Posted on November 23, 2009 - by Larry
a new type of missionary
Paris. Athens. Budapest. Frankfurt. Rome. Madrid. Vienna. Stockholm. Basel.
The urban centers of Europe are the new frontier of missions.
Stockbroker. Artist. Lawyer. Electrician. Professor. Programmer.
And these are its missionaries.
While Europe doesn’t often spring to Americans’ minds when they hear the word “missions,” the spiritual need in the region is overwhelming. Less than 2 percent of the population of most European countries is known to follow Christ.
In societies so numbed to the institutional church, cultural rituals and historical Christendom, being a “missionary” often calls for something totally different than the traditional face of North American missions.
What if the most effective missions meant simply living life with purpose among the peoples of Europe, working in a normal job, building friendships with co-workers and neighbors?
What if churches in the United States actively participated in sending out their best church members, not as missionaries, but simply as themselves? What if churches prayed and dreamed with those workers about how to live their lives as salt and light in their new European hometowns? What if churches took back – and took full advantage of – their role in the Great Commission?
Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be about anyway?
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November 30, 2009
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Johanna said:
“sending out their best church members, not as missionaries, but simply as themselves?”
I like this.
A redefinition of missionary or perhaps of mission.
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November 30, 2009
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Johanna said:
So now the question: What prepares people for this?
Do churches need to figure out how to send their best out into their own city before they can send them out to the world’s cities?
What about issues of contextualization and movement creation?
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December 1, 2009
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Larry said:
Sorry this took a day for me to respond to your comment.
I know the idea of tent-making as been around for a long time. I think you can even see that in Acts 18. smile. In terms of preparation that is a good question. I could write a lot about this but I think one great way is for pastors and church leaders to see this as a viable missionary expression and thus promote it or lift it up as such in the church. I do not think tentmakers or people doing business with mission internationally are second class missionaries. I also think that international business people who are believers can make a HUGE impact for the kingdom in their marketplace over here.
So just as there is a buzz today for people going to the mission field and this is often led by pastors I would like to see pastors encourage this model as well. Sometimes a person does not need to leave his / her job and go with a mission organization. Sometimes the opportunity may transpire where they ask for a transfer to go international.
In terms of sending them out to the world I see Acts 1:8 as a both/and and not an either/or. I think as the church spread from Jerusalem to the utter most parts of the world that it was important to continue the mission there in Jerusalem.
Currently in North America there is a huge push on being missional and I celebrate that but the church has to find ways to go across cultures (see Acts 11 when they started preaching to the Gentiles).
I think as a church is being missional in their own community they can start exploring what this looks like in the world but not wait til they have their own community figured out. Communities change! I encourage churches to take small steps towards engaging internationally. Maybe it is a vision trip. Maybe it is taking a few short trips doing a specific project. Maybe it is finding ways to minister to international students in your own city. Something we call reverse mission trips.
I think it would be paramount for someone who is a part of a network such as Skybridge that they connect with a local church planting team or missionary team or national church. I think this helps them in several ways. One such way is that it gives them support and encouragement on the field. It also gives them strategic direction that is needed and it can help them be able to contextualize the gospel to their context. We have to be careful when we come to different cultures not to just transport our methods and models and impose them upon a culture. Europe is a culturally near to the States but it is not the states. We have to find ways to plant churches that plant churches to whereas a movement can start to take place.
Sorry. I think my comment was longer than my first post. smile. Hope this helps.
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December 12, 2009
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Ron Kidd said:
As a former missionary to France for 14 years, I concur that Europe is an over looked and forgotten mission field. We must challenge the folks in our pews to become missional and global in their thinking and outreach. The Great Commission has become the Great Omission! There is a new fervency in planting churches here in the USA, for which I’m very thankful, however my prayer is that our heart for a lost world would move and motivate us to plant churches that plant churches all over Europe. May we not give up on Europe!