WHY DO MISSIONS RIGHT NOW?
The Rev. Loren Fox, who with his wife Linda served with Anglican Frontier Missions in Southeast Asia, recently raised this question in ReachOut, published by New Wineskins Missionary Network. He states: “We need to renew our Anglicanism not only by affirming our historic, apostolic Faith and Tradition, but also by re-committing ourselves to cross-cultural church planting missions.” He continues with ten reasons, which are summarized here.
1. MISSIONS STRENGTHENS THE CHURCH. When we are sharing the Gospel, we are exercising our spiritual muscles and the Church is being strengthened.
2. MISSIONS RESISTS CREEPING HERESY. A strong Church is healthier and better able to resist creeping heresy.
3. MISSIONS STRETCHES OUR FAITH. How big do we really believe God is? How much do we expect God to reveal Himself in our generation?
4. MISSIONS CLARIFIES OUR PURPOSES. Each parish, diocese and province must discern carefully with God how we are to focus our attentions, prayers, and actions.
5. MISSIONS SHARPENS OUR THEOLOGY. Most of the New Testament was written to sharpen the Church's theology or practice in missionary settings.
6. MISSIONS BUILDS GLOBAL RELATIONSHIPS. Missions is counter-cultural, drawing us into relationships with those who are different from us. Missions benefits the Church at home as much as the new Church planted and nurtured in another culture.
7. MISSIONS DISCIPLINES OUR FINANCES. ...Tithing helps individuals to bring God into all of their financial decisions and to see that He indeed is able to provide all our needs. That should be the same answer for parishes, dioceses, and provinces when they ask about the financial investment in cross-cultural church planting missions.
8. MISSIONS NURTURES THE FRUIT AND GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT. I have discovered so much more that God works through me by the strength of the Spirit even when I am outside my comfort zone where I really have to trust Him rather than my own skills and smarts.
9. MISSIONS ENGAGES YOUTH. The irony is that we often give our young people more freedom to minister and lead when they are away on mission trips than when they are at home —and God works through them with enthusiasm, zeal, and power.
10. MISSIONS BUILDS LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE. A well known rector at the time, now a bishop, told me ten years ago that almost all of the most dynamic rectors he had encountered had at some point lived outside their home culture.
New Wineskins for Global Mission
April 8-11, 2010
Ridgecrest, NC
www.newwineskins.org
The Dutch theologian Willem Adolf Visser't Hooft puts it this way:
The command to witness to Christ is given to every member of his church. It is a commission given to the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world. When the church recognizes that it exists for the world, there arises a passionate concern that the blessings of the gospel of Christ should be brought to every land and to every man and woman.
