missional living

unreached lands. people seeking. and you, gospel in hand, ready to show them the Way.

how many of us share a vision of doing missions? how many of us feel that call deep within our souls to go and share the greatest love story with lost populations across the globe?

and yet how many of us feel that we must go somewhere else to do so? that somewhere in this concept of missions a flight and a passport is a prerequisite. that we must venture into something that is unknown to us, something foreign, whether geographically or otherwise.

how many people do we neglect to tell because of this?

particularly within the past year, this thought has been hammered into my mind every time i travel home. being from that "barren, desolate, chunk of the state in the middle of nowhere," it is a rarity to find anyone willing to make a positive comment about it, let alone anyone eager to travel there. and yet, every time i go home i am continuously made aware of how many people are living without the gospel in mind, if they've ever heard it at all. and it makes me wonder, how is west texas any different than any foreign mission field? scattered all throughout it are little towns pocketed between miles of farm and ranchland, miles from medical care, miles from universities, and spiritually, miles from the gospel.

west texas is just one of many local examples i could mention. and this is not to say that there aren't any believers in west texas, but as with so many places in america today, knowledge of the gospel and seeking a relationship with our Savior is often superficial, and the tragic, too often result is that thousands of people are assuming they are saved and going to heaven when they have no idea who Jesus is or what He did on the cross. in terms of the parable of the sower, they are thoughtlessly assuming they are the fourth type of seed, when instead they have drifted into the comfortable yet treacherous states of the second and third types of seed (see mark 4:1-20).

the point of this is not to rag on any particular region of america, but instead to show the immense need to be missional here. while we may feel called to rural china or war-torn afghanistan or the parisian metro, our ministry is not exclusive to that region. we may end up there, yes, and there is certainly a need to share the gospel there as well, but we should aim not simply to go on foreign missions, but to live missionally, regardless of our location.

a difficulty i have met in trying to be missional back home is that, for some reason, it is a greater challenge for me to share the gospel with people i have known my whole life than it is to share with an entire Ugandan village. that somehow, because they know who i used to be, my message will be disregarded, or belittled, or mocked. that in turn i will feel even more isolated at home, rejected in some form or fashion because of my beliefs. not that any of this can't or won't happen on an overseas missions trip, but somehow persecution from home tends to hit harder, and every time i have difficulty catching my breath enough to try to speak the message again.

even Jesus was rejected at home (mark 6:1-6). yet, despite the pain of it, He never stopped preaching.

will we face resistance to the gospel at home? likely. even if your immediate family are believers, there can still be resistance from other relatives, friends, or acquaintances. yet despite resistance or persecution, what a beautiful opportunity we have to share the gospel in situations where we already have relationships established. let's not watch these opportunities pass us by.

we need to start living missionally. now.