You're Already A Full-Time Missionary

One of the things we often talk about at Church of the Cross is trying to be “missional.” This is a new concept for some people, but really, at its core, it simply means that we try to live as missionaries in the context in which God has already placed us. God has already placed us in an immediate context surrounded by people who don’t yet believe in Jesus. Though there are many who are called to live this is out in foreign lands, we are trying to re-learn that the “mission-field” actually begins here.

The United States actually receives more Christian missionaries than we send. People in other parts of the world see what we so often miss: we need missionaries here.

Being “sent” is a fundamental part of being a follower of Jesus (John 20:21, Luke 24:44-48, Matthew 28:18-20, etc.). Just as God the Father sent Jesus the Son, so Jesus sends His people to the ends of the earth. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are already a full-time missionary.

Yet many of us protest at this concept, saying things like: “Yeah, but I don’t get paid by the church like Pastor Brent and I certainly don’t get paid by any missions organization …” Being a missionary is about much more than tracing where our paycheck comes from. Every follower of Jesus is already a full-time missionary, God simply chooses to route our income through different sources: for some, it’s the Phoenix Police Department, for others is selling cell phones, for others it might be waiting tables.

God is amazingly creative and persistent in His placement of missionaries! What if we began to change our thinking just a bit. What if, instead of thinking: “I can’t be a full-time missionary because I have to go to this office job five days a week,” we thought something like:

Jesus has come for Me, saving me to follow Him and call others to do the same. You won’t believe how He’s worked this thing out! See, I go to this office everyday and they have some things for me to do which I do the best I possibly can because that’s a way I can show people about God. And they let me use a computer, but I have a roof over my head while I’m there, sometimes they even provide coffee for me, can you believe it! But wait, here’s the best part, they pay me to rub shoulders all day long with people who don’t yet believe in Jesus! I get to talk to these people all day long and be part of their lives and I get paid for it!

It might seem a little silly at first, but I wonder what might change if more of us not only believed this but actually lived this?