Upward Call

In the two previous articles, we saw that mission work should have two aspirations: to go deep and to go wide. Between these two, however, there is one priority: go wide. I did say that prioritizing depth over breadth does not mean that we stop working for, aspiring for, and praying for greater breadth. Today, I want to clarify how that can be. Borrowing heavily from Andy Johnsons' book, Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global,  I want to suggest two things: We should have a strategic emphasis on expansion. We should have a strategic commitment to strengthening. A Strategic Emphasis on Expansion Given Paul’s example (cf. Rom 15:20-21), the great need of the Least Reached People Groups (LRPs), and the church’s historic and persistent neglect of LRPs, it should be a strategic focus of missions to prioritize areas and peoples that are most isolated from the gospel. All other things being equal, you should generally fund the work among the unreached. I know there are ext...

(Delivered at the HRCC Missions Seminar on 17 November 2018. This is the first of three sessions.)     Introduction In our recent conference, Tim Challies preached from Mark 5 about the demon-possessed man. Jesus delivered that man, and do you remember what he wanted to do next? He wanted to go with Jesus. We can imagine this man’s pleas: “My Lord, where are you going? Let me come with you! I want to walk with you and serve you for the rest of my life!” The last thing he wanted was to be separated from His Savior. But what did Jesus tell him? “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.” Jesus left that man with a mission. And how did that man respond? Verse 20, “he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.” Brethren, that is a wonderful illustration of our situation today. Here we are, justified and adopted. W...

The previous article pointed out that going deep and going wide should both be goals for mission. But the dynamic between these two things is more complex than saying “they’re both important”. In this article, I want to propose the following: As a general rule, we should prioritize going deep over going wide. One Priority Mission work should aspire to go both deep and wide, but depth takes priority. Faithfulness has to be more important than mere numbers, and spiritual fruit more than superficial results. But we need to qualify what this means, and what it doesn’t. What It Doesn’t Mean Prioritizing depth over breadth does not mean that we stop working, aspiring, and praying for more expansive ministry. To begin with, the Great Commission tells us that we are not only to “make disciples”, but to “make disciples of all nations ” (Mat 28:19). In other words, there is to be an ever-present outward push . The church is never to settle for making disciples in just one na...

Over the past few years, I've been growing in my awareness and involvement in missions through short-term mission trips, conversations with mission workers, developing relationships with some missionaries, prayer, classes, and personal studies. But only in the past few months did I really get into the work of mobilizing. It's tiring: physically and mentally, but above all, emotionally! One of the things that I find so helpful is learning about the ongoing work of missionary partners. One of them, Ptr. James (not his real name) and his team have just returned from a successful trip to a little-reached, very restrictive province in Pakistan. They had a tense encounter with extremist Muslims, which involved death threats and their phones being thrown into a river, but the Lord protected them from what could have been much worse! Here's why this mission trip was especially encouraging for me: THE GOSPEL. I know that this missionary partner loves and preaches ...

It's Missions Month this November at our church! I have the privilege to organize the whole thing (with the guidance of one of the leaders of the church), and it was exciting to see the ushers distribute the PRAYER CALENDAR to the congregation: Working on this got me up to speed with Higher Rock's missionary partners, including: The Master's Academy International Overseas Instruction in Counseling Morris Bashir & Nomees Morris Robbie & Deanna Nichols Pong & Ricen Balinsay The foreword I wrote for this calendar expresses how I feel about it: A.T. Pierson once said, "There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer." Similarly, there is no telling what God may do when His people devotedly pray for His work of missions. This, in fact, would be the first sign of greater things. As Matthew Henry wrote, "When God intends great mercy for His people, He first of all sets them a-...

The Bible shows that depth and breadth of ministry are important aspirations to have in mission work. Take the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20, for example. The Lord commissioned the church to “go and make disciples of all nations” (go wide), which involves “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (go deep). The Need to Go Deep On the one hand, to sacrifice depth for the sake of breadth would spell disaster. It will result in a lot of false fruit that has been generated by fleshly methods. But shouldn’t we aim for spiritual fruit produced by the power of God working through Scripture? Any true fruit that is produced will not be fully developed. It will be stunted and sterile. Undiscipled disciples are more of a liability than an asset to the cause of Christ in their communities. (Andy Johnson, Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global, p. 68) “I’ve personally visited several countries where well-meaning missionaries became so urgent in their desire for spe...