For the fourth year in a row, 9Marks hosted an hour long conversation during the SBC. This Monday night, Mark Dever, a pastor in Washington, DC (and my former pastor) interviewed pastor David Platt, seminary professor Zane Pratt (and former IMB missionary), and IMB president Tom Ellif (IMB stands for “International Mission Board,” the sending agency of the Southern Baptist Convention).
The conversation was instructive for pastors and churches alike. Here are seven main points that I took away from this time. Each is an application addressed to a local church. Every member of the panel sought to emphasize the primary role churches play in fulfilling the Great Commission.
1. Get the gospel right. The first and most important thing that pastors and churches can do to encourage international missions is to get the gospel right. Tom Ellif mentioned that, sadly, it is not uncommon for a potential missionary to be unable to articulate the gospel. Thankfully, the IMB training is rigorous, but those interested in serving overseas (or anywhere for that matter) should know the gospel inside and out.
2. Take responsibility for international missions. Too often churches expect missions sending agencies (like the IMB) to bear the full-weight of the burden of reaching the lost. But the Great Commission belongs to the churches. Therefore local churches ought to be strategizing how to support the work of international missions.
3. Demand expositional sermons. Ellif pointed out again and again to the responsibility of churches to train people to know, love, and teach the Word of God. Their best missionaries are those who spent years as members of churches where the Word was regularly and clearly taught from the pulpit.
4. Focus on long-term partnerships. Short-term trips can help one better understand global needs. They can ignite a passion for missions. They can sometimes be of help to the full-time missionaries serving on the ground. But local churches should place greater emphasis on developing long-term partnerships. Even short-term trips ought to focus on how the sending church can be a long-term encouragement to the work they are seeking to encourage.
5. Take the lead in nurturing, training, and even screening potential missionaries. Zane Pratt mentioned that one of the hardest things he had to do when he served as a regional director overseas was to send missionaries home when they were no longer qualified to serve. This was especially hard when the missionary had no significant connection to a stateside local church. Missions sending agencies like the IMB go to great lengths to screen workers to make sure that they are qualified, but it is the churches who ought to take the lead nurturing, training, and screening potential missionaries.
6. Make sure every member is pursuing spiritual disciplines. Most missionaries come from the membership of a local church. They reach the mission field with a love for the lost and a desire to share the gospel. But too many have insufficient knowledge or experience actually pursuing God in bible study, prayer, fasting, etc. Churches, therefore, should not assume that their members are well-trained in these areas. We shouldn’t be surprised that candidates for ministry in international missions are unlikely to be spiritually deeper than the churches they have called home.
7. Ask your senior pastor to take the lead. It is easy for preaching pastors to leave the missions work to other staff or interested lay leaders in the body. However the task is so challenging and the needs are so great that pastors cannot afford to be bystanders. They need to be on the front lines, leading their churches to see the need for workers, strategizing how to meet those needs, and personally raising up godly believers to participate in global evangelization.
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