Rethink Involvement
Session 4
We’ve done some rethinking in these first few sessions about God, his mission in this world, and our identity: learning that because we are image bearers, we are part of a team changing our culture and living out God’s mission in our daily lives. Because we are blessed to be a blessing, let’s rethink our involvement and what our role on the team might be.
Take a few minutes and review the previous sessions. If you are studying in a group, discuss some of the main points and share any personal takeaways you had.
Call To All
Session 4 - Video 1
We often compartmentalise our lives into different sections. These compartments look like pie pieces.
Instead of everything being compartmentalised and fighting for our energy, resources, and time, what if our decisions were shaped by the mission of God at the centre of our lives?
What if our lives looked less like a pie and more like a wheel?
- Finances – supporting missionaries in unreached areas
- Shopping – buying or advocating for fair trade merchandise from unreached areas
- Holidays – considering family mission trips
- School – getting to know our children’s friends and their parents and building relationships that could give us the opportunity to share Jesus
- Work – reflecting God’s glory by the excellence with which we do our craft
“It’s not the church that has a mission, but it’s the mission that has a church.”1
THE MISSION OF DISCIPLES BEING MADE IN EVERY NATION ON EARTH IS THE MISSION FOR ALL OF US, REGARDLESS OF WHERE WE LIVE.
It Starts with a Yes!
Do something! Discover your active role in making disciples of all the nations.
Every one of us, as a follower of Christ, is either going or sending others to reach the ends of the earth.
GOING
Malcolm and Carrie
“These days there are all sorts of roles that are key to different ministries. For example, we need technical people, we need marketing strategists, data analysts, project managers and evangelists. But we’re all working together and seeing fruit, because everyone is contributing what they are able to do.
Some people worry that mission is colonialist or paternalistic, but the Bible is not a western book, it’s from the Middle East. The message that God gives to all people is addressing the two main problems we all have, and those are the problems of sin and of death. Jesus provides a solution to both of those things, giving us freedom and forgiveness and hope for the future.”
Peter
“I went on a short-term mission trip with a team from church. We went to North Africa to visit some mission partners there who are reaching Muslims in the area. We went there to encourage them, but I think they encouraged us. It was great to see the work that they’re doing so we can support and pray for them better as a church.
My short-term mission trips have had a big impact on my life. Before them I was open to the idea that I could serve God in the mission field in a different part of the world, but I never actively thought about it. So, going to these places has made me really consider if this is a possibility for my life.
And also, that wherever I am and wherever God’s placed me, I should be seeking to tell people about the Lord Jesus who would never walk into church.”
Sarah
“Each year around a million international students come to UK universities and language schools. Many of them will have never heard the gospel; they’ll be from countries where it’s really difficult to hear the gospel.
We have the opportunity to share with some of those nations and tribes right here, because they come to visit us. We have the opportunity to befriend them, to share glimpses of the gospel with them, and pray that they will be around that throne spoken of in Revelation 7.”
GOING can be viewed in various ways. Maybe God wants you to take a trip or to relocate, but maybe he wants you to go to the nations right where you are.
We live in a global world and going to the nations can be as simple as connecting with the nations that have already come to you by viewing your neighbours who come from different backgrounds from a global Christian perspective.
Discussion Questions
15 Minutes
- Do you compartmentalise your life? What difference would it make if you saw it more integrated, a wheel not a pie, with God’s mission across all elements of it?
- “It’s not the church that has a mission, but it’s the mission that has a church.” Do you agree? What implications does this have for our personal and church life?
- Going overseas long-term, short-term or reaching the nations on our doorstep; there are many ways we can engage with God’s Great Commission. What first thoughts do you have about how you might get more involved?
Session 4 - Video 2
SENDING can mean playing a vital part of the sending team for those who have been called to go. In addition, it could mean seriously praying for the workers of his harvest: those who are serving already and those who haven’t yet heard the call.
Jessica and Ohsung
“I don’t think The Great Commission is just for those who are called to go. I think it’s for everybody. Everyone can be involved in what God calls us to do.
Having Jesus in your heart, you can go, you can help, you can support, you can pray, you can really do many things for the kingdom of God.”
Sam
“We gathered to worship the Lord and to pray for different nations. Sometimes it was based off what was in the news and sometimes it was to do with unreached groups. But what was really encouraging was just seeing how that corporate time together affected our individual prayer lives. Students would come and say how they started going on prayer walks. Then I found out other students in the UK were doing a similar thing.
One of the biggest encouragements has been knowing what God is doing is so much bigger than any one of us, and that he is stirring student hearts to pray for the nations.”
Martin and Elizabeth
“I find that unless I’m structured, I just forget all about it, so I have time every morning for reading the bible and prayer and make lists when I hear about needs. I divide it over the week and also use prayer lists from missionary magazines. Another thing I find helpful is to use whatever you’re reading in the bible and turn it into prayer.”
“I have just a small number of people and situations that I pray for every morning, and I’ve been praying for them for many years, and I see God working through them.”
Discussion Questions
15 Minutes
- Have you engaged with those from your church who are working overseas? How can you get involved, pray for them and support them?
- What role does praying for the nations have in your life? Could you be encouraged and encourage others by gathering and specifically praying for the unreached?
- What habits can you build into your personal prayer life to better align yourself with the Lord’s heart for the lost, both here and in the furthest parts of the world?
Session 4 - Video 3
MOBILISING involves us inviting and training others in the body of Christ to the same work—whether going or sending.
Adam
“We used to have one Sunday in the year which was our missions-focused Sunday, and that was great; we could preach about going to the nations and share about what was going on and encourage people to give and pray. But it felt a bit like it’s a bolt-on to church life; we want this to be our core business!
So now in our monthly prayer gathering we’ll always be praying for some aspect of overseas work. And now with the advent of new technologies such as Zoom we’re able to have our overseas partners joining us for bible studies and prayer meetings.”
Sam
“We wanted to pray boldly and with expectation for the Lord to move through our prayers. One of the things we emphasised was a willingness to be an answer to our prayers, whatever that looked like.
In the book of Nehemiah, his friends inform him of what is happening in Jerusalem. You see that the Lord begins to place a burden on his heart: he’s weeping, he’s fasting, he’s praying. God says, ‘I want you to go to Jerusalem. I want you to be an answer to your own prayers and to speak to the king’. And he does.
I’d love to see that willingness among us for the Lord to do the same thing.”
Aklas
“I wanted to start my own MomentumYes group to mobilise others to go. People from the group ended up thinking about global mission and others realised that going is something that they’d want to do.
Leading a group can help you see it from a different perspective and oftentimes leads you to what God is specifically calling you to do.”
Zach and Rachel
“Many of us see our roles now as not as necessarily getting out and preaching or sharing with locals as much as we used to. That is still part of why we’re here, but also coming alongside young leaders and helping them learn how to lead their own groups, how to be the leaders in their local fellowships so they take the reins and start running with it, to see their networks expand without the influence of foreigners so they really have that ownership of it.
Jesus said to go out and find that person of peace who’s going to be able to open up their network. We know that those people of peace, those locals, are going to be the ones that take Jesus to their villages in ways that we can’t, because of our skin colour or because of our nationality or because of language.”
It’s not by being passive, and it’s not because it’s an obligation. We do this by taking an active step so that we can experience the fullness of life with Jesus.
IF YOU WANT ALL THAT THE LORD HAS TO OFFER YOU IN THIS LIFE, THEN THE TIME HAS COME FOR YOU TO TAKE A STEP TOWARD SAYING YES TO THE MOMENTUM THAT IS AT WORK IN THIS WORLD.
Everyone’s step starts with a yes. We want to give you a chance to see some of the ways God has used people just like you, to play a role in establishing his kingdom among every nation, when they said yes.
Discussion Questions
15 Minutes
- Are you prepared to be an answer to your own prayers for the nations, as Nehemiah was asked to be?
- Could you start your own MomentumYes group and help mobilise others to grasp God’s heart for the nations?
- Look at the Engage section of the MomentumYes website. It’s full of practical ways you can get involved in sending, going and mobilising. Are there one or two ideas that stand out to you? We’ll come back to them in the final session to give you a chance to talk them through, and decide what your next steps might be.
- Alan Hirsch, Right Here, Right Now (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011), 36.
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