Authentic Christianity Christian Mission: 750. A missionary religionThere are the five parts of the Bible. The God of the Old Testament is a missionary God, calling one family in order to bless all the families of the earth. The Christ of the Gospels is a missionary Christ; he sent the church out to witness. The Spirit of the Acts is a missionary Spirit; he drove the church out from Jerusalem to Rome. The church of the epistles is a missionary church, a worldwide community with a worldwide vocation. The end of the Revelation is a missionary End, a countless throng from every nation. So I think we have to say the religion of the Bible is a missionary religion. The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable. Mission cannot be regarded as a regrettable lapse from tolerance or decency. Mission cannot be regarded as the hobby of a few fanatical eccentrics in the church. Mission lies at the heart of God and therefore at the very heart of the church. A church without mission is no longer a church. It is contradicting an essential part of its identity. The church is mission. * From 'The Whole Christian', "Proceedings of the International Conference of Christian Medical Students", ed. Lee Moy Ng (London: ICCMS and Christian Medical Fellowship, 1980), p. 46.
* Excerpted from "Authentic Christianity", pp. 315-316, by permission of InterVarsity Press.
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Missions• SBCC's Missions Thrust:
to support ministries that promote a local church emphasis, to grow missionaries out of our own local body, and to make our Christian witness overt. • Mutual edification:
our hope is that we will have a reciprocal relationship with each missionary. We want missionaries sent out from SBCC to return to the church to teach, encourage, inform, and stimulate our church body. • Long-term vs. short-term:
we recognize that God usually uses short-term mission trips to cultivate a calling to the mission field; as a result, we will often give some financial support to these trips on a case-by-case basis. Nevertheless, in terms of percentages, the majority of our missions giving will be devoted to long-term missions work. • Sending Church:
SBCC desires to be a sending church. We are seeking to develop and send members of our body to the mission field. We affirm the need for missions agencies to assist the church in their sending efforts. The church and the mission agency become partners in training, sending, and sustaining the missionary. • Balance:
we seek to be balanced in our missionary endeavors between foreign, local, and social justice concerns. • Speaking up for the voiceless:
we will give priority to places and people who lack a voice, whether through lack of fiscal & social resources (as in a Third World country), or through lack of vital church presence (e.g., in most of Western Europe). • Prayer:
we will pray as a church regularly for missions and missionaries, and encourage the body to grow in missions-mindedness. At one level, every member of the body will be involved in missions. • Focus:
Our desire in all of our efforts is to exalt God and lift up his name, not the names of any particular individuals or organizations. If you are interested in finding out more about missions at SBCC, you may contact one of the members of the Missions Group, who oversee our missions ministry: Mandy Abbas: Ministry to Muslims, and the Middle East © 2002 - 2008, Santa Barbara Community Church |
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