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Strategic Missions

What is strategic missions?

Jesus said in Matthew 24:14 – “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

This is our mandate . . .this is a prophetic promise from the Lord. This verse should direct us towards the most strategic areas in which to take the gospel of the kingdom – those who have not had the gospel of the kingdom preached to them as a testimony! 

Strategic missions is a mission of discipleship. Jesus said in Matt 28:18-20; ^“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The command in this verse is to make disciples; the target is every ethnos. The gospel is the good news of the kingdom.

We are not only called to go on mission, we are called to finish His mission.

• Jesus was a finisher - John 4:34 - “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
• Paul was a finisher – Romans 15:18-20 –  ^“I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— 19  by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.  20 It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.“

Therefore, we need to be finishers! This is the distinctive of doing strategic apostolic missions - the concept of fulfilling, completing of, literally finishing the mission. What is the mission? It is the coming of the kingdom of God in the earth. This mission is a doable and measurable task. We are called not to only engage the Great Commission but we are called to finish it.  Thus, the end of our work is not merely to plant a certain number of churches among certain Unreached People Groups. Rather it is to see church planting movements among ALL the remaining Unreached People Groups. Seeing disciples being made, not just converts!  To finish the task, not just to engage it.

How do know when we finish? The finish line is revealed in Matt 24:14  - “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world, as a testimony to all the nations (ethne), and then the end shall come.”

Let’s consider some significant facts in Matthew 24:14:

• It is the gospel of the kingdom.
• Kingdom denotes power! Remember, this is the language that links the missions mandate from Genesis to Revelation.
•  The key phrase here is all the nations. Nations = ethne and ethne = people groups.  This is not an exact definition but biblically proximate meaning of ethnos.  Thus, all people groups must have the testimony, the witness of the gospel of the kingdom.
• The highlighted word then is the connective word from the promise (all the world, all the nations) to the coming of the end.  It is the word indicating the cause/effect relationship between the proclamation and testimony and the coming of the end. 
• Proclaim-give testimony, then the end comes. Note, this testimony is more than proclamation. It is communicating the gospel in such a culturally relevant way that the recipients are able to make an intelligent decision to accept or reject the message.

 Can a Simple Church do strategic missions? Can our Lord raise up apostolic teams and send them to the nations out of simple, organic churches and networks? The answer is yes! But, there needs to be some changes in the way we think and approach missions or we will fall into the same traps that plague the institutional missions effort.

As Neil Cole has taught, part of the DNA of the church is Apostolic Mission. The DNA of the church can be simplified to three things, namely, divine truth, nurturing relationships, and apostolic mission. They are needed in every part of the church, from its smallest unit to its largest.

• Divine Truth. Truth comes from God. It is the revelation of God to humankind. This comes from the Son, the Spirit, and the Scriptures.  
• Nurturing Relationships. Humans were never created to be alone. We are social creatures and have an intrinsic need for relationships. Our relational orientation is a reflection of the image of God in us. God Himself is relational and exists in a community—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is love because God is relational. To the Christian, God is love because he has always existed in relationship. Is love possible without someone to love? This should be the defining characteristic of our faith. All men should know that we are Christ’s disciples by the love that we have for one another. 
• Apostolic Mission. Apostolic means that someone is sent as a representative with a message. We are here for a purpose. We have been given a prime directive to fulfill—to make disciples of all the nations. This part of us also comes from the nature of God. Jesus is an Apostle. He is the Chief Cornerstone of the apostolic foundation. Before he left this planet, he sent his disciples into the world with a mission.

I have discovered that the greatest needs a mobilized church has is to first understand what that means and then take some practical steps that will bring her to a place where she is actually reaching the world around her. This would of course include local outreach, regional outreach and even to the point of reaching an unreached people group. This would be a natural, spontaneous response to the churches intimate relationship with Jesus and from some contrived program or strategy. It would be birthed out of the churches fellowship with Jesus and hearing his voice.

This mandate to be a witness is based on the model we see that Jesus gave the church in Acts 1:8 when he said; “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  Typically the church understands its call to reach its “Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria” which represents local and regional witness, but has trouble accomplishing the mandate to go to the “ends of the earth” and make disciples. 

For many established house churches the call to be missional can be extremely frustrating. Why? We know we need to not only focus on the needs within our church community and be clear about Divine Truth, and functioning in Nurturing Relationships (the D and N of our DNA) but what about Apostolic Mission? Alan Hirsch states in his excellent book; “The Forgotten Ways” that we must first know Christ, and from that relationship we develop mission, begin to make disciples and it is not until then that the church forms. That is the ideal. But what do we do if we are already functioning as a community of faith and discover our apostolic role to the world around us, even to the extent of reaching out to the ends of the earth?

It is at the ends of the earth that we find the unreached people groups who still do not have access to the gospel. Up to this point in missions’ history, we have left this task to the institutional church and missions organizations. Certainly these organizations have developed great skills and tools that are invaluable to the missionary. But they bring with them a degree of baggage that continually disrupts the spontaneous expansion of the church.

What does a simple/house church or simple church network to do in regards to strategic missions? Is apostolic (pioneer, frontier) missions an option for the simple/house church? Let’s get to work and find out! I believe God has brought us to this place in Church history in order to finish the task of reaching all ethnic groups!

For more study see the article: Simple Churches Doing Missions by Don Davis