discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 178 178 Mobilizing the Local Church Not infrequently, the mere mention of a global mission offering will cause some church member to frown and say, “Well, I just don’t see why we have to send so much money overseas when we have so many needs right here!” Fatigue Syndromes One reason people like that seem unfazed by the world’s heart-rending physical and spiritual needs is the compassion fatigue caused by media overload. People have heard it all and seen it all. Their televisions carry nonstop stories about abuse, neglect, malnutrition, and suffering brought on by disasters. When that stream of bad news merges with the pleading ads of relief agencies in magazines and on television and billboards, the result can be mind-numbing compassion fatigue. From that point on, challenges to ease world hunger or give to disaster relief move people about as much as do toothpaste commercials. Another fatigue syndrome, mission fatigue, can hinder efforts to mobilize believers for fulfilling the Great Commission. Visiting missionaries’ messages about God’s heart and the needs of the world, no matter how clearly illustrated, may not be enough to overcome the deadening effects of mission fatigue. That paralyzing fatigue is usually brought on by one or more of the following four things: 1. Inadequate Understanding of Ecclesiology When the missionary enterprise is seen as peripheral or optional, mission promotion produces more fatigue than it does action. People who feel they are already committed to enough things around a church will tune out appeals to become burdened for world evangelism. Congregations full of this kind of people will likely not be zealous for world evangelism until believers shed the notion that the church is a salad bar of activities and emphases in which involvement in global mission outreach is just one more option like singing in the Christmas musical or helping with a weekly children’s ministry. Sympathy is no substitute for action. 1 —David Livingstone, missionary to Africa 2. Lack of Knowledge People tend to have low action-to-information ratios. As a result, what can seem like disinterest or sinful apathy may be simply the result of people not having enough information to cause them to act. People do not know what to pray for, so they do not pray at all. They do not know there are places where
245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 179 missionaries are discouraged and about to burn out. They do not know large cultural groups are still untouched by the gospel. They do not know where the Holy Spirit is moving. They do not know there are ways they can get personally involved. They do not know that most organizations have accountability systems in place to ensure that mission funds are properly used. They do not know there are very receptive groups where an even larger harvest could be gathered if more resources were available. They do not know their mission organization is very involved in meeting physical as well as spiritual needs. 3. Erroneous Theology Wrong beliefs can make people susceptible to mission fatigue. Even evangelical believers can get infected with the religious relativism associated with postmodernity. Since what people believe drives their behavior, religious relativism can blunt the urgency of appeals to get the gospel to underevangelized and unreached peoples. Believers can also be affected by a universalism that says that surely everything is going to come out OK in the end for almost everybody. Wicked Selfishness I feel now that Arabia could be evangelized within the next thirty years if it were not for the wicked selfishness of Christians. —Samuel Zwemer, writing in the early 1900s 4. Selfishness Carnal selfishness also fosters mission fatigue syndrome. Too many Christians in materialistic cultures find themselves working to pay for consumer goods they do not really need and that are often used up before they are paid for. Sometimes those who have quite livable incomes find themselves saying, “We’re just barely making ends meet; we can’t really afford to give anything right now for overseas <strong>missions</strong> work.” Outright selfishness has kept them from internalizing Jesus’ words in Luke 14:33, “Those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” Raising Up a Mission-Minded Church Mobilizing the Local Church 179 Because mission is best done when there is a sending, then having a missionary sending base filled with passion, fervor, and commitment is of paramount importance. Oswald J. Smith, founder of Peoples’ Church in Toronto, Canada, felt so strongly about the priority churches should place on world evangelism that he reportedly said, “Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission has forfeited its biblical right to exist.”
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discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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