The Fuel and Goal of Missions
A small team of young adults made use of their break from school to participate in a missions trip to a city in Asia. Over the next few weeks, they will share their experiences and lessons from this trip. Timothy Wan was part of this team. He reflects on how worship fuels and is the goal of missions, and how he (and all of us) can continue to cultivate missions-mindedness even while we are here.
Is missions-mindedness simply a nice add-on to the Christian life? Is taking an interest in missions work mainly for those who ‘have it all together’? Is it only for those whom God has given a subjective, mysterious sense of ‘calling’?
Contrary to such ideas, the Bible teaches us that missions is not some additional or supplementary category for the Christian life, but a central one. Missions-mindedness is not incidental, but key to worship. Our worship should spill over into a focus on missions; working towards missions deepens and enriches our experience of worship.
This past July, on a short mission trip to a city in Asia, I had the privilege of experiencing this for myself. For a month, three of us from the church joined a short-term international team to do campus ministry to assist the long-term team in the area. We had the privilege of going out to campus daily to befriend local students over the week, ultimately with the aim of sharing the gospel with them. During the month, God was so gracious to answer so many prayers – not least, for the grace to understand better the work that has been done there, that is being done there, and to be done. Central to that work is worship – as John Piper’s famous dictum on missions goes: worship is the fuel and goal of missions; missions exists because worship does not.
Worship fuels missions and evangelism
I got to see how our endeavours to spread the gospel must be a happy byproduct of our delight in that same gospel. This need became apparent as we would go out to campuses during lunchtime to befriend students. The tough thing about sharing the gospel is that it often feels much easier not to do so. I want to be comfortable; I want to stay in the friction-free conversation about superficial things; I want to be liked. It would sometimes feel like to hold out the gospel would be to stake the goodwill and rapport we had built.
Moreover, when I did manage to share the gospel, it was all too easy to do so with sinful motives – a desire to have something to say during meetings; a desire to prove myself; to have something to show when I got back. Indeed, what comfort to say with Paul, “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.” (Phil 1:18)
I learned how necessary it is to cultivate that joy in the truths of the gospel – and to sense the urgency of telling others about it. Particularly, I remember that as we got to read Genesis 1 with some of the students we had met, how the Spirit impressed upon me what a marvellous thing it is to know our Creator! To see the beauty of the world, enjoy taste, smell, touch, and to rightly attribute it to the Father who made it and gives it generously. To know that that same God made us and desires us to know Him – and to sense the grievous tragedy of living with the atheistic, materialistic outlook that so many of the students do. Desiring to tell them about all this God has done to repair this relationship – to the point of sending His own Son to the cross! – was a much stronger motivation to share.
It therefore helped that we would gather together and pray. At night, huddled in our hotel room, team members would come together and pray over the conversations we had had, the friends we had made, appealing together to God that He might save them. What a joy to talk about these things – as Deuteronomy exhorts us to do: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut 6:6–9)
If we are not talking about God’s goodness, wisdom, mercy and love when in easy settings, we are much less likely to do so in harder settings. Conversely, if we practise speaking of these things regularly with one another and with ourselves, it may well be easier to do so with others.
Worship is the goal of missions
Our desire is that they would become worshippers of the God who made them. And that starts with us being worshippers of God.
To that end, the need to continually cultivate joy in the gospel also makes the church central to missions. I was strengthened by the Sundays we spent at different churches in the city, being fed by faithful preaching. It was encouraging to meet other brothers and sisters who were persisting with the gospel in hard places.
We also had the privilege of attending a conference for local believers. We got to hear how many of them came to faith – for many of them, it was through campus ministry like that which we had been doing! What a joy it was to hear how loudly and joyfully they sang together – these people who before someone had told them about Christ, would have not known Him. It is amazing to see the fruit borne by previous faithful efforts. Truly, “how good it is, when the family of God / Dwell together in spirit, in love and unity!” The conference helped give me a vision of what we are striving for – that more unbelievers would come and gather to sing together, delighting in who God is and what He has done for us in Christ!
A love for missions is a love for worship. It is the desire to hear God’s praise being sung in other languages by people who gather together, “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Eph 3:10)
Cultivating missions-mindedness at home
Back in Singapore, I hope to continue cultivating missions-mindedness; it is easy to forget. I pray that – for the sake of our worship – we can do so together!
To remember that our worship now is the fruit of past missions. If we enjoy worship at GBC now, it is only because of the faithful labour of past missionaries. Therefore, let us not think of missions as far from our weekly worship; it is intimately tied to what we do every week. So let’s cultivate first of all knowledge of missions work and delight in it. Consider joining the Missions Reading Group, held once every month, where we read missionary biographies and discuss them together!
To set my face like flint towards evangelism. I find that unless I sit down with an ‘agenda’ (that word which makes many dubious), it won’t just ‘come out’. So may the Lord grant more opportunities to invite others to delight in the same truths we do!
To give generously to the missions field. Even for our short trip, we received financial support from the church – which not only helped in many practical ways, but also encouraged us that we were not going alone! It was also in some ways a charge to be faithful with that resource and with our time.
If we care about God’s worship, we will care about God’s mission to make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:18–20). Likewise, if we cultivate an interest in, and practice of evangelism and missions, then our worship will be all the richer.
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