Our Mission

Our Mission:

I (Ben) recently had the opportunity to talk to a short-term mission team the week before they went to Belize.  Below are the topics I discussed with them from God’s Word.  Of course, our mission is simple – we want to share Jesus with people – we want people to understand the Gospel and the grace God has in place for them through Jesus Christ – and we want to disciple new believers so that their faith can grow and flourish in the way God has planned.  However, just as I felt these ‘preparation for missions’ topics were important for the team heading to Belize, it certainly applies to us, as well, and provides more detail behind our mission.

1.       Spiritual Retirement:

Jesus never told us to prepare for ‘spiritual retirement’ – we aren’t saving-up the gifts God has given us.  We are designed for this very moment.  All the moments in our past, all the failure, success, knowledge, wisdom, studying scripture, and prayer has brought us to right now.  God has us prepared to do the very next thing – and then we are ready for the next, and the next…

Hebrews 10:23-25 – Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.  Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect our meeting together, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

That’s an amazing statement!  Our family wants to be, and share, motivation brought on by the Holy Spirit.  And, we realize that God puts people in our lives for specific reasons so that we can learn from them.

2.       A Battle of The Ages

Philippians 4:8-9 – And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing.  Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.  Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.  Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me – everything you heard from me and saw me doing.  Then the God of peace will be with you.

It’s our responsibility to be prepared.  We have to pray and come before God as humble servants ready to do his bidding – He can do anything, but we are blessed to be a part of that.  Most of what we are being prepared for is more about what God teaches us, and how He molds us during that preparation, that really matters in our relationship with Him.  The end result is where we see what He did, not us.

To be fully prepared to do God’s work, we have to put all our faith in Him.  Our mission has a physical element – we will get tired, hot, sick, angry, etc. – but we are also in the midst of a battle of the ages: Satan hates when God’s people are obedient.  Satan desires the opposite; that’s why he is a liar and deceiver, and he isn’t going to sit back and watch when people step out in faith.  But, Satan has no power over Jesus Christ!  Christ has won the battle, it’s over!  Our job is to sing the victory song to all nations.

However, we are only human, not Jesus who was God in the flesh.  All that we do that is good, and right, and pure, etc. comes from God.  So, we have to fill our lives with God like a spiritual diet: God in = God out.  More of Him = less of our selfish desires and foolish actions.

3.       Are You ready?  It’s Not About You!

All of that is great in preparation, but in the end we have to completely forget about ourselves – it’s all about Jesus and God’s Kingdom.

1 Timothy 2:1-6 – I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people.  Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them.  Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity.  This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.  For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity – the man Christ Jesus.  He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone.

The Gospel is so clearly articulated all through the New Testament – we like this passage when we think about mission work.  It’s about Jesus, the only one who can save someone’s soul – he died for it.  And, he wants everyone to accept that gift – freely given because he already paid the cost.  Our mission is to keep telling everyone about this gift and give all the glory to God.

4.       GO!

We’re not smart enough to plan our lives; we’re just not that clever.  So, when God says do something and you begin to see how He prepared you advance, you have to smile and say, ‘Wow!  I see what you were doing there!’  We are in this situation because it’s God’s idea – we only recognize Him.

James 4:14-17 – How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?  Your life is like the morning fog – it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.  What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”  Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil.  Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.

When we first heard God calling us to mission work, and specifically being drawn to Kenya, I (Ben) had a small part of me that said, ‘God, I’ll do this if you want, but I’m really hoping you tell me NOT to go.’  I’m being honest.  It’s going to be hard.  It’s going to take sacrifice.  We don’t even know what God is getting us into!  But, our family will go where God says to go, and wherever we are we will do what He says to do.