By Randy Nabors

   Dr. Elias Medeiros of Reformed Theological Seminary has said, (in Resources, from Nov. 8, 2017) “In the way I define the word “missional” is this: mission means to live as a saint, one of the Lord’s.”  In addition, he says, “It means to live as a sent one, to think as a sent one, to write as a sent one for the sake of God’s glory, the edification of God’s people the church, and the salvation of the lost, across the street and around the world.”

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

   Dr. Medeiros discusses this topic because there is no real consensus about the word “missional.”   Others have used the term to seemingly distance themselves from a sales pitch kind of evangelism.  They have wanted to see their task as missionaries or church planters as a more “organic” and “relational” effort in making connections and friends and seeing that develop into a discipling relationship.

     Still others use the term to be wholistic in invading various cultures with the truths of the Kingdom, and these would include what it means to be fully human, to understand the Imago Dei, the brokenness of cultures in regard to evil, and injustice, and to proclaim the Lordship of Christ in all areas so that cultures might be transformed.

ESSENTIAL MEANING

   The essential meaning of being missional must come from John 17, which is the source of Dr. Medeiros comments.   Jesus said in John 17:18, “As you (the Father) sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”  In this passage of the prayer of Jesus to the Father we learn essential things about Jesus and ourselves.

1. God the Father sent Jesus into the world.
2. As the Father sent the Son so the Son sends all who have believed in him.
3. Those of us who have believed in him have been sanctified in the truth by the Word of God.  This makes us holy, or saints.
4. We are sent by both the Father and the Son, into the world.
5. We are to bear witness that the Father did indeed send the Son.
6. The power and quality of that witness is our unity, our “oneness” which portrays the oneness of the Father and the Son.
7. Jesus wants the world to believe in him and know that the Father has loved them.

CONFLICT

   But there is conflict among various preachers and teachers, between various evangelists, missionaries, and church planters about the whole concept of missions and how we do it, and what are its aims.

    Some of the conflict goes back to a disagreement between those who have sought to get non-Christians to decide to pray a sinner’s prayer, and those who called for a more creditable profession of faith by having such decisions be the first act of being a disciple.  As one ministry, the Cedine Bible Camp, motto used to be, “Disciples not Decisions.”  Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism was accused of practicing “decisional regeneration” rather than calling for real faith which produced the fruit of righteousness.

    Others have had conflict over what it means to be a witness in the world.  They have stressed the “quality” of the believer’s life, in terms of love for both other saints in the Church, and love for the lost.  They have stressed more of a ministry of presence rather than an agenda of reaching.  They have stressed the concepts of human flourishing and peace. They have stressed the practice of mercy and justice and less of an aggressive verbal witness in calling people to faith.  Some stress this while still being energetic in proclamation, others have used “presence” as an excuse not to preach.

RESOLUTIONS

    There is much that can be spoken about concerning both the theological and methodological failures of the missionary enterprise, but this is a short paper.

I would like to reflect on some positive features of being “missional” from John 17.

1.  Every Christian is sent into the world.  Now one might say they feel more left in the world than sent, but either way, Jesus has not taken us directly to heaven after we believed, and he has said that he and the Father have “sent” us into the world.  Therefore, we are on mission. Our challenge is to “engage” it.
2. That mission has theological content.  We are sanctified by and in the truth, which Jesus interprets as the Father’s Word.  It is the truth of the Gospel (that Christ has come from the Father, died for our sins, and risen again) that we are to proclaim.  This is a message we must speak, preach, and use to persuade people of the world.
3. This mission has an aim, that people of the world who do not yet believe in Jesus would come to believe that the Father has sent Jesus, and that the Father loves them.  Without achieving that aim in every person of the world we have not yet accomplished our mission.  If one is not engaged in trying to achieve that goal they are failing in their mission.  If we are engaged in trying to finish this task (which we might assume is unending until Christ returns) we are still “on mission.”
4. There is a credibility built into being a saint that helps convince people to believe that the Father has sent the Son.  That credibility is the quality of our “oneness,” our unity.   This unity is built on love, which is the evidence that we are truly disciples of Jesus.  We must give evidence of being loved by the Father, not simply by giving out a propositional message, but by loving each other, and loving the people of the world for whom Christ came.  When we love, we flourish.  When we love we care about persons, and humanity.  When we love we practice mercy and justice. As John Perkins says, “Love is the final fight.” 

END.

By Randy Nabors, Pastor of Missions

It is coming up on one year since I took the post of “Pastor For Missions” at 1^st Presbyterian Church here in Chattanooga.  Joan and I were serving in London for the summer of 2022 when I was offered the job/task/position of mission’s pastor.  The year has gone by pretty fast, and I have been on a steep learning curve since I arrived.

   It is appropriate for me to give thanks at this point.  We thank God for this calling and opportunity.  We are thankful to Pastor Gabe, the World Missions Executive Committee, and the Session for including us in your ministry.   At times I feel very inadequate.  When we were asked to come, we were told it was not just about Foreign Missions but that Home Missions would also be part of my responsibility; and some pastoral duties from time to time.  I am happy to do all of that.

    I was thrilled to meet Elinor Espinosa when I came and to realize that she, compared to me, knew what she was doing.  I am so grateful to have her experience and expertise to keep the ministry going.  1^st PC has a great Executive Missions Committee and I am thankful for their direction, prayers, and support.

    Here are some of the things I have tried to do, and have learned, and look forward to doing in my job…

1- Learning and working with the members and policies of the WMEC.

2- Becoming part of the pastoral team and working with our pastoral staff in planning, worship, preaching, praying, and leading.

3- Working with the Pastoral staff though a process of establishing a new vision statement and strategic plan.

4- Learning the officers of the church and the Elders, though I confess I still have trouble remembering names.

5- Planning, recruiting, and executing a mission trip to Kenya.

6- Participating in my first mission’s conference in 2022.

7- Helping to finalize the budget for 2023, and seeing God provide wonderfully at the end of 2022.

8- Learning the policies and leadership of the Outreach Ministry Team (Home Missions).

9- Working with Shad Guinn in outreach planning and strategy.

10- Helping the Outreach Ministry Team secure an expanded budget for more outreach, with a greater emphasis on church planting.

11- We sent two young ladies to the IVCF Missionary Convention.-

12- Going with Shad to the Community Development Community Association conference in Charlotte, and the Expositional Conference (on church planting and evangelism) in Orlando.

13- Visiting with Allan Barth at Spanish River PC hosting church planting network leaders.

14- Planning and executing the Spring Ministries Expo in the Fellowship Hall.

15- Planning and executing a Spring World Missons Committee retreat at Camp Vesper Point.

16- Challenging the congregation for a matching grant for earthquake response.

17- Seeing the WMEC move Native American ministries from Home Missions to Foreign missions for better support. 

18- Visiting the Sysco’s in Vancouver and the Clevenger’s in Yakama, WS.

19- Recruiting and including Native Americans in our mission trip to Kenya.

20- Adding an Internship Program to missions and helping other summer ministries with their “manpower.”

21- Providing a weekly discipleship meeting for our interns.

22- Planned and executed an Evangelism training seminar.

23- Joining and participating in the weekly Missions Prayer Meeting.

24- Planning and recruiting for our next World Missions Conference.

25- Communicating with our established missionaries and mission works through Zoom calls, emails, and phone calls.

26- Hosting visiting missionaries with “lunch bunches” or private meetings.

27- Taking appointments for prospective new missionaries, interviewing them.

28- Creation of an expanded Missionary Candidate Committee, meeting twice a year to decide on those applicants we will support.

29- Working on ways to grow both mission’s budgets and to increase various kinds of ministries and missions.

30- Attending the Tennessee Valley Presbytery Church Planting seminar.

31- Working with staff to create videos and communications regarding the missions ministry of FPC.

32- Going with Shad Guinn to visit various Chattanooga ministries and opportunities.

33- Encouraging the Deacons (through Shad) in responding to emergency needs.

34- Expanding the missionary closet ministry by inviting all PCA churches in Chattanooga to have any of their supported missionaries use it.

    I am challenged by the need and the opportunities we face, both here in Chattanooga and around the world.  Part of meeting that challenge will be to make some of our policies for supporting missions more flexible.  We can give grants and smaller support for “projects”, especially to initiate new work.  We can use our resources to encourage the mission involvement of ethnic minorities, thus expanding the missionary force.

    We see the challenge of increasing diversity in our congregation through evangelism, discipleship, internships, and mission involvement.  There is a great harvest to be reaped, may the Lord help us to reap.

END.

By Randy Nabors, October 2024 

As we approach our Annual World Mission’s Conference, and as I contemplate my two-year anniversary as the Pastor for Missions, here at 1st Presbyterian, I wanted to share a few thoughts.

I am very thankful for the grace and goodness of God to me, and to Joan, for these last two years.  I sincerely hope we have made some positive difference in our ministry here, and have helped move the ministry of our church, and specifically the ministry of missions, forward in its effectiveness and in the enthusiasm of our people.  God is good and I praise him! 

Certainly, our congregation has a long history and positive legacy when it comes to missions and our support of missionaries.  We seek to be agile and flexible in culturally sensitive adaption to methods and means as we preach the Gospel around the world; through agencies, movements, partnerships, and people (missionaries).  Please keep praying of us and pray for more people to come to believe in Jesus, and for more churches to be planted, and for more nations to be discipled.  Pray for a constant spirit of generosity in us to respond to human and physical need, especially where we are sending our people to serve.

Lately our church hosted what was called a “Mission’s Roundtable” sponsored by the Tennessee Valley Mission to the World (MTW) Committee.  It recalled several ideas that I would like to share with you.  I suppose you could put it under the heading of, “What Are We Doing, And Why?”  Of course, the previous questions are, What is God doing, and from that, What should we be doing? 

   We were reminded of how God has been a missionary God in caring about the nations, in how he loved the world by sending his only Son, and then how Jesus has commissioned us to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations.  I shared a few of these thoughts lately for a staff devotional. 

When you look at the Scripture and read the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18ff) , what do you notice, what is important to remember?  Your answer should quickly be, “all of it!”  Of course, but let’s be more specific.  Here is the text:

18. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 

This is such a wonderful comfort and encouragement.  The task ahead of us is entirely possible by the one who is behind us.  And, in verse 20, the comfort about the one who is always with us.  One could speak a lot about these blessed encouragements from Jesus, but that is not my object today.  I want to focus on the task.

19. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, … In this phrase we receive the command to make disciples, this is the main point of the Great Commission, the actual work we are to be doing.  To do it we must “go” and so in Greek it is a participle (going) with an imperative punch from the one command in the passage (make disciples).  We will speak more in a moment of the process of discipleship, but Jesus makes the point about the object and place of our discipleship…all ethnic groups.  Our English version is nations, but it is not what we think of as nation states, it is more focused than that, but to each ethnic identity in the world, first to the Jews and then among the Gentiles.

19. continued…baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20. Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

So, lets break the process down into some parts.  The idea of going to the nations means we are to be evangelizing.  This means we go to proclaim the Gospel, the good news of Christ’s first coming, his death for us, and his resurrection.  We share this message without apology or shame since when people believe, by God’s grace, God unleashes his power to save them.  They become new creations in Christ.

Part 1, go!  Part 3, proclaim!  But before we get to proclaim we come to part 2, which is the nation’s part, or, the places we are to go.

  God cares about the nations.  He created them, primarily at the tower of Bable, through the confusion of tongues.  From Genesis to Revelation, we see the Lord having concern for the nations, and for each nation.  Several times in the Old Testament the nations are cited are the ones witnessing how God treats his people Israel, and it seems God cares about what they think concerning his covenants and his promises. 

The Bible calls nations out by name, the Bible tells us that righteousness exalts a nation but that sin is a reproach to any people (Proverbs 14:34).  In short, nations have reputations, and their morality and their faith or lack of it is of concern to God.  The righteousness of the United States of America is not a matter of indifference to God. 

  Is the fact that God is creating one new people out of Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2) cancelling out God’s concerns for the nations?  I don’t think so.  God has sovereignly designed when nations rise and fall, and what their boundaries are, even though we are all from one blood (Acts 17:26).  God has planned to provide the leaves of the Tree of Life for the healing of the nations in Revelation 22:2. All the way to the end God is concerned about the nations.

There are implications to this idea.  One is that God wants nations, or ethnic groups, to be discipled.  Not just individuals, but whole people groups and cultures.  It starts with individuals and families being saved, but God wants even more than that.  As more and more people are saved in a culture, that culture should and ought to change.  Each ethnic group should become more righteous as more people become disciples.  I see cultural discipleship more concerned with goodness, joy, and beauty than a list of rules and outward pretense.  More concerned with real faith and broad love.

   This is not the same as trumpeting nationalism, or idolatrous patriotism, but rather national humility, blessing, and love as Jesus is exalted among any people, i.e, producing righteousness.  In the missionary enterprise we see the Lord giving certain people a “burden” for nations or ethnic groups.  God raises up someone who hears the “Macedonian Call” as Paul did.  A specific place and time, reached by a specific missionary.  

I am an American, and I care about my nation’s righteousness.  I want our nation to be exalted by its goodness and godliness.   So, I am concerned to continually evangelize them. I also have a great concern for African Americans, as I am married to a black woman.  I have seen what it is like for black people to know Jesus, to worship him, to care about mercy and justice.  What a witness!  But I am deeply concerned and distressed by the part of any ethnic group that does not know Jesus.  I pray for God to save this people group.

Part 4 is discipleship.  This means that as we evangelize, we not only call people to believe, but to follow Jesus.  We teach them everything he has commanded.  Baptizing people means that they receive the sign and seal that they are part of the people of God.  For me this strongly implies their inclusion in the church.  

Some people have taken the concept of discipleship to mean being trained and mentored in basic Christian ideas and practices, usually by a process of one on one, life on life.  This kind of personal investment is wonderful.  I would submit that is not the only view of discipleship here, and maybe not the average one.  I think the Scriptures envisions Christians being and growing as Christians in the body of the local church.  The local church is where we each do our part, where we impact each other, and where we corporately express the “fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4).

I am not suggesting either or, but both/and, as the way of discipleship.   If I only pursue my individual discipleship without learning how to love the brothers and sisters in my local congregation, I am not much of a disciple.  If I pursue my own maturity in Christ and not help others in theirs, I am not much of a disciple.  It is not about simply realizing my own gifts, but sharing my gifts, in the body of Christ.  Yes, I must seek my own growth and learn from older and deeper saints so I can grow, but I also grow as I share and give to others. 

Sometimes the “technology” of discipleship is learning a pattern of Christian practices and trying to discipline myself to follow it.  Yet, true discipleship is not only deep, but broad.  Is our church representing the “fullness of Christ”?  That phrase means truly representing, as a church, all the personality and life of Jesus.  Each church should be proclaiming the Truth, as he did.  Each church should be full of love, and practicing love, as he did.  Each church should be full of people serving one another, as he did.  Each church should be pursuing the lost, as he did and does.   Each church should have compassion for the human needs of people, and rise to meet those needs, as he did.

   These are the kind of churches we should be planting around the world, in each ethnic group.  To some degree this will change the world, though the impact of the Gospel will ebb and flow, rise and fall, in each nation according to the sovereign direction of God, and the obedience or disobedience of his church to proclaim and live it, until he comes.

END.