional mental model should be derived from missio Dei itself, which is "the mission of God to bring about redemption of the world" (Sunquist 2013, 7). When we carry this mission out in suffering for God’s eternal glory, we need to imagine how in the future his goodness, his beauty, and his harmony will cover the entire creation. I think it’s necessary for us to have this vision of his glory and be aware that whatever we do is not our own ministry. The idea of us joining the ministry of Jesus Christ is