Simply Mission

Ah, mission. It strikes fear into my heart, even though I know it shouldn't. To me, mission means going up to strangers and having a conversation with them and directly steering that conversation towards God. The trick is to get to the “God” part as quickly as possible, because as soon as the person realizes you're trying to convert them, they will disengage and run away from you at top speed.

Okay, I admit, no one has ever actually run away from me (walked quickly-yes!). But anyone who has ever tried “street evangelism” knows what I mean. And until fairly recently, that is what mission was to me. Sometimes it was in my home town, but mostly I was practicing mission in a different country, on short-term mission trips. I learned so much on those mission trips and wouldn't trade those times for anything. God gave me so much and taught me loads. But mission as I knew it was my job, my assignment, my chore even. And we don't usually like jobs, assignments, or chores. We do them to get them done, we get through them, looking forward to when this job can be over so that we can then go do something we really enjoy.

But I don't want that to be true about mission! I don't want mission to be my job or chore in that painful, “I-have-to-do-this” sense. I want mission (which I currently define as “shining with God's glory coming from inside you in this world which is covered in darkness”) to be my LIFE. What I do, but more importantly—who I am.

You may have noticed that I completely plagiarized the Bible in my definition of “mission”. I got it from Isaiah 60:1-3:

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth, and thick darkness is over the peoples; but the Lord rises on you and His glory appears over you.

Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

When I read these verses, I get excited about what mission could be! I know that many people have already learned the truth of these verses and are living out “mission” wherever and however that might be for them, street evangelism or not. (This IS a form of mission, and a successful one, please don't get me wrong. It has just never worked for me.)

But I am still learning. I know that mission isn't something I should fear. There are only two things God tells us to do in this passage: “Arise” and “shine”. The other actions happen around us or to us.

--our light comes (v.1)

--the glory of the Lord rises upon us (v.1)

--the Lord rises on us (v.2)

--His glory appears over us (v.2)

--Nations come to our light (v.3)

--kings come to the brightness of our dawn (v.3)

There's a simplicity to it that amazes me. First we obey and ARISE. We receive God's glory on us, His light, His presence, Himself. And then we SHINE. As a prism takes in light from the sun and bends it out again into a whole spectrum of colours, so we also must receive God's glory into our lives in order to shine with it out into the darkness. And this light that shines out of us from God—it is attractive, just like a rainbow! Hey, “nations will come” to our light! People can't help but be attracted to rainbows, and in the same way, God created us to show His glorious Light to the world in a variety of different ways, as colourful as a rainbow, and just as beautiful!

And I believe that God's glory comes on us in the place of prayer, in the awesome presence of God Himself. Moses went up onto the mountain and talked to God, and when he came down, his face was glowing. I mean, literally glowing. The Israelites were so terrified that Moses had to cover his face with a veil every time he wasn't chatting with the Creator.

I want mission to be like that! Not that I want to scare people (God can take care of that) but I want mission to be something that I can't help, because it's simply how I live. Moses couldn't help glowing- bless him - it was a side-effect of being with Almighty God.

I cannot accept mission as being a passive thing, however, and that is not what I am saying. But there is a simplicity to mission. We get into God's presence, He rubs off on us, and we look a bit more like Him as we go out into the darkness that covers the earth.