Whose Mission Are You On?

My adult years have been spent attending an Anabaptist church with my husband.  This is a denomination that prizes service to those around us.  Over the years I have heard reports from a number of missionaries who have been involved in service projects domestically, as well as from those who have traveled around the world to the most remote and isolated and damaged places in the world.  These reports are filled with stories of interpersonal mediation and reconciliation, community rebuilding following natural disasters or war, and comfort given through medical services, education, blankets, school supplies, and food, just to brush the surface.  These are excellent things, worthwhile, and necessary.  However, maybe I'm missing something and it's simply understood, but I don't really hear much in these reports about God.

The mission reports I have heard over the last few years have dealt with where they are going, what the physical or interpersonal needs were there, and how the denominational mission organization is working with the people there.  When asked, "Why are you going?" I hear a lot of really good philanthropic reasons given, but no mention of God's leading or presence.  When asked, "What did you do there?" I hear a lot of really nice answers about how "we did" x, y, and z, but not much credit given to God for acts of the Spirit.  When asked, "How did the people respond?" I hear encouraging responses of enemies reconciled, or of gratitude to the organization involved, but almost nothing indicating lives changed for Christ.

I have even asked specifically, in smaller discussion-group type settings, how these missionaries have seen God at work, or how their faith was changed.  I am dismayed by the fact that most have not been able to answer these questions.  It all seems to come back to, "It's what we do."

So my question is, Whose mission are we on?  Is it enough as Christians to go out and do good things, to be philanthropic, to be servants, or does there need to be more?

Consider the following from Mark 9:41:

Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.

 Or this, from 1 Peter 3:15:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.

Now, in full disclosure, I grew up in a non-denominational church.  I can remember our Mission Weeks, where we would hear reports on the missionaries we supported around the world.  During this week, we would hear remarkable stories of souls saved, and miraculous interventions where missionaries in dangerous places were saved from certain death at the last minute.  Every report was saturated with the spread of the Gospel in far-flung lands, from setting up schools in remote primitive villages to sneaking Bibles into Soviet Russia and Communist China.  However, and maybe it's just because I was a child and the razzamatazz of the supernatural overshadowed the everyday,  I don't really remember hearing a whole lot of the practical in those reports, other than education through missionary schools.  And I don't think this is the right approach either.


I think that the balance is defined in James 2, which says:

¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. ¹⁹ You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that —and shudder.
²⁰ You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? ²¹ Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. ²³ And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. ²⁴ You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

Having the programs, the outreach, the good works without being ready to give a reason for it is not enough.  Anyone can be a philanthropist.  We cannot simply live servant lives without it being a direct outpouring of God's love, because then it is our own deeds and not Christ acting through us. 

At the same time, just "saving souls" isn't enough, and our words about the Good News of God's love for us must be demonstrated through our good works.  We cannot simply preach the Good News of God's love without living servant lives, because a faith devoid of acts of love and grace is meaningless.

As Christians, we have to find the balance.  One without the other becomes our mission, rather than God's.

So, whose mission are you on?