Missions

Musings and meditations about missions from a missionary.

Missionary Calling: 7 Ways to Identify your Calling

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In this brief video, Tara Sophia Mohr (not identified as a Christian) speaks in general about identifying your calling in life.

See video at end of this post…

I would note that this is just a simple motivation type talk where Tara speaks in general to anybody about their calling in life. What I took away from this is that this is exactly what you as a missionary need to understand and present to your potential missionary partners so that they understand your calling. One thing is that you are called (not all missionary candidates are called by the way), and another thing is to communicate that calling to others, especially those that support you, and those that potentially are considering supporting you. This means that you need to highly persuade them of your calling. The elements that Tara presents are very useful in this task.

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Success is a two edged Sword

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Truly, every single missionary wants success. It is extremely important to really understand “what success is for a missionary”. For many people, success can be defined as the 3 B’s: Bodies, Bucks, and Buildings. See my tract ch31 3Bs of success: buildings, bodies, and bucks In this tract I refute those elements of success. The Jack Hyles school of ministry would clearly define success in these parameters. While these things may seem to be success for Christian ministries, it is very unspiritual, and it is very much not what the Bible presents. As far as we know, Jesus had no building EVER. The money aspect of Jesus’ ministry did not appear prominent, i.e. he did not have expensive things a lot of money could buy. When at the end he entered into Jerusalem at the beginning of his final week, he had to borrow somebody else’s “wheels” (a burro, not a nice horse), and he had to borrow somebody else’s upper room. Both of these elements, as well as all the other aspects of his ministry point to a ministry devoid of “riches”. He helped the poor, but he himself and his inner circle walked wherever they went from all indications.

Even the “helping aspect” of Jesus’ ministry is something that is speaking strongly against modern success oriented ministries. Notice that Jesus fed the thousands and healed many. These things were not the appeal that Jesus put forth as his main focus. We see nowhere that Jesus nor his followers went about advertising free food or free healing. These things were not the focus. Jesus’ focus was centrally and exclusively on the Gospel. People came to hear the Gospel, not for the food. This was the advertisement Jesus and his disciples’ used if there were even an advertisement at all. Word of mouth was what would appear to be the only advertisement they used.

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Missionary Presentations Q&As

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There is hardly a missionary who presents his/her work that is not thrust before an audience and the pastor says, answer any questions that our people might have. In this presentation by Deborah Grayson Riegel, she deals with how to handle Questions and the audience.