Commissioning…

May 10th, 2007 | Posted in » Baptist Issues

Last night, I had the immense privilege of attending an IMB Missionary Commissioning Service at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Liberty, Missouri. If you’ve never been to one, you REALLY need to… it was one of the most powerful services I’ve ever experienced.

I’m sure most of you who visit this site know about the IMB, but I thought I’d share a few stats to give some perspective:

• The IMB sends missionaries to 186 countries.
• There are currently 5,200 missionaries serving the IMB world-wide.
• IMB missionaries guided over 500,000 individuals to Christ last year.
• IMB missionaries started somewhere between 20,000 and 23,000 new churches last year.

While those stats are impressive, the task remaining is HUGE. There are over 2,000,000,000 (2 BILLION) people in our world who have never heard the gospel, and it’s going to take a lot more than the 35 new missionaries appointed at last night’s service to reach them all. Those of us here, content in our churches, satisfied with our lives, perhaps even callous to the task… all of us need to consider our part in reaching the nations with the good news of Christ. As Jerry Rankin shared last night, sending missionaries to reach the lost “is the most exciting thing Southern Baptists do… and we get to be a part of it.”

We’d all be remiss if we didn’t consider what our part is in that privilege.

As for the service itself, in addition to singing praises to God and hearing some good messages from some of our IMB personnel (Jerry Rankin gave a phenomenal message), the most powerful part of the entire night was when each of the new missionaries was given a chance to share their story. Hearing how each of them clearly received God’s call was, simply put, amazing. The majority heard God’s voice most clearly while on a short-term mission trip. Some accepted immediately, and committed to leave everything at almost a moment’s notice. Others struggled with the call over a number of years. All, however, realized, as one missionary shared, that “everyone deserves to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

I can’t begin to convey the passion and emotion that these new missionaries shared, but try to envision yourself in their shoes and think about what you’d have to give up to go… the safety and security of life here in the U.S… being away from family and friends… familiar foods… familiar places… the comfort of being able to communicate in your own language… the comfort of knowing your culture. Imagine the passion for Christ and for the lost you’d need to have to make that leap of faith, saying to God, as Isaiah did, “Here am I… send me!”

It bears repeating the question… “what’s my part?” Are we, as Dr. Rankin shared, ones who look at missionaries, affirm their work, pat them on the back, praise them… then thank God it’s not us? Do we look at our lives and really consider the fact that God doesn’t just want our prayers, gifts, and thoughts for missions… but that he wants our lives?

We really need to examine our hearts and ask ourselves if we are committed to reaching the nations… and how we, individually, are called to do just that. Not all are called to go… but all are called to care and to support the cause in some manner.

One last thing… as I witnessed the service, and the passion and sacrifices of our missionaries to reach the world with the gospel, I couldn’t help but reflect on the IMB issues of the past year and a half in regard to baptismal requirements / prayer language. The single reoccurring thought?

How dare we split hairs over this matter, standing in the way of those called to go and share Christ with a waiting world. Thousands are dying every day, condemned to eternity in hell… yet we would dare to prevent those called by God to go and rescue them over such trivial matters as where they were baptized or how they pray in private?

The task is huge. We need unity of purpose and commitment from all to even begin to tackle it effectively. Our differences are really quite insignificant when we step back and look at things… it’s time we all learned to rally around essentials, and cooperate to really make a difference in this lost world in which we live.