Philosophy of Mission Work

I would say that the Lord is changing my view of missions, but honestly, I'm not sure I've ever had a view of missions, so I think I'll just say that the Lord is forming my view of missions. I've gotten an eye full in the past few days and a lot of things are going through my head.

I have a new friend named Jon. He lives in Garbage City, which I talked about yesterday. He doesn't have to live in Garbage City, but in order to minister to its residents, he wants to gain credibility with the people, so he lives with them.

The first question that comes to mind is would I be willing to move to a place like that if the Lord commanded me to? But more than that, it makes a point clear. People listen to those who are like them.

Who's the best person to minister to an Egyptian? Another Egyptain? Who's the best person to minister to a Kenyan? Another Kenyan? Who's the best person to minister to a New Yorker? Another New Yorker.

I'm starting to see that mission work is more than than just the Church ministering to another culture; it's also teaching another culture how to minister. If you create a system that involves you serving and loving, you're creating a system that's built around you and one that will crumble when you someday leave those people. So I think the ideal is to create a system that will eventually no longer need you.

And I think that this system is Biblical. First of all, Jesus knew that the best way to reach His children was to come to earth as one of us. He knew that it would take more than prophets and angels, it would take Himself to save us and the best way we would listen to Him would be if He were, in fact, human.

From a more practical side of things for us, Paul shows us an amazing system. During his time planting churches, Paul would go to a city, become a part of the city doing work, cultivate a body of believers, start a church, raise up leadership within the church, and then move on to another city to do it all again, all the while keeping his relationship with that church active to keep them accountable. This accountability relationship is why we have many of the New Testament epistles. Paul knew that the Lord didn't need him in order for a church to thrive. He didn't create Paul centric systems, he created Christ centric systems.

So this is what's on my mind. Let me know if you have any thoughts.