By this, I don’t mean that ministry shouldn’t be done in a church. It should. But why do we so often leave it there?
I used to hear about missionaries doing work in faraway lands… of them leaving their worlds behind to go to a new place, to do a new thing, and to commit their lives to serving God. I saw the kinds of work they did, the heartbroken and desperate people they worked with, and the way they changed lives. And it all seemed like the greatest and coolest thing in the world. A dream to do mission work was planted in my heart long before I realized it was there.
When I signed up for the World Race, I realized that this dream would come true! I was going to be that person who traveled to faraway lands, left my known world behind, and committed a year to serving God. I would get to reach these broken people, and I was so excited. For the first few months, I felt like a true missionary. We held the orphans, we fed the hungry, we stood in front of churches singing songs and giving messages, we built homes… and everywhere we went, we told people about Jesus. This is what I thought ministry was: partnering with an organization or church and doing God’s work as it was assigned to me. I had this idea that in order to do ministry, you needed to be a pastor, live your life as a missionary, or go on a mission trip. But a few months into the Race, it started to seem less like a “trip” and a whole lot more like life. And this was when my entire concept of ministry changed.
When we went to Asia, we lived in countries where it was illegal to be a missionary, where we could be kicked out of the country for speaking about Jesus and the local people we spoke of Him to could be killed. So now we were on a mission trip and couldn’t do ministry…? But this wasn’t actually true because where Christianity isn’t allowed, it’s needed even more. And so we still did mission work; we simply needed to change the way we did it. We no longer stood in front of churches and preached or sat by beggars on the street and prayed for them… but using words is not the only way to communicate God’s love. We learned very quickly that because Christ is living inside of us, we carried Him everywhere we went. Ministry became a way of life. It looked like loving flood victims with a love that could only be from God, like being so full of peace that people ask us where it comes from, like smiling in such a way that it reaches their souls and plants seeds. We met “teachers” and “business people” who moved to a communist country where ministry isn’t allowed in order to teach and run businesses… but their real mission was to reach people with God’s love through it all. They showed us that we can do ministry wherever we are, in whatever we are doing. And as I adopted this lifestyle, I learned something that will shape the rest of my life: Ministry is not about the things we do but rather how we do them, the kind of people we are in these things.
There is a church here in Georgia with this sign at the exit of their parking lot.
So many of us look within the church as a place for us to do ministry… but what if instead, we looked outside of it? What if we stopped leaving this blessing inside the confines of our churches? Because aren’t the people who need it most those who don’t already have it? Whatever your job is, wherever you live, and whatever your passions are, you have the chance to be an extraordinary influencer. If you can share Jesus with your words, great! If you can’t, then share Him with your actions because these too have great power.
In one of their songs, The Sidewalk Prophets sing these words…
When they see me, do they see You?
I want to live like that
And give it all I have
So that everything I say and do
Points to You.
Remember that you don’t have to be a missionary in some faraway place to do mission work. You don’t even have to be a missionary. You simply need to live in such a way that when people see you, they see The Lord. Are you living this way?
The entire world is your mission field… what’s your mission? Figure that out and live it wherever you are! And then watch what happens when you make your life your ministry.
