On Mission
Then the master told the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges and make them come in, so that my house may be filled.’
Luke 14:23 (CSB)
The contemporary language of young Christ Followers perks up my ears when they advocate Christians should live “on mission.”
It makes me ask myself, Do I live ‘on mission?’
Well, I have been on three great mission trips in my life. One to Belize in 1987, to Costa Rica in 2007 and to Italy in 2019.
After my first trip to impoverished homes in Belize City, I felt guilty for having carpet and drapes in my comfortable home.
I recall the great fellowship our team experienced with a missionary in Costa Rica while standing on the dirt floors in her simple home. With great joy, the proud “chief of her kitchen” joyfully instructed the volunteers how to create the perfect sandwich tray for our event.
Lifetime memories were created while singing the message of Christ in concerts to many crowds of gracious Italians.
But recently, I was moved and changed, and my definition of being “on mission” expanded while watching our young church staff lead the way to flatten down the walls of the church during the outbreak of COVID, right here at home. Folks in need lined up in parking lots to receive boxes of food, prayer, and a whole host of other acts of kindness.
My hope to be “on mission” at home and in other lands has brought completeness to my life!
To paraphrase a recent article about being “On Mission”—
It does not mean:
Treating unbelievers differently or speaking in a “holy” way around them; viewing unbelievers as “projects” to be completed; spending ten hours a week set aside for “missionary work”; you only talk about Jesus with pious and serious words having no fun!
It does mean:
Loving people, like Jesus, with prayerful consideration of how to best connect with them for the purposes of the Gospel. (I Corinthians 9:22)
*In other words, by faith in Christ, we have received a new identity of “missionary," sent into our daily lives armed with the message and mercy of Jesus Christ. To be “on mission” is to practically live out that identity in simple, loving, every day ways, befriending unbelievers for the sake of the Gospel, the good of the city and the glory of God.
Jill Hendrix
*https://www.downtowncornerstone.org
