On Being "Missionaries"

One of the enduring images in my mind of what a missionary does is, as the familiar phrase puts it, "tell others about Jesus." This image is probably gleaned from childhood Sunday School classes; certainly not from the numerous Sunday worship services involving missionary speakers (I skipped every single one as a child, or at least did so far more often than I ever sat through one).

How surprising to find that, in reality, not every missionary is engaged in Bible-translating, church-planting, or door-to-door evangelism. There are pastors, teachers, and evangelists, yes. There are also office managers, accountants, communications and journalism experts, cooks, house-keepers, maintenance staff, coffee shop workers, musicians, computer technicians, and the list goes on. An average day is spent doing average work, much like we'd be doing back home in our own countries - involving numbers, cubicles, and the very same rewards and frustrations as anybody in any other occupation would experience anywhere else.

The significant difference is that missionaries do this work in another country than their own. The obvious question is "Why?"

For myself, I go back first of all to the clear message in Scripture that this gift of salvation - the receiving of God's love involving forgiveness and freedom from sin - is not just for you and me alone. I understand the Scriptures as teaching that God does a great work in my life for the purpose of doing a great work in the lives of others through me. I am not to keep it entirely to myself, but to generously share what I've experienced and learned of His love with others ... because we are all in need.

And it's because the early Christians realized that we are ALL in need that they began traveling elsewhere to share the so-absurd-and-transforming-it-has-to-be-true message that one God had created all things and sent his Son Jesus to die on a Roman cross and be raised to life, all because of His infinite love. But not all of them were church-planters, pastors, and teachers. Some also had 'regular' jobs, but lived intentionally so that anyone they met came into personal contact with God through them. It wasn't about starting a new religion, or making everyone agree with them, or submit to the fine-print of every single teaching or creed. Sharing the hope and love they experienced was so important that they had to share it with everyone, even if it meant leaving home and settling down somewhere else to share that hope and love with people far away. And, truly, the people who are treasured in your heart are never far away whether it's people living elsewhere or your friends and family back home.

The same is true in our case. We would have been content to stay home and do very similar work we've done here. And we could have done the same work for the same reason without leaving our own country. For God's own reasons, we find that our lives are mysteriously but clearly directed to leave the U.S. behind: our first year was a trial run, and our second year a confirmation. We both look back at different parts of our lives and find them coalescing into more of a big picture.

But we are not standing on street corners, knocking on door after door, preaching in church after church, or deliberately trying to have spiritual conversations with every single person we encounter. There are people who are gifted in these ways, and people for whom only such a direct confrontation will communicate. If the love of Christ is primary and truth is being spoken and God is working through these methods as evidenced by the lives that are genuinely changed, then more power to them. But there are also people who do not respond to such a direct approach, and there are believers - like Gina and I - for whom that approach could never come naturally because it's not how God made us. We believe that God created an incredibly diverse human race with a vast array of personal characteristics, and that believers are similarly gifted in diverse ways to share God's love with people of all different types without exception. Gina and I are gifted to take a quieter, more gradual approach and we are most often in contact with those for whom no other method would be remotely effective.

In fact, we do not see ourselves as operating according to an approach or method at all. We do not understand ourselves as working according to an "agenda" of any kind. We are simply being and becoming who God created us to be: entirely human in every respect, and not anything more or less due to our religious faith and spiritual experience or commitment. We are family members, co-workers, customers, and friends who are no different in any fundamental way that separates us from anybody else. If someone wants to know more, wants us to pray for or with them, or even wants right then and there to receive Christ, that's great! But most often, we find that people just need to be loved in ways that are meaningful for them.

But make no mistake about it: we are not shy or afraid to point straight and clearly to Christ. And we have experienced something profound and mysterious at a deep level that has changed us and continues to do so. Our faith, our belief, is that this Mystery is nothing other or less than God himself pouring his infinite love into our lives, changing us (sometimes dramatically, sometimes just a little over time), and compelling us to pour that love into other people. And if someone asks "What's this about? Why are you this way? Why do you do this or that?" we say without fear or shame that we do it out of love for them and for God, and we speak the name of Jesus Christ without reluctance.

Rarely, however, do we get the opportunity to spell it out so clearly. We are not here to speak a message or share religious teachings. We are here to love people in Christ's name, to love people with his infinite love rather than our weak and unreliable "love" that so often falls short of its intent. We want to treat people kindly and with respect, we want to share harmless teasing and joyful laughter, we want to respond to anyone in need ... whatever the situation calls for, we want to respond appropriately. This calls for discernment and wisdom, yes and we gratefully receive these from God at times as well as the strength to overcome our own obstacles, but in all honesty, it's simply acting and speaking in ways that come natural for us as we are constantly trying to be sensitive to the Spirit's lead. All religious jargon aside, we are simply being who we are all the time.

I think, again with all insider language aside, that's what it means to be "missional" and "incarnational." Seminars and classes are taught, books are written, and ideas are constantly discussed in the church and among theologians about what "missional" means. Sometimes, it seems as if such words are little more than a currently fashionable trend that a lot of people like to use but few understand their actual meaning or practical implications. Being a "missional" Christian is being who we are all the time as we are continually shaped and changed by Divine, Creative, Redemptive, Renewing Love.

And being who we are in that way led Gina and I here, to a tiny rural village in Germany, to do what we've been doing both in our offices, among the students and Christian community, and in the wider world in places where we shop, eat, drink coffee, visit the doctor, and travel. Being who we are will lead us perhaps somewhere else in the world or back home in the not-so-distant future: we don't have the foggiest idea yet. Without question, though, in being who we are before our loving God we will be led to do the same no matter where we land next: learning to be loved by God and sharing that love with anybody else at every opportunity, praying God forgive us for the times we don't do the job so well and enable us to do it better next time. Not out of a need to "perform" but out of a passionate, driving desire that people know they are not alone and that God's love is theirs if they will have him.