Living faithful, fruitful and fulfilled on the mission field
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Every year I ask the Lord a question. “What one thing do you want me to do this year?” I like to get my priorities crystal clear. When I know what God has said to do, I have my marching orders. I know my one thing. Without fail, that is going to be my top priority for the year. A few years ago, I was praying. I heard His still small voice whisper, “Invest in people, not projects. It’s the people who will bear the most fruit.”
Instantly, I knew this was true. It was biblical. But it wasn’t easy.
I like projects. I enjoy that sense of completion and accomplishment. It makes me feel good. There is great fulfillment in being able to do something. People, well, they’re harder. They have issues.
God is a relational being. He is deeply committed to relationships. He chose to work through these frail and often troubled connections we have with others. God makes Himself known through how we relate with people, more than projects. Working with people requires patience, love, character…the fruit of His Spirit.
When Jesus gave the Great Commission in Matt 28:18-20, He didn’t say, “Go into all the world and dig wells.” Nor did He command us to go and build orphanages, or schools, or start businesses. He told us to go and make disciples. That involves people. (Don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not completely against projects. We need to think hard about this issue and make sure our projects are leading to actual disciple making.)
There is a trend in American missions today away from people and toward projects. We are a “cause-driven” society. Causes and projects ask little of us, compared to relationships.
It was Sunday morning. We were staying in the home of a pastor friend. His church had supported us for many years. Traveling hundreds of miles, we had come to update the church about our ministry and lives. They’d been faithful ministry partners for years. It was a joy to come back and spend time with them. We looked forward to the 15-minute opportunity to challenge for greater mission engagement.
“Do you have any projects?” my pastor friend asked. “Our people respond well to projects.”
“Hmmm.” I thought. “What project can I come up with so people will give?”
I managed to think of something. My husband needed a new computer. Maybe the church could help us buy one. We needed to come back to our home country after a year or so to see our kids. “Would that be a worthwhile project?” I wondered.
Inside, I felt frustrated. Why can’t people give because they believe in us? Why isn’t the fact that we are going back to make disciples among unreached people, a good enough cause to give to?
Jesus said, “go and make disciples of all nations…” Matt. 28:18 NIV.
Jesus said, “the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few…” Matt. 9:37. He didn’t say the projects were few, or the money was not enough. He said people were needed.
While we feel the pull to focus on projects, it is people who produce the greater fruit. Evangelizing, mentoring, coaching, making disciple makers, building relationships, loving people, these activities are vital. They have much more to do with fulfilling Jesus’ final command than many projects do.
I am concerned about the shift in American churches away from investing in people. Projects will raise a lot of money and do many good deeds, but may horribly fail to complete the Great Commission.
It concerns me that by the way we give to missions, we could unintentionally push missionaries away from doing what is most important. We may thrust them toward doing what is necessary to raise funds to survive – creating projects that will motivate and inspire donors.
Projects will raise a lot of money and do many good deeds, but may horribly fail to complete the Great Commission.
This is a cause for major strategic concern. If we make this shift, we will likely not see a change in the disturbing stats we face. More than 2 billion people on the planet remain unreached and have no access to the gospel. People will change that, not projects.
Projects are easier to raise funds for.
With projects, we can easily see what we have done.
It is difficult to measure spiritual growth in someone’s life. It’s far easier to say “Done. We built that widow’s home, orphanage, or church building.”
Disciples make more disciples. If we do not go after a multiplication model of discipleship, we will never complete the Great Commission. The population growth rates among the unreached are far too great. Buildings don’t multiply, people do. Movements of disciples flow along relational lines.
While projects can bring short-term transformation, long-term change requires discipleship.
If a family in Mexico gets a new home built for them, it feels like transformation. If, however, the father of the household continues to drink, what happens? The kids continue to run with the drug dealers. Within a few years, that house will make little difference in their lives. Possible scenario? Yes indeed.
Imagine instead, if a missionary builds a relationship with that man. He shares Christ with him. He walks with him every day for a year as he battles his way toward freedom. They study God’s word together. They cry and pray together when he fails. Over time, his life becomes a witness to others. He gets a job and keeps it. The man begins to provide for his family, and they build a small house. It’s not as nice as the other house, but it is their own. He starts to share with and help his brother who is also an alcoholic.
People bring far greater lasting transformation than do projects.
Our world is starving for community. People walk around engaged with their phones. Lonely, they feel restless and empty. A discovery or life group is started. People connect around God’s Word and share their lives. Projects don’t build lasting community, people do.
Missionary- Are you focused more on projects or people? Who are you investing in? Training as a disciple maker? What leader are you raising up to do what you do? Are people at the top of your priority list?
Missions Supporter/Pastor- Are you investing in projects or people? Do your missions related goals have to do with how much money you raise? Or how many missionaries you mobilize and send from your church? Do you care for the missionaries you do send well? Do you invest time in knowing them and their struggles/needs?
Reflect on these questions before the Lord. Ask God to shine His light on the way you are doing missions. Let Him realign your priorities to His. The pathway forward may not be the easiest one, but He will walk with you. His ways are higher, His thoughts and strategies better than ours.
I would love to hear your input or experiences with this! Feel free to comment below or on the Missionary Life Facebook page.
*Disclaimer- The above article is not meant to offend or attack, but simply to call us to think carefully about the swing toward a project-oriented mission philosophy. I recognize that some projects, when done mindfully, can be beneficial and lead to fruit.
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Before I went into missions I had a grand desire to do something meaningful with my life. I think most of us long for something like that. Our search for meaning and purpose can leave us feeling disappointed with God or ourselves. Disappointment in how …
Ever talk to yourself? Every once in a while, I accidentally find myself exclaiming something out loud. I suddenly notice what I meant to say silently in my mind has slipped out my lips. “Come on Anderson, do it right!” is one. Or I utter something alone in my car, annoyed with the vehicle in front of me, “Turn on your blinker will you?!!” Honest confession. Sadly, these proclamations are often not nice toward myself or others. Declarations are powerful and have a great spiritual impact.
Matthew 12:34 says, “The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” It’s not a great sign when I say things like what was mentioned above. Yet it’s a sign I need to take note of and do something about.
Instead of these negative statements, we can declare truths about things our soul needs to hear.
Lately, I’ve been practicing various rhythms for health and marriage. Habits and spiritual rhythms help us move forward even when we don’t necessarily feel like it. They reduce the need for willpower, something that is limited in supply. They do this by becoming patterns of our lives rather than things we choose to do daily.
One I’ve particularly enjoyed has been making four daily declarations during my time alone with God in the mornings. I heard about these from Archie Coates of HTB though I’m not sure if they are original with him.
In one way they are prayers. But in another way, I’m talking more to myself than to God. There are times when we need to speak truth to our souls through a declaration like this.
Romans 10:17 says that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Sometimes we need to hear these things spoken to our souls to build up our faith. This is why rather than just reading them, I’ve experienced real power in saying them out loud. It builds my faith in the reality and truth of these truths.
Our souls are fickle. It’s easy for us to become discouraged or to begin to believe the opposite of these things. Realign yourself by saying them out loud. Even if you don’t immediately believe them to be true, as you repeat this daily, they will sink in.
Whether we like to admit it or not, we live in a spiritual world and we are not the only spiritual beings that inhabit it! Ephesians 6:12 tells us that we are in a spiritual battle, not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers, the enemy of our souls.
When we speak aloud, not only do we hear those things but so do the demonic forces in our spiritual environment. We declare things that are from God’s word. This changes the spiritual climate. Demons have to flee.
Jesus used this amid His temptations in the wilderness (John 4).
You may not be experiencing such overt demonic forces as He did in that passage. But there is an enemy of our souls who wants us to believe lies rather than the truth. This brings me to my last point.
John 8:44 speaks of Satan as the father of lies. He is a deceiver by nature. It is one of his greatest strengths and we must be on guard against believing his many lies.
How do we deal with the enemy’s lies? First, we must discern and recognize them. Then, we speak truth to them, especially truth that is based on Scripture.
When I feel weak and the enemy’s lies in my mind tell me “You are worthless, too weak for the things you are trying to do,” I may say out loud – “No I am not. God’s Word says that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength!”
I have to say that to myself so often, I had it painted on my wall!
What declaration of truth is most needed in your life today? It may or may not be the four I’ve listed here. Maybe there’s another deception of the enemy you need to combat with truth.
Make a plan though and determine to say that particular thing out loud for a week. Then see how it’s affecting you. You can then switch to something else or continue.
What will you be declaring to your soul? I’d love to hear about it in the comments or on the Missionary Life Facebook page.
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This past weekend I went away for a quarterly retreat. This spiritual practice I’ve done for years keeps me grounded and abiding in Jesus. On this recent retreat, I read Rich Villodas’ new book The Narrow Path: How the Subversive Way of Jesus Satisfies Our Souls.
The book focuses on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It offers insights and asks questions about what is perhaps the Lord’s most well-known and important message spoken to a crowd.
Villodas shares his personal experience and effort to apply this timeless sermon to his life.
I came away inspired and with some key new practices I will be working into the rhythms of my life in the coming month or two. It’s great to be a reader, but a reader who applies and puts things into action, now that’s what leaders who want to grow do! My hope is that I am that kind of student of both God’s Word and good books like this.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book, things I need to chew on and think about a bit more.
Am I God-attentive? The pure in heart will see Him.
Do I call out the best in people? Do I see good in them before they see it in themselves? How can I do this more?
Does my life display his character or my own? Do they regularly see His goodness? His kindness? His compassion? His mercy? When they experience and encounter me? Probably not. Maybe sometimes, but not nearly as often as I want it to.
This isn’t new information for me, but I need to keep asking myself the question; Where might I be deceived into thinking that I know something and that’s enough, even if I don’t do it? Where do I exalt myself or pride myself on being knowledgeable about something like disciple-making or theology? Knowledge is not the goal of the Christian life, knowing Christ and transformation into His image is.
I’d like to add to Villodas’ definition. It’s not just the people I have a hard time loving, but also those I find it hard to think well of. Those are the people Jesus said I am to love and pray for. I’ve got some homework to do here!
On pages 164-165 of the book, he shared a prayer that a Benedictine monk had shared with their church. It is a prayer for your enemies.
I have set myself the task of praying this prayer each day this coming week for someone I find difficult to love and think well of. Yes, there are a few people who come to mind! 🙂 Maybe you’d like to join me in this?
So many of us call ourselves leaders or spiritually mature people, but we don’t look like Jesus in relation to how we love those we don’t like, disagree with, or who have offended or hurt us. I know there’s room for some growth in me as I consider this! My spiritual maturity meter on this one isn’t super high. Yours?
There is great value in Christian meditation as a discipline and practice. I’m challenged by this book afresh. Over the next few months, I’d like to slowly read the sermon on the mount daily, to journal on it, and continue to allow it to speak to me.
Feeling encouraged and challenged by these quotes? I made some flashcards of these and other quotes from the book. I’ll be returning to them, praying about them, and letting them create a space within me for God’s transforming work. We can’t change ourselves, but reading and meditating on Scripture and good books like this are part of creating room for God to work in us.
Thanks, Rich, for taking the time to challenge and inspire me (and many others) in this book.
Which of the quotes and questions above spoke to your heart?
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