What is the Task of the Missionary?
Recently I was cruising the websites of some large missions organizations. Most of these groups are involved in one of two types of work. Many of them are preparing or sending workers directly to the field, either on behalf of or alongside the local church. The other groups seem to exist to provide resources for people interested in missions, a place for missional thinkers to collaborate or connect, or they seek to influence modern missiology. I was struck by the fact that there seems to be a myriad of ways that an individual or family can serve as a missionary. There are thousands of places and “ways” that you can go! The diversity of opportunities is a real selling point for many of the organizations I was reading about. But in the same way that I was impressed by the array of options of ways to be a missionary, I was equally disappointed that there never seemed to be a defined goal for a missionary.
I have often used, and frankly really like, the term Missionary Task. But I have also seen where this term can be confusing because we are not really seeking to define one particular task that we ask our missionaries to complete. At our local church, we are beginning to purposefully lean toward talking about the Missionary Goal. While the websites are correct and there are many activities that can occupy the time of the worker on the field, we do believe there is always a consistent goal that should also be the focus, or the bearing out on the horizon, that we are constantly working toward. We seek to see a healthy, gospel-centered church engaged in discipleship of Christ followers.
We actually state it this way:
We believe that the missionary task is to establish and strengthen a healthy local church in a secondary context. This may take a variety of forms including evangelism, discipleship, Bible translation, and pastoral training. The goal of a missionary in many ways is to be able to leave the mission field with a healthy indigenous-led local body of Christ.
The task commissioned to each believer by Jesus is to make disciples. Our examples of this come through Jesus’ own life with His followers and later in Acts 2. They indicate a spiritual growth process taking place in the context of the early church. The “superscript” in most Bibles in Acts 2 refers to it as the The Fellowship of the Believers. This conviction that the local church is the gathering point for disciple-making is what drives our missions philosophy. Paul’s writing in Ephesians tells us that the church was so precious to the Lord that He gave Himself up for her, so that by her others would come to know Him. It is the goal, and role, of the missionary to work to ensure that a church of Christ followers exists globally to proclaim the truth of the gospel so that day-by-day disciples are being made, and the bride of Christ is being prepared for His return. These sent ones are our missionaries and we believe this is their goal!
Author: Kiley H is the Missions Pastor at Colonial Heights Baptist Church in Ridgeland, MS.
