We have outsourced the Great Commission.
Outsourcing is normally done when a company needs something done by someone outside the company.
For the company, it is usually cheaper, thus more effective, to do it that way. I have friends who outsource administrative work like payroll, an answering service, and so forth.
The outsourced service is usually something the company cannot do on its own, so it hires someone outside to do the task. Outsourcing can be an efficient and effective way to expand a company’s abilities.
But, going back to my opening statement, I believe the our Lord gave the church the responsibility for the Great Commission. While parachurch agencies and mission organizations can definitely enhance the work of missions, they are not to take the place of churches.
I do a lot of speaking and teaching in churches, as well as to mission organizations, about mobilizing people to be on mission. I hear people tell me that it was the mission organization who told them where to go. I think that needs to be something the church does.
In Acts 13, the church is the one instructed by the Holy Spirit to set apart and send Paul and Barnabas.
It has become such a business for many mission organizations to be able to have the right branding, and so all a person has to do is click a button and fill out a form on a Web site, and that triggers the process of sending him or her to a mission field.
Most of the time during that process, there is at least one reference that the person must give to acknowledge that he or she is part of a church, or perhaps it is a letter of recommendation from the pastor. The missionary candidate will most likely need to sign a doctrinal statement.
My fear is that in that process, I am seeing less and less about the church and the sense of a calling in the context of one’s community. What’s your take on the outsourcing of the Great Commission?
- Where is your church in this process?
- How is your church part of its missionaries’ formation and preparation?
- Does your church identify and affirm people’s giftedness, including the giftedness to live out the Great Commission overseas?
- If someone in your congregation felt called to go overseas, how would your church support the individual/family?
