Some Things To Consider About Missions Work.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of confusing and sometimes contradictory talk going on about God's call to missions. Beware of the extremes! Some require you to have had your own mystical "call" or voice from God. I don’t deny this happens, but don’t let others over-spiritualize the process, then force it on you as normative. Other Christians approach it from an overly rational, dry, mathematical model that gathers the facts, prays, and then makes a logical decision. What are some of the ways that God leads people into missions?

Path 1: A few people really will have some kind of personalized call, vision, powerful encounter, or voice from the Lord.

Path 2: Other friends tell me theirs is not a matter of a "personalized call" to missions. It’s more a matter of obedience to God. In some cases the wife saw that her primary call of God was to marry this man, knowing that he was (and therefore, they were) going into missions.

Path 3: Still others find that they end up in missions after a serious evaluation of prime factors: deep commitment and obedience to Christ, plus a personal assessment of interests, gifts, experience, and dreams, combined with a heart of compassion for the lost and the poor, and an opportunity to serve and to make a difference in the world. These all converge to form a path into missions.

Path 4: Some report that the prime factors leading them into missions were rather simple: a radical obedience to Christ that meant a willingness to do anything, go anywhere, pay any price, plus an identification of their gifts and other’s needs.

William Taylor