8 Statistics to Consider Regarding Global-Local Missions
1) 3% of the world is on the move. That is 232 million people, about 20% of which are coming to the United States. According to United Nations reports, the number of people migrating in the world has risen significantly in the last twenty years. In 1990 there were an estimated 150 million international migrants, a number that has increased rapidly in the years since. Most of these migrants are elderly and they are not all headed to the developed world, but rather to a wide variety of locations.
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Hospitality: Our Ministry Identity
Is hospitality a gift or our duty from God? Should churches welcome outsiders as a ministry pursuit or as a mandate to obey? Is making room for foreigners in our busy lives God’s command or God’s promise? In the Bible, we find that hospitality is infused with all of these dimensions. As portrayed in both the Passover and the Lord’s Supper, hospitality is a spiritual grace that transforms strangers into friends. As Christine Pohl writes in her book Making Room, “Hospitality is… fundamental to Christian identity.” I have spent much time and effort to persuade churches (some holding a geographic, rather than a biblical definition of world missions) that welcoming international students among us is valid “global-local” missions. I remind churches that, while God calls some Christians to traditional foreign missions, he commands all Christians to “practice hospitality” according to Romans 12:13. Not every Christian is gifted or called by God to leave a familiar place and take Christ’s gospel to a foreign place. But God calls all Christians to welcome outsiders into our ordinary daily lives, homes, and churches - into our covenant communities.
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Conversations with J.D. Payne: Why Should We Welcome the Stranger?
Missiologist and pastor J.D. Payne continues a seven part series focused on missions strategy, and how our missions approach has changed over the years and will continue to change in years to come. In this video Payne presents a biblical case for why we should welcome the stranger next door. He also shows how reaching them here in the US is strategic for reaching that same people group worldwide.
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Conversations with J.D. Payne: What Are 3 Ways Churches Can Blur the Lines between Global & Local Missions?
Missiologist and pastor J.D. Payne continues a seven part series focused on missions strategy, and how our missions approach has changed over the years and will continue to change in years to come. In this video Payne helps US churches think of three things to blur the lines between Global and Local Missions by: seeing the vision, being intentional, and establishing a biblical missiology
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Conversations with J.D. Payne: Why Should the American Church Return to Apostolic Ministry?
Missiologist and pastor J.D. Payne continues a seven part series focused on missions strategy, and how our missions approach has changed over the years and will continue to change in years to come. In this video he discusses that because the US has the third highest number of unreached people groups in the world, the church needs to return to apostolic ministry in order to effectively reach these people with the Gospel.
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Our Vision for America: Churches as Representative of the Final Chapter
Before Jesus ascended to heaven, he proclaimed the Great Commission. This was not a command to the super talented and gifted, but rather to the Church, his bride, and he intended for all to see themselves as being a part of it. God has always been on mission and he continues his work through the Church. Churches generally try to engage their congregations with missions and traditionally this takes the form of asking all to participate either by going or sending. This has inadvertently created a gap between those sent out and those providing prayer and financial support. While the work it takes to send is encouraged and praised, it often seems like the “real” work happens overseas, creating a dichotomy between those who go and the rest of the church.
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Conversations with J.D. Payne: What Are Some Shifts Happening in the Missions World?
Missiologist and pastor J.D. Payne begins a seven part series focused on missions strategy, and how our missions approach has changed over the years and will continue to change in years to come.
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