“Missionary; Evangelist.”
I bet I could guess what that word means to you. You picture white girls in long skirts and headbands holding brown babies in an African village while asking their friend to snap a picture of them, later to be posted on their Instagram. Or maybe you carry an image similar to a man on a podium yelling to the crowd surrounding him about the Bible in his hand almost like he made the rules himself.
Yeah, me too. This is what we’ve heard. This is what we’ve experienced. And that’s what breaks my heart.
No, God did not call us to be some great white hope to a poor, hurting world.
No, God did not choose us as some grand, holy messengers ready to convince everyone in our path that what we believe is the only way.
No, God didn’t send us as American missionaries to enforce western church culture in other places.
I’m sorry that this is what we call “missions.” So much damage has been done when we so desperately wanted a God we could control, so we molded Him into our own self-image.
In fact, this world doesn’t need our Christianity; It needs Jesus. This world doesn’t need a white man’s religion; It needs the gospel.
The heart of God behind missions appears when we bring the foundation of faith, while letting other express truth in their own heart language. When we bring hope outside ourselves so that the receivers don’t rely on us for anything, but the Lord for everything. When we bring the boldness the Lord has freely given us, so that others recognize that Abba also desires to use them to bring light to the nations. When we drop our need to always be right and say, “Let’s discover a new piece of our Heavenly Father together.” We’ve missed the fullness of mystery and beauty woven into the image of watching someone worship the same Savior in a foreign way.
In fact, missionaries and evangelists are simply broken people carrying a light bigger than themselves; People who have said “yes” to a call of God, not because they are worthy of such a calling, but because they serve a Father who deeply desires to use and heal the broken-hearted. In reality, God was never obligated to use His people to share the gospel. I’m sure there’s so many better ways He could have come up with. But Abba, knowing how badly we would mess up, has continued to so graciously hand over an invitation to not only watch, but also be a part of His loving victory over the nations.
And the call to missions is never limited to the poor african villages across the world. Calling yourself a Jesus follower means that your “mission field” is wherever your feet happen to land. That’s convicting.
I’m ready to see a generation rise up with missionaries who drop the need to see “same worship” and cherish the heart of God who simply wants “universal worship.”
