Missional Living

In the past four years, MBC has participated in a family mission trip over the course of each summer. We have taken combined more than 100 children, youth, and adults to Cleveland, OH, Baltimore, MD, Denver, CO, and still to come this week, Toronto, ON, Canada. In these attempts, we will have traveled nearly 8,000 miles and spent thousands of dollars in related costs. In so doing the participants have left behind families, jobs, and pressing responsibilities. Yet, in spite of these sacrifices, the direct results upon our own church’s ministry are not immediately noticeable. Many with which our teams have shared the gospel and provided ministry will never enter the doors of our church or even be seen by us again in this life. A question I am sometimes asked (and quite honestly a question that I ask myself) is “Why participate in these types of works?”

While this question is most exhaustively answered by the Old and New Testaments, I will focus upon a couple of reasons which we have come to integrate into the mission and core values of our church.

The third part of our church’s mission—Love. Live. Lead.—is explained more descriptively in this way. LEAD.—We are committed to the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) of leading people to become fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. We will lead by praying, giving, serving, and going to impact our world with the gospel of Jesus Christ, both locally and globally.

One of the seven core values of our church is as follows:

Missional Living—Christ has called us to go and make disciples of all people. We desire to be missionaries every day and at every place in which we live, work, rest, and play. We desire to be the tools that God will use to bring more people into relationship with Himself.

So, as is described in each of these pivotal statements which shape our church, involvement in missions across the street and around the world is a primary goal of our ministry. We regularly pray for missionaries and their work, a significant portion of our weekly offerings goes to missions, and additionally, we are making it a priority to go where God leads.

There is one more biblical/historical explanation which drives our missional participation. The book of Acts prominently describes two local churches—the church at Jerusalem and the church at Antioch. The church at Jerusalem was the first church, started by the Apostles and led by James, the half-brother of Jesus. It obviously had tremendous influence upon the spread of Christianity in the first century. However, by the middle of the book of Acts, the church at Antioch seems to take precedence. In Acts 13:1-3, we read that Paul, Barnabas, and other leaders in the church were being sent out of Antioch to take the gospel abroad. So, the church at Antioch’s greatness was not due to its seating capacity, but rather its sending capacity. This seems to be the repeated encouragement to the local church throughout the New Testament.

This week a team of 20 missionaries will be working alongside our partner church in Toronto. This will not be the only opportunity to connect with this mission, and Lord willing, this will not be the last time we go. Please pray for our team, pray for our partners Alex and Indhira Fleming, and pray for our church’s continued influence through its sending capacity.

Praying, Giving, Serving, and Going,

Jason