When most people think of 'missions' their minds travel to the far reaches of China, the safaris of Africa, or the rain forests of South America. However the idea of missions is so much bigger than the extreme images of full time missionaries. Missions is an important part of Christianity that any person of any age should carry out in their daily lives. While it is no exactly realistic to prepare first and second grades to be sent into Las Vegas for street evangelism, there are still areas of missions that they can be trained in. Before Jesus left the Earth he left us with the instructions on how to live our lives. He summed all this up with what is known as the "Great Commission" (Matthew 28:18-20). How can the Great Commission be literally applied in your life as a teacher, so that through example you can teach and disciple others?
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Encouragement is a big thing of mine and I see it through the Great Commission. We first need to, ourselves, see that we are always going to be growing and learning throuhgout out lives, there is no avoiding that. Once this is accepted I think we need to then pray that God helps us do whatever His will has us doing and do that with all of our hearts. Throughout this process we are going to be learning and growing and no matter how difficult it is we need to find ways to share these things with others. For me, I will be working with kids and i will need to find healthy and appropriate ways to admit mistakes of mine to the children. This will show that that they are not alone in making mistakes in growing. From there i think we need to share our wonderful maker will all we encounter, that can be just by smiling at someone while walking ona sidewalk, that can be sending a letter to a friend who is seriously struggling with something, it can just be simply sending a text to let someone know you are thinking about them and praying for them. Simple things are def. not everything but I think they are a very good place to start and from there, we can help teach and discple others towrad Him. It is not what we do but what God does through us. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Emmalee, encouragement is a big thing to me as well. I am all for showing Christ's love through a smile or kind word. But I also see that in the Great Comission, Jesus is telling us to be active in our faith, I feel that we have grown into Christian couch potatoes who think that everyone else will take care of teaching others the word of God. Jesus wants us to be active teachers in everything that we do, from work, school, to playing video games. I also think we need to remember like Tyler mentioned that missions does not only pertain to third world countries, our mission field is everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we really should have a more focused missional outreach within our nation. There are so many people in our country, and even those directly surrounding us, that don't know about the love of God. They would have more understand of who God is because of where they grew up, but they are still naive to who God really is and how life is with Him.
ReplyDeleteliterally we should take account every breath that we take and realize that we ARE living, breathing, EXAMPLES for Christ and that each and everything we do is within a moment that we are seriously being BLESSED with. since we are NOT guaranteed another breath on this earth and there truly are SO many people that are in DIRE need of a savior, it IS our job to live on another level. its our Job to encourage and spread joy. it's our job to SHINE for Jesus. its an honor to spread the Love of Jesus to whomever and wherever we go...honestly! and it doesn't matter if we are onna mission trip or if we are on a mission to wal mart to get something... this world needs people who will take it by storm and tear the walls that satan has put up to the ground, with the Love of God. our life, should in essence teach others how and what... this Jesus character truly is. if they realize that is what they are getting our not...we are commissioned to do so, basically...so i say.. lets get it! :) haha
ReplyDeleteWow! What everyone said was so good on this one. And Keith...preach it my brotha! Seriously, we need to realize that we ARE the Church. We ARE the body of Christ. As teachers, through using the Great Commission, I think we need to take it opun ourselves to BE Christ. We cannot settle for just planning fun games, cool services, or little retreats...we need to be out in the community and the world. If we say our goal and objective is to disciple others to be like Christ then we need to show who Christ is. We need to be willing to go out and "make disciples" and get out of our comfort zone. This may mean going to Africa or China, but for most of us it probably means going into our own local community and showing who Christ is. Dang, I could probably go on forever, but that is the basic thought process I am having and it pretty much lines up with what everyone else is saying.
ReplyDeleteAs children of God, Jesus has given us an authority to spread the word of God to the world. “Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). To me ministering through missions could be done anywhere in the world, where people seeks the Lord. There are corner of the world that have never heard the word of God. Although ignorance will not be an excuse on the judgment day, there are people who have never heard of the Name Jesus. So it is the Christian responsibility to get the rest of the world saved. He gave everyone the power to be a great teacher before he descended, so if one is willing to teach the word of God, the rest will be added and the WORD will be spread.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree with Tyler the responses to this question were great. I think that missions work happens every day in everything that we do just like it has been said above. I think that we should be intentional in forming relationships that go beyond race, religion, creed, or any other boundary, reflecting the love and grace of Jesus Christ as we do. I have heard it said that the Holy Spirit knows no comfort zones, a phrase that may hopefully prompt us to move at the impulses of the Father's will, reaching out to establish the Kingdom of Heaven more fully here on earth with every action that we take. This summer I worked at a National Park with ACMNP and I was able to form deep relationships with people from all over the world and people with beliefs ranging from Atheist to Muslim. At first I approached these people with an agenda, feeling a responsibility to convert them, but I quickly came to the realization that it was not the agenda or formula of Christ that changed my heart of stone into flesh, but the love of Christ. I learned that my agenda left little room for the flow of God's love and once I tossed out my agenda I found myself impacted in more profound ways than I could have imagined. So yeah that was a good question.
ReplyDeleteThis topic of missions and the "Great Commision" is an area that i personally would like to get better at. I know going on mission trips is a prime example of being the hands and feet of Christ, but like everyone else was saying you can show Chist through little things that you do during the day. Something that I have recently been trying to do to show others that I care, is by hugging people. I want people to know that I care about them in more ways then just telling them, so I show them by my actions.
ReplyDeleteBen Evans
ReplyDeleteI don't even know how to respond to this without repeating what has already been said. I spent Saturday at the district NMI Convention as a delegate for my church. We went from speaker to speaker talking about what was being done in other countries and how there would be a one week trip to different areas in the world to
help those people out. What I did not really hear anything about was the emphasis on going out to our communities to minister and be a missionary to them. I don't understand how a leader in the church can miss the point of missions when we are supposed to be a missional denomination. I think that we need to take everything that we do into account when it comes to how we view missions. It isn't a once a year thing, it is a constant lifestyle.
Everyone did a wonderful job talking about what it means to work in the mission field, and though our primary responsibility is to those who we see each day, there is no reason we can't help those across the seas or the inner cities that are so far away. I feel like this blog has shown that everyone sees the idea of being a light in each others life, but to go one step further and to call out the need of those in foreign areas because they definitely are in a great need for our help. Now kids may not be able to travel around the world to help, but there comes a point where we can all be on the mission field in the world, but even if you can't travel, you can still be a missionary to China by sponsoring children, sending supplies to them, encouraging and supporting the missionaries who are over there, and being a witness to those around you so that maybe someone you run across could be a missionary around the world. No, mission isn't just worldly, it is our next door as well, but make sure your view doesn't go from one extreme, that is only third world countries count as mission field, to a point where you don't even see the needs of those around the world.
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