missions conference thoughts

This past weekend was the annual missions conference at our church here in Davis. Every year, we invite missionaries to come speak at our church from Friday-Sunday on various topic involving missions. This year, Henry Lu from COCM came to speak about missions in Europe, and his topics include Why Europe and Why Now?

A big part of the intention behind missions conferences are to mobilize people to action. Some will end up going, others will end up in a supporting role, but the goal of these annual conferences is to create awareness for missions (not that the awareness isn’t already there). Everyone will walk away from the missions conference with a different feeling in their heart. For some, it will give them conviction to go. For others, it may be conviction to stay and drum up support for the ones in the fields.

This year, the missions conference gave me a slightly different feeling than the ones described. I left church on Sunday with a general conviction that we focus too much on missions. Now before you start leaving angry comments, please hear me out. Henry Lu threw out a lot of statistics on Sunday (and for that fact, Friday too). All the statistics were very convincing in driving home one point: Europe needs missionaries.

Europe, the home base of many missionaries from years past, is deep in spiritual decay and now most people there do not have a good relationship with God. Well doesn’t that mean that we need to focus more on missions and not less? After all Henry is clearly mobilizing people to go to Europe for missions. Well, I’d say not really. I mean, yes, Europe does need missions, and it is a spiritual mess there right now. The statistics show that. But I beg you to look under the stats for a moment.

Let’s look at Henry’s main point from Sunday again: Europe, the home base of many missionaries from years past, is deep in spiritual decay and now most people there do not have a good relationship with God.

That, to me, is screaming that churches need to focus more on local evangelism more (more than they are now) and more importantly, this sad central point of Henry’s message (all weekend) shows just how crucial the church inreach ministry is. Yes, the great commission should be a focal point of the body of Christ, but we need to make sure that a large focus lies with making sure that the body itself is fed. After all how can we send if there are no senders? Europe should be a cautionary tale of what can happen if the inreach ministry is neglected.

Since Henry already covered how we can practically apply the topic of the missions conference to our daily lives, perhaps we should take a look at inreach ministries. Basically, serve in your church. Yea, it seems like an obvious statement, but it’s so important. If you’re not committed to a church, then find a church you think you can serve at, and start serving. If you’re committed to a church, find areas to serve (anything from leading worship and folding bulletins, to cooking church lunch and leading small groups, etc). In Acacia, it can be leading bible studies or taking a more active role in small groups. It’s great that we focus so much on outside ministries or other church ministries, but Acacia as a fellowship does need people to serve internally. Talk to core about bible studies or leading Friday night worship.

Don’t get me wrong, missions is essential to the body of Christ and should be a focal point of the church; however, it should be at the neglect of other important church ministries. It is vital that we look at inreach ministries with the same urgency as global missions.