MOTIVATING MISSIONARIES YOU SEND: Walking the Tightrope
STATEMENT
Churches should motivate missionary service through sound biblical teaching and thoughtful assessment and training of candidates, which undergird wise decisions and faithfulness on the field, rather than emotional or pragmatic appeals that may lead to unwise decisions.
Article Written by Nathan Matthew
A good friend of mine attended a mission conference as a university student. She knew very little about missions at the time, and as she listened to the talks, attended breakouts, and spoke with various mission agencies, she became overwhelmed with the task's urgency. Billions of people would not hear the gospel if more missionaries didn’t go. Thousands of people groups had no Bible in their language. The lack of indigenous churches was shocking. On the final evening of the conference, a well-known evangelist spoke passionately about all these needs. He concluded his sermon with a rousing call to missionary service. She tells me she can still see him in her mind, pointing his right index finger around the crowd and asking people to stand if they were willing to go. So she stood, along with thousands of other students. She was undoubtedly motivated. But was she making a wise decision?
Throughout decades on the field, I’ve met countless people who felt called to missionary service. Some met or read about missionaries when they were young and wanted to follow in their footsteps. Others grew up on the field and wanted to go back. Still others desired to do something challenging for the gospel's sake. And some, like my friend, had gone to a missions conference and responded to a call.
Nothing is wrong with these reasons. Yet I worry that decisions made subjectively or based on human desire alone won’t withstand the rigors of missionary life and sustain in times of opposition and hardship. So how do we help people make wise, lasting decisions?
Recently, I participated in a conference that I believe presents the call in a full-orbed way: educating people about the needs and encouraging those who have a desire to go while presenting two primary and essential components of the missionary call: the biblical basis of missions and the biblical role of the church in missions.
Most missions-minded churches and organizations prioritize sending more and more missionaries. Jesus told his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37–38). There’s no debate whether God’s people should be more involved in missions. Christians are mobilized to reach the nations like never before. Thankfully, the number of mission opportunities and resources organizations provide for global missions is at an all-time high. We are seeing unprecedented financial giving to missions. Praise God for all the work in missions over the last century. We should all pray that God continues to raise up people to go.
But we need to be careful to do so with the right reasons. Emotional appeals about the plight of the lost can be appropriate. We must confront passivity and complacency. Christians should feel compassion for those cut off from access to the gospel. We shouldn’t allow one another to be sidetracked from taking the gospel overseas.
And yet, we must be careful not to compel Christians into missions based solely on urgent needs or a desire to do something significant. Passionate pleas have succeeded in more Christians signing up to go overseas, but can be unintentionally manipulative. Besides, a decision based on pure emotion will unlikely be sustained over the long haul.
It can be tempting to get people overseas as soon as possible. Slowing down to evaluate readiness or taking multiple steps to prepare may feel like a misuse of time and resources when the need is urgent. However, a too-fast approach risks sending the wrong people if those individuals aren’t biblically prepared for long-term, faithful ministry. Eagerness to quickly send people to the field can translate into impatience and discouragement on the mission field when the work is hard, and the ministry doesn’t go as they thought it would.
Sadly, my colleagues and I have seen that many missionaries who’ve responded to a subjective call as the primary basis for their decision or “fast-tracked” to the mission field are ill-prepared for their task. Field churches and missionary teams receive missionaries who don’t have the ministry skills or experience needed for their work. Others return from the field after a short time of service because the assignment proved too challenging for them. These things can hinder the progress of the gospel.
So how should we motivate people for missions? It’s necessary for potential missionaries to understand God’s sovereign plan. Churches and missions motivators need to teach from Scripture about God’s heart for the world. Secondly, the local church must exercise wisdom. Churches shouldn’t send just anyone who is sincere and willing. They should instead evaluate and prepare everyone who wants to go overseas.
Biblical Motivations for Missions
God reveals His heart for missions in the very first pages of the Bible and continues to make His love for all peoples known throughout His Word [1]. God’s desire for His Name to be glorified in all nations didn’t begin with the Great Commission; it was always His plan. A prospective missionary needs to understand God’s purposes in the world in the arc of all Scripture. In doing so, they will align their heart with God’s heart.
In 2 Corinthians 5:10–21, Paul says Christians are Christ’s ambassadors. While this passage is about all Christians, it also helps us to identify five vital motivations for missionaries.
First, in vv. 10-11, Paul tells us that the fear of the Lord, who will judge every human being, should move us to persuade people to follow Jesus.
Second, he notes that Christ’s love compels him. Paul focuses on Jesus’ death and resurrection, through which He accomplished salvation for those who trust in Him. His understanding of the greatness of what Christ did through his sacrifice motivated his mission. It’s no different today; the love of Christ on the cross is sufficient to dispel indifference and sustain Christians in difficult circumstances on the mission field.
Third, Paul tells us not to view people with worldly eyes but as people who can become new creations in Christ by repenting and believing in the gospel. No one is beyond God’s saving power, and that should propel us to take the gospel to those who haven’t heard or to those who seem unresponsive. God uses His people to spread His gospel.
Fourth, prospective missionaries must recognize that God uses them to fulfill His purposes. As Paul teaches in vv.18-20, God in His wisdom appeals to the lost through believers. He entrusted the message of reconciliation—the gospel of Jesus Christ—to them. That’s why they are His ambassadors.
Last, the message missionaries bring is good news. Ambassadors urge people to be reconciled to God through Christ because they can in fact be reconciled to God through Christ. There must be clarity on what the gospel is and isn’t. To that end, Paul ends this portion of his letter with a beautiful summary of what God did through Christ: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (v. 21)
The Role of the Local Church in the Missionary Call
While a biblically motivated desire to go is critical, it shouldn’t be the only consideration. That desire should be thoughtfully examined, advised, and confirmed by a missions-minded church where the candidate is well known [2].
Churches should send properly motivated and qualified missionaries. They must reinforce the biblical underpinnings of missionary work and not be persuaded by urgency or a pursuit of statistics that shortcuts such biblical teaching. Missionaries are “sent ones”; in this sense, the Great Commission is given to churches. Churches should see themselves as responsible under God for those they send out.
In Acts 13:1–3, the church at Antioch laid their hands on Paul and Barnabas and sent them as missionaries. The church had several qualified leaders, but as they sought the Lord’s will, it became clear that these two men were the ones to go. Churches should consider if they are affirming and sending out people for missions who are biblically qualified, mature disciples, and gifted by the Holy Spirit for such ministry.
If we retain these priorities, then we protect both the sending church and the missionaries from deep discouragement. Together, the church and the missionary understand that God is faithful in his eternal purposes. They can withstand challenges, knowing God is unthwarted by difficult circumstances and impossible odds. When missionaries and their sending churches are convinced that Christ's authority underpins the Great Commission, they will depend on Him and His Word even when there is little fruit. And they will rejoice together when they see the gospel go forth.
Conclusion
Individual Christians today speak of being “called” to missions; some churches think that’s enough. Once, a student told me she was “called” to go on a short-term mission to a nearby country. But after discovering that this trip was to a dangerous area and physically challenging, she informed me that she no longer felt “called.” Her reliance on subjective feelings didn’t sustain her in the face of hardship.
Instead, Christians should focus on a biblical understanding of God’s heart for the lost and His plan to use His people to spread the gospel message to the ends of the earth. Missionaries confident that Christ's authority undergirds the Great Commission will depend on Him and His Word, not their desires and feelings. Prospective missionaries should be assessed and affirmed by their church. Those assessed, taught well, and sent out by their church are resilient against discouragement and difficult circumstances because they understand that God is faithful, and he will always accomplish all He has ordained.
footnotes:
[1] Sam Emadi gave some excellent talks on God’s heart for the nations at CrossCon 21. You can listen to them at https://www.crosscon.com/speakers/sam-emadi
[2] For more on this see the GCC article “Who Makes a Good Prospective Missionary?”
