With the words of the mandate of the "Great Commission" ringing in their ears, missionaries have gone where others refused to go, braved the elements and hazards, knocked on death's door, and stepped forward when others only cringed and feigned excuses not to go. They have heard the truth and have gone unfalteringly into martyrdom.

We don't believe that anyone would question that Christ mandated that this gospel shall be preached into all the world and then the end shall come. That we are to go and to win the lost for Christ, this is the mandate. Yet 2000 years later, even with all the technological advances that we have, we still are not finished. Although there is wonderful church growth in many countries, the last command of Jesus has not, in large measure, been either fulfilled or obeyed. The need for every type of cross-cultural evangelism is greater than ever. Huge numbers of "people groups" have yet to hear the Gospel in a meaningful way.

So, "Why this training and why now?" Isn't the Church trained enough? Isn't the bible in all the nations of the world? Well let's take a look at the typical church. Sunday comes and we drag ourselves out of bed, get dressed and go to church, again (groan). We greet people with the usual holographic smile and patented answer to the question, "How are you today?" "I am Blessed!" we answer as this echoes through our empty spirits. We sing a few songs from the hymnal or if you are charismatic, a few well-selected contemporary Christian tunes to back up the coming sermon, or maybe you are an African American church then you will sing and dance to a few rolling gospel songs. We settle down to the Prayers and offering and the usual speech on how God is going to bless us as we give. Then the three part sermon and three part closing, the benediction and then we go home feeling good about ourselves having fulfilled our obligation to Christ and the Great Commission. Oh, but you say this is not your church. Well, maybe not.

The world's population of Christians grew from 1.93 billion to 1.95 billion in 1995, according to the Global Evangelization Movement, a Richmond, Va.- based research group. The figures include nominal, affiliated, and practicing Christians, GEM's Justin Long told NIRR. Some 1.7 billion people are members of, or have been baptized into, a Christian church. Of those, 1.3 billion attend services, watch them on television, or listen on radio, Long said. ...Catholics are the largest Christian group, with 979 million adherents, followed by Protestants with 373 million. The figures are obtained through census information, denominational figures, and estimations of believers who practice their faith in secret, GEM said. ...One-fifth of the world's population has not heard about Jesus Christ despite the efforts of 4,500 hundred missions agencies, 3,200 Christian broadcasting stations, and $10.5 billion spent annually on world missions, Long said. If trends continue, 16% of the world will be unevangelized by the year 2000. "Many have been striving for world evangelization by the year 2000, but clearly we won't make it short of divine intervention," he said. About 600 million people will remain unevangelized in 2025, and evangelization of the entire world probably will not occur until midway through the 21st century, he said. NIRR 2/19/96

Too often missions is looked upon as another ministry in the church that is going to drain funds from other more important things such as a building fund, daycare center, utilities, choir robes and on and on. This limited outlook only sees the missionary as another ministry to be funded. This sees the missionary only as another fund raising project so as to get the missionary to where he needs to go and then he is on his own to raise his own support. This limits the church to be seen as no less than a social club or the same as any other organization that some one may belong too. We always seem to reduce the concept of missions to money. This limited view has stagnated the efforts of the Church in its sending role. Church planting through missions is the goal of Christ's Church. How else are they going to hear? The purpose of the Church is missions through the sending of missionaries, church planting and working side by side with the indigenous Church.

We, as a church, must be committed to networking the American Church with the Foreign National Church to train and equip the Church for spreading the Gospel to reach the Unreached of the World. This can be done through training and bringing together churches of all nations in a unified effort to spread the Gospel. We must work together to bring the American Church to a worldview for missions and to network/partner with other churches and agencies worldwide.

The Church with it's varying ethnic backgrounds and languages can bring an effective, reconciled testimony for Christ by working together. Through teaching and empowerment every Christian can share his or her experience with Jesus to others, regardless of their age, sex, culture, or social position. Christ established the church, and left it in the world to be the tool by which the Gospel must be taken to all the world.

We believe that one of the reasons why much of the missions effort is fruitless, is because much of the Church's effort has been inward and geared towards self-church growth. While much effort has been made towards winning people over to Christ this effort has mostly been made in our own back yard. Most of this effort has only resulted in lateral church growth into the "mega church" concept at the expense of the smaller independent churches. We have spent millions on radio and TV evangelism, personal evangelism, educational evangelism, and humanitarian evangelism but at what cost to the overall calling of the church? These efforts are good and need to be done but Christ's primary methods of evangelizing is by a missionary effort directed at people groups through personal witnessing and then church planting in areas that have yet to hear. Some may agree and many will disagree with this assessment. They deny that they are called to the missions field as a church. The sending of missionaries challenges us to "think the impossible" and "expect the victorious." It is our intent to present a concept of missions so that you will be challenged to further research the degree to which this mandate affects you as an individual and church, and to more greatly understand how you are to proceed.

A study of the Missions Mandate (Great Commission) reveals the true nature of this calling and the meaning of the task that is yet to be completed. In Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:47, 48 and Acts 1:8 we are all called upon to take this gospel to every Nation (ethne) not just our neighborhoods. This training is just that, a study of what God expects as the bible says. The end product of this training is a teaching, sending, supporting, soul-winning Great Commission Christian and church.

The greatest privilege in life is to bring a lampstand to shine into the darkness.

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To see an outline of the Missions Mandate Seminar click here:

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