Quotes about Mission

Missionaries labor diligently to teach and baptize those who accept the gospel. In the process, their own testimonies become deeply rooted.

I don't want a monument. We don't build monuments; we build God's Kingdom.

Too many of us are too comfortable in our "Jesus lifeboat." Instead of the church preparing its members to reach out to other people who are still in the water and pulling them into the boat, we have settled in for the ride to heaven and are busy coming up with ways to make the trip more comfortable. We go to church each week and worship God because we are saved and safe, forgetting that the lifeboat is not yet full.

Here is another indication, then, that divine election is to service and not eternal life.

Doctrine forms disciples when it helps the church to act out its new life in Christ.

God knew the man needed someone to join him in the walk of faith, to shoulder the burdens of the mission, engage in the struggles, watch his back, and stand with him against the Enemy. God had the perfect answer in mind.

A woman's mission centered on home and family — vital spheres of ministry to be sure, but only a slice of the vast mission God originally cast by calling women to rule and subdue the earth.

God created his daughters to be ezer-warriors with our brothers. He deploys the ezer to break the man's aloneness by soldiering with him wholeheartedly and at full strength for God's gracious kingdom. The man needs everything she brings to their global mission.

God deploys his daughters--all of us--to be ezer-warriors for his kingdom all the days of our lives.

Every human being has a strategic role in God's purposes for the world. Every human being possesses a derived significance--grounded in God himself. And every human being is summoned to the highest of all possible aspirations--not to be God, but 'to be like' God himself. God is the standard for who we are and what our mission is in this world. By pursuing this loftiest of all goals, we move toward true flourishing as human beings.

Men and women working together actually predates men working with men and women working with women. It would be one thing if God confined this male/female team to home and family and then mapped out the remaining territory into separate spheres for men and for women. But he didn't do that. Their mission--together--is to rule and subdue the whole earth on his behalf. Men and women together.

This debate has repercussions on how we live for God, how we relate to our neighbors both near and far, and how we connect with our Christian brothers. It affects the valuing of women, the quality of our marriages, and the teachings and behavioral patterns we pass on to our children. It shapes our ideas of what it means to be part of the body of Christ, how we develop and use our gifts, and what Jesus asks of us in fulfilling his mission for the world.