Out, Transition Everyone Is A Missionary!

Posted by alexabsalom ⋅ May 20, 2011 ⋅ 3 Comments

Filed Under  discipleship, Go, Launching Missional Communities, McNeal, mission

Mission is God’s activity of love toward the world.  He is a sending God, a going God, a God who incarnates himself in a specific time and context, so that every person may come to know and love him.

To be a follower of Jesus means that you, too, are called to be a missionary.

Each and every follower has this calling.

As has been quipped, God had only one Son, and he was a missionary.  If that was what Jesus did, then we his followers are to do likewise.  Going in mission is not an optional extra—an upgrade for the “mature disciple.”  Going in mission is fundamental to the journey of discipleship and from day one we should view ourselves as missionaries.

In the New Testament, we see a continual train of totally ill-prepared followers of Christ being sent out in mission.  Jesus starts sending the disciples out as early as Matthew 10, at a stage when they hadn’t even declared Jesus as Messiah, let alone Lord, and their response to his teaching was primarily marked by misunderstanding and shallow selfishness.

In the book of Acts, Paul frequently wins a few people to Christ, starts a church, and then skips town.  He leaves these baby disciples to fend for themselves, with only an occasional follow-up visit months, even years, later.  It feels like reckless abandon—and yet it is there in black and white.

Jesus showed us that going in mission is something we can start doing from our earliest days of starting to follow him.  Bible study, training, and growth in maturity are vital, and often they can supercharge our mission efforts.  In the same way, mission – like worship and fellowship – is an essential part of discipleship from the very start of our Christian journey.

Reggie McNeal puts it like this: “We must change our ideas of what it means to develop a disciple, shifting the emphasis from studying Jesus and all things spiritual in an environment protected from the world, to following Jesus into the world to join him in his redemptive mission.”

Jesus, in his mission, was attractional and missional, drawing huge crowds of followers eager to learn from him.  The Western, and in particular the North American, church has tended to be very successful in this attractional model of doing and being church.  Unfortunately, the missional component is often lacking or completely absent.  Bringing in the missional emphasis often “feels” as though we are removing the attractional from our model, but this is not the case.  Often the church has been most effective when missional and attractional have worked together.

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About alexabsalom

Working with leaders and churches who are developing Missional Communities - this is Missional Made Simple! View all posts by alexabsalom »

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Discussion

3 Responses to “Everyone Is A Missionary!”

1. Hey Alex! I definitely appreciate your post here. You are absolutely right, that if we go and do, the value of learning and discipleship is extremely intense. It is fertilizer for faith and understanding.

You said, “In the book of Acts, Paul frequently wins a few people to Christ, starts a church, and then skips town. He leaves these baby disciples to fend for themselves, with only an occasional follow-up visit months, even years, later. It feels like reckless abandon—and yet it is there in black and white.”

But aren’t there numerous instances where he raised up disciples and sent them as his replacements? (Largely because they walked side by side with him and saw what it means to follow Jesus; like you are suggesting). And didn’t Paul also stay in cities for several years discipling people?

I guess my question would be: do you really think they were baby disciples knowing that they were disciples of Paul? Do you think that having seen Paul and how he followed the Lord, their learning curve was faster? Also, do you think that for someone that was so desperately pursuing God that his vision really was to let them “fend for themselves?”

And do you think the amount of time largely depended on the community and people that were receiving the outreach? SHouldn’t we also be taking that into consideration?

I know I have asked a lot of questions. Hopefully you will have time to answer!

Blessings!

Posted by Shaun | May 26, 2011, 2:56 am

Reply to this comment * Hi Shaun,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments! I agree Paul does do a great job of raising up leaders and teams around him, who obviously were key players in the expansion of the 1st Century church.  

However, I think if we look at Acts, we do see many instances where Paul was not in a city for long, whether by choice or persecution. For instance, if you scan through Acts, there are many cities where he doesn’t stay for long (eg Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens). In Ephesus Luke records Paul as being there for 3 months, as if that was unusually long! I agree that there are other patterns as well, but it is valid to say that it was not his normal pattern to be able to stay in most cities for several years.  

But I don’t want to over\-emphasize this, so I hear your balancing comment here as well bro!  

Alex







 Posted by [alexabsalom](http://web.archive.org/web/20110612192842/http://alexabsalom.wordpress.com/) \| [May 28, 2011, 8:53 pm](#comment-88) 


[Reply to this comment](/web/20110612192842/http://alexabsalom.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/everyoneisamissionary/?replytocom=88#respond) 
	+ ![](http://web.archive.org/web/20110612192842im_/http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/6d80d7750d37cb809fe4f1061f21c9e2?s=40&d=identicon&r=G)
	Thanks again Alex. I am definitely inspired by all the work that you are a part of, and what you guys are doing all over the world. I am glad that the Lord has begun to really burden my heart (along with my wife’s heart) towards missional communities!
	
	
	I would love to see your thoughts on this article I wrote… because it is actually right up this alley. HA!
	
	
	Here is the linkhttp://www.theology21\.com/2011/04/21/through\-discipleship\-transformation\-comes\-lessons\-of\-growth\-from\-the\-first\-international\-missionary/
	
	
	There definitely needs to be a “balance” like you are suggesting. We need to work like we only have hours, but we must be prepared for years. 
	
	
	Blessings!
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	 Posted by [Shaun](http://web.archive.org/web/20110612192842/http://calledtoperu.org/) \| [May 29, 2011, 12:49 am](#comment-89)

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