Talking Out Of Turn

Several months ago, a young woman in my church wanted to go on a short-term mission trip. She and her family looked around and found a few likely candidates, but it was interesting to see just how few options there were as far as Reformed missions go.

Now, my church is not large. In fact, it is now about 2/3 as large as it was when we started attending, nearly two years ago. I can count the number of related families and/or singles who attend on most Sundays with both hands (each family or single represents one, here). Take off one shoe and I can cover the ones who attend less frequently but still come often enough to be considered one of us.

We were started as a plant of another church, but for various reasons we aren’t connected with them anymore. We’re a church plant that is established, in the sense of having a place to meet and all that, but not having deep roots or anything resembling momentum (yeah, mixed metaphors, sue me).

Funny thing is, the church is so ingrained in our habits and our lives, I think we all forgot that we are a mission into this community. Dozens of churches, a mostly Catholic town, but the Baptist churches are all either liberal or evanjellyfish, and the couple of Reformed churches have about as much momentum as we do. The hub of the community is a few Protestant liberal churches and a Roman Catholic behemoth in the middle of town. Everybody who lives here is related in some way to somebody who attends there. Half of the community’s doings are related to that church.

The fact is, we are unique in our town. There are starting to be other Reformed and Baptist churches here and there (there’s even one place that claims the 1689 as its confession, in nearby Edwardsville, and another Acts 29 church is apparently going to start there soon, if word on the street is to be trusted), but nothing in Highland, Illinois. Except us.

So, what’s the big idea? Just this: why not reach out to the “unreached people” in our own town?

Last week was our “mission trip to Highland.” Many of us took our vacations from work last week and did Backyard Bible Clubs, community service projects, a service at the local assisted-living facility, and a few other things. I haven’t worked that hard (physically) in years. And like any good short-term mission trip, it was a time of major spiritual highs and lows. The highs were moments like realizing that three children in my little “application” group in the Bible Club knew technically what was required to be saved, but also had doubts as to whether they had any victory over sin — any actual “fruit” — in their lives. This was really great to hear, believe me. Somebody was listening. These children will be watched, and counseled, and loved, and prayed for, and exhorted to truly repent and believe, and one day I have expectations that God will fufill our prayers for them.

The lows were rough, too. Like realizing the extent of my own wasted life. My tendency to complain about everything (and boy, do I ever have that log in my eye). My inability to be a man or a leader sometimes. My desire to rely on myself rather than on God.

But here’s the good and bad thing about all this: we didn’t go to another state, or another country, to do our little mission work and then come home. We live here. We are the long-term missionaries. We stay, we forge relationships, we strive to maintain good relations with our neighbors, and we proclaim Christ over the long haul. Sure, I have to go back to work every day now, but I don’t have an excuse anymore to keep from reaching out to the community. I am part of that community now. I have come out of my shell. The walls have fallen and the city is ripe for plundering; we must find God’s children and take them from the enemy.

Oh how God calls
As He stalls the great
Judgment of fire
So He can gain His greatest desire
For He knows
That the souls
Of the lost, they can only be reached
Through us
We’re His hands and His feet! — “Jesus Commands Us to Go,” Keith Green

God has not only ordained the end — the salvation of His people — but also the means to that end: our spreading of the Gospel. Our spreading of the Gospel.

Romans 10:14-15 Listen

14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (ESV)

Footnotes

[1] 10:14 Or him whom they have never heard

So… I left last week on a short-term mission trip. And I’ve decided that I’m not coming back. I am a long-term missionary here in Illinois. As long as God gives me to stay here and plant this church and call on people to repent and believe, that’s what I will do.

Should you support missionaries to other countries, to unreached peoples, and so forth? Yes, absolutely. But should you be a missionary too?

Yes, absolutely. Leave on your mission trip now, and don’t come back.