Mere Missions

56 • M ere M issions : M oving F orward to M ultiply

those women and men who unite with Paul the Apostle, who was martyred for the Lord while engaged in missions, and will count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus their Lord (Phil. 3.8); who willingly will suffer the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that they may gain Christ (Phil. 3.8); who will share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible they may attain the resurrection from the dead (Phil. 3.10-11); who strain and press forward towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3.14); who, because of their maturity, are constantly thinking this way (Phil. 3.15). Endearment to the Lord Jesus necessitates an abhorrence of evil (Rom. 12.9), a denying of self (Matt. 16.24), fleeing from evil (1 Thess. 5.22), and to not befriend the world (James 4.4). Jude 1.21 says, “keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” Do you know how to keep yourself in the love of God? To be endeared to Christ? Here are several foundational preparations you can discipline yourself in, whether called to missions (the sending forth of authorized persons to unchurched communities to proclaim the Gospel in order to win converts to Jesus Christ, make disciples from the converts, and gather together the disciples to form functioning, multiplying local churches, that bear the fruit of the Kingdom of God in that community) or not. I have found the simplicity of these disciplines to be instrumental in my years of missions “from and for” the poor. They have kept me moving forward to multiply. 1. Discipline yourself in the Church’s Sacred Roots (Shorthand term for “Great Tradition,” Sacred Roots: A Primer on Retrieving the Great Tradition by Dr. Don Davis). The Christian faith is anchored on the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord, whose incarnation,