This article from Gospel Coalition Australia challenges a perception that seeing our own localities as mission fields fulfils the local church’s obligation to partner in global mission.
From the post:
We are not saying that Australia doesn’t need Gospel mission – it does. We are not saying that local Gospel believers don’t need to constantly sharpen their local mission focus and practice – they do. We are not saying that local pastors aren’t worth praying for and that their sacrifices in ministry aren’t worth noticing – they are. But something happens when we take the word, “mission”, and strip it of the recent and powerful historical connection it has had to “world mission”, or “cross-cultural mission”. We can inadvertently become myopic and xenophobic. We can forget that the mission of God has a global, cross-cultural, every tribe and tongue and people and nation perspective. We can too easily frame our preference for mission according to our priorities instead of constantly attending to the way God sees his Church or mission in his whole wide world. We can forget that the biblical mandate is not to reach as many people as we can, as resource-efficiently or as cost-effectively as we can. No, it is rather, that we go and proclaim the glorious message of the Gospel to all peoples. Go … to All.
Read the whole post here.
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