Welcome back. You belong here.
What is a missionary?
In church, when people talk about "missionaries" most of us think of boring slide shows during Sunday night church.
Much of missions work has changed, you look at the websites of known mission groups such as World Vision and Children's Hunger Fund and they emphasize stories and involvement over maps.
Nonetheless, at the local church level, most people hear the word "global missions", and they check out, they say "it's not for me."
My job is to try and help change this perception through communication, collaboration and innovation, basically bringing people together.
Simple things such as moving away from language such as "Missions Sundays" and towards "Fulfilling Your Dreams" will go a long way in helping people discover their passion. We want to emphasize that God created each of us for good, for a purpose, but that life, business, brokenness and pain sometimes causes us to lose our way, never finding our passion in life.
Here's a similar recent quote from President Obama on "A Call to Service":
"We need your service, right now, at this moment in history. I’m not going to tell you what your role should be; that’s for you to discover. But I’m asking you to stand up and play your part. I’m asking you to help change history’s course. Put your shoulder up against the wheel. And if you do, I promise you – your life will be richer, our country will be stronger, and someday, years from now, you may remember it as the moment when your own story and the American story converged, when they came together, and we met the challenges of our new century."
If we help people understand they are uniquely made and created for good deeds and if that passion happens to be global awareness, eliminating malaria or stopping human trafficking, the better still.
Have a great day.
Into the future,
davidT
