Focus on God Himself

At the deepest, most fundamental level, a missions culture is nurtured best through an ongoing, insistent effort to focus a congregation upon God Himself rather than upon the world’s need. The congregation’s own need is to know the Lord intimately, to be actually and not theoretically theocentric. Classic missionary biographies such as Brainerd, Carey, Martyn, Judson, Taylor, Slessor, and Carmichael unanimously confirm this necessity. People whose hearts focus not upon Christian service first, but upon God Himself in Christ, experience a vast transformation. It changes their character. Then their values. Then, inevitably, their ambitions.

Conspicuously Combat the World's Encroachment

Hand in glove with this consistent pressure to thirst for God Himself must be conspicuous, unceasing combat against the world’s insidious encroachment. Is it possible that the present shortfall of young men entering the ministry may be explained largely by the homes in which they’ve been reared? Few missionaries seem to be produced in families pleasantly at ease with contemporary culture, let alone caring much about its idols (cars, clothes, image, money, movies, music, sports).

Delight in God's Word

Neither of these vital, transformative objectives of God centeredness and culture-separateness can possibly be nurtured apart from our people’s relationship to their Bibles. Scripture itself insists upon this point uncompromisingly. Men, women, and young people who do not meditate with delight on God’s Word day and night soon drift (though imperceptibly to themselves) into the counsel of the ungodly and the way of sinners (even the seat of the scornful when someone spiritually-minded attempts to correct them). Christians must be turned into daily Bible readers and Bible memorizers. It’s a critical axiom of spiritual warfare on which pastors must not yield. The people will either hide God’s Word in their hearts or they will slide into sinning against Him. And they will not serve Him well, at least not much, and certainly not sacrificially.

These are elementary principles, but as in so many other realms of life, it’s often the failure to magnify fundamentals that explains ineffectiveness. The reason that a book such as Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was an astronomical best-seller was not because he uncovered seven secrets no one had ever heard about. It was because he was able to explain at a popular level seven behaviors that are actually universally known. By practicing them consistently, a shoe-shine boy could improve himself just as surely as an astronaut.

Direct People's Energies

When the fundamentals are practiced, missions mindedness comes to life on its own. Most of what will be needed then will simply be ways to direct people’s energies, and these differ somewhat from church to church. Feeding and directing a growing interest in missions is one of the most fulfilling experiences a pastor can have.

Our church emphasizes reading missionary biographies from a young age. The church bookstore stocks scores of such titles, and I frequently relate anecdotes from them in the pulpit. It’s inestimably beneficial to a church’s missions program for its young people to have John and Margaret Paton, David Livingstone, John and Betty Stam, Malla Moe, Gladys Aylward, Jim Elliot, etc., for their earliest heroes. What warm, youthful heart for God wouldn’t want to follow in their steps!

Then, of course, we schedule missions presentations from real, live missionaries—lots of them, so that not all of our heroes are in books about the past. Because of our circumstance, we average about one a month, sometimes more, and almost always on Wednesday nights before we go to prayer. This combination of presentations and prayer is undoubtedly infectious. The two in tandem are not occasional, but a constant beat in the rhythm of our weekly cycle of services.

We also do all the other things that most churches do. We stock our racks with prayer cards, read prayer letters, write missionaries, support missionaries, send young people to visit mission fields, include in the church calendar a once-a-month missions meeting for our ladies, take up a Christmas offering for our missionaries, and occasionally rise up to send a special gift or team to answer an exceptional need. But ultimately, “all is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down.” Our Lord told us what to do: “pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest” (Matthew 9:38), not just for the needs of our missionaries but for missionaries!