Mission of Christ to the lost world is primary duty of Christian Church. Telling a sinner about the salvation full and free in Christ Jesus is not just primary responsibility of Christians, but it is also an identity of a Christian. The revival of the Church is not the exciting worship they have, but it is the mind they have for the Mission to the lost Millions.
As Christ commanded in Acts 1:8 “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” The primary duty of the Church is to witness in their neighborhood, and then state or nation and then to move toward the world. When a brand new congregation is planted, their primary focus need to be their neighborhood, then when they will impact their neighborhood, then the process need to be toward the nation and the nations of the world. If a Church congregation can’t witness to the man next door, we can understand that they have some short of spiritual illness in their Christian lives. This is one of the reason that some time’s mega church are limited today only with senior adults in the congregations, where as the leaders who understand this strategy that Christ commanded have multiplied into thousands and making worldwide impact in Christian Mission.
The Church Planting Movement is just like a river, it’s humble beginning can be just a spring or a falls on the mountains, it first waters the surrounding grounds and gradually starts to flow toward far down. As it keeps on continue, it multiplies on wide and ever on the water it contains. It keeps on flowing towards far down by watering barren land, fruitful land, jungles and plains till finding destiny, the ocean. On the same way, a Church planting movement starts with simple beginning of some handful people, move toward the perfection of Christ, witnessing sinners, teaching the saved, helping the poor, caring the widows and needy till the day of Christ when the Church will be rapture.
In order to fulfill this mission of Christ, the Missionaries in Past have done really great jobs. They have kept their lives on risk and taken the gospel to the cannibals of the mountains of Asia and Jungles of Africa. They have given their lives for Christ, suffered among the uncivilized, and shown them the light of gospel. No one can deny the role of Missionaries who led people in past from darkness to light, sin to salvation and primitive lifestyle to complete human civilization.
But, we need to understand that Christian Theology is progressive revelation, as the knowledge of the people growing, God is revealing more and more depth and mysteries of His word. This is exactly same even in Mission too. There was the time, when the people were uncivilized; God used western missionaries effectively on Asia and Africa. But today people have come into a level of civilization and growth, and we need to change our old prospective even in mission too.
Today, the western Churches need to change the traditional style of sending cross cultural missionary to the non-Christian nations, and spread supportive hands for reaching, teaching and mobilizing the native nationals to reach their own nations. Native nationals are much more effective in today’s context for various reasons. Moreover, we need to understand the fact that Jesus came to save men as a man, not as God. He took human birth, lived among us as one of us and reached us being what we are. God, who gave us His Son Jesus, has given us perfect model of Christian Mission too. But some times we are not trying to understand this fact that with difference we can’t reach the people.
Native missionaries are the people who are one among the unreached on their nations. Most of them will be converted Christian and just like others before they came to be saved. They are much better to reach their people there, not because the degree or education they have but because the transformed lives and experience they have. Our role here is to encourage them to reach their own people, train them and contribute them through our material blessing that God has given us.
This is the time for us to encourage the native missionaries and support them financially on their mission work, as for us, Lord has given us lost souls in our own neighborhood. Some times, we work hard in nations like India and Nigeria, but also we won’t be so effective like the native missionaries there, but forget the fact that USA itself is now turning as one of the most unreached nation. We forget the fact that Europe has less born again Christians then some of the nations in Asia and Africa. We are forgetting the fact that our Churches are turning empty while Korean Churches are getting more then 100 thousands believers each week to worship together.
This is the time for us to unite and strengthen our hands for supporting the native missionaries in Unreached Nations. This is the time for us to pray for the workers of Harvest of God who are laboring for God. And this is the time for us to witness our neighbor so that before we will return back to our home for eternity, we may see our neighborhood being back to God again. If you believe, and I believe and if we join together for prayer, we can change the nations for Christ. We can bring the sinner back to God and spread the revival through out the nations.
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