So you want to be a missionary?
You have had a good education. You are healthy, and you feel sure that you can prosper in your selected trade or profession. Maybe it is not long since you were baptized, but you are enthusiastic. Your zeal is shared by the charming young sister you have just married. You both have a taste for travel and adventure, and perhaps you should do something exciting for the Lord before you settle down? The Bible Mission is short of volunteers, and you know that you would make excellent missionaries!
Would you?
Let us assume that your worldly skills are the sort that would encourage foreign governments to give you a work permit to cross their borders. Are these the first qualifications for a preacher and shepherd of a spiritual community? We assume that you were well-taught in the Sunday School — no doubt you passed your baptismal interview with flying colors — but is this all you need for developing love and humility and the understanding of lonely souls? Is your obvious enthusiasm the formula for visiting the fatherless and widows, or sharing the afflictions of suffering humanity in dark places ?
Let me suggest that missionary work starts in the service of the ecclesia and not in the lonely isolation of a self-sufficient person. It begins in the fellowship of brothers and sisters, not on a desert island. The ecclesia is a family unit and families are groups where parents and children learn the arts of living together, and grow and care for and love each other, and sometimes have to be disciplined. Things are done together in good families. God created a family in the beginning; he built a family round the man whom He called out of Ur. The nation of Israel was the family that God knew, and this “ecclesia of God” became God’s witness to the world. Jesus emphasized the new family relationship of those who left their natural kith and kin for the Truth: “Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and sister and mother.”
The ecclesia is the place where saints are made, where problems have to be solved, where pride is humbled and humility is made strong. The twelve men who travelled Palestine with Jesus learned to be missionaries in the presence of each other. The arguments, the rebukes, the example, the prayers, the faith, the faithlessness, the quiet talks, the forgiveness, the twelve baskets full, the treachery, the wondering gaze on a risen Lord — all played their part in training. “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you; continue ye in my love . . . Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you . . . that ye should go and bring forth fruit.” The lesson was clear. Learn first to live together as brethren, then go out and preach the gospel.
Participation in the ecclesia, and the essential interaction with brothers and sisters is the foundation on which to develop the qualities which any missionary needs. For the same reason, you and your wife have some adjustments to make before you are fitted for the tasks ahead.
Those of you who have already volunteered for CBM mission service know that you were asked many questions about the sort of things you did in the ecclesia. Not just the important jobs like being Recording Brother, but the stewarding and sick-visiting and Sunday School work. You see, missionary work is concerned with people, and the training you receive in the ecclesia may well fit you for some of the problems you will meet with in your association with people in the mission fields.
Ecclesial participation is a two-way relationship. You must give unstinted service to the community according to your abilities, in whatever direction your opportunities lie; but the ecclesia also has a duty to seek out brethren of suitable caliber and to enlarge its work through those who are able. A good and lively ecclesia will both comfort the needy and send forth preachers to places near and far. A good preacher will, in most cases, be the product of a sound ecclesia.
Let me illustrate the point by reference to the excellent first-century ecclesia at Antioch. Antioch was an outward-looking community. It accepted Gentile converts as well as Jewish, at a time when the Jerusalem brethren were not entirely happy at such a development. Barnabas was dispatched to Antioch to find out what was happening; he liked what he found and stayed on in the ecclesia. After a while he made a journey to “seek out” Saul of Tarsus. He may have seen in the zeal and courage of this young man immense potential for missionary work. That journey may have taken a long time — months or years — but there was still a waiting period before the missionary journeys began. In the meantime: “For a whole year they assembled themselves with the Church and taught much people” (Acts 11:26). Fellowship and preaching starts at home!
Then there came the famine in Judea. The brethren in Antioch prepared relief “every man according to his ability.” And who should undertake the charity mission? Barnabas and Saul, naturally; they were learning the meaning of service. They stayed in Jerusalem until “they had fulfilled their ministry,” before returning to Antioch. But still no overseas mission! Acts chapter 13 takes up the sequence: Barnabas and Saul are classed among the “prophets and teachers” of the ecclesia. It was their custom to “minister” (or serve) and to “fast” (practice self-denial). Quite suddenly the moment comes. B1 divine guidance the ecclesia separated Barnabas and Saul “for the work whereunto I have called them.” The ecclesia fasted and prayed, and the ecclesia sent them away with blessings on their first missionary journey!
Notice that it was not the casual, unimportant departure of two brethren on “some job abroad,” but a prayerful involvement by the whole ecclesia. It was their mission, and it is not surprising that the two friends felt a strong allegiance to their own church when they returned a year later. They sailed back to Antioch “from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled.” And when the ecclesia came together “they rehearsed all that God had done with them.”
What a satisfying relationship! God—the ecclessia — the mission worker. But it took some time “seeking out” the right men, “ministering” in the ecclesia, raising funds, engaging in charity, becoming prophets and teachers, learning to be deacons as well as apostles before the real mission came along.
To sum up, from these examples, the would-be missionary needs to:-
- Be involved in the day-to-day work of the ecclesia.
- Share the preaching work.
- Minister to the needs of the brothers and sisters.
- Practice good works and charity.
- Be “teachers,” expounding the Word.
- Pray and be prayed for.
- Practice self-denial.
So you want to be a missionary? It is a desirable ambition and a wonderful calling. Begin then by working with those around you in your ecclesia. Your ultimate objective may take a little time, but in God’s grace it may yet be fulfilled.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One