STEP FOUR

  • There are many people that so desperately want to go overseas now that the “going” becomes their sole focus. Having our sights set on cross-cultural missions isn’t wrong, but it can blind us to the ministry right in front of us. Ministry doesn’t start when you launch overseas, ministry starts here and now!

    As you think about taking steps to go overseas, serving your local church is crucial to your spiritual growth and development. If you’re a college student reading this, be involved in a campus ministry and an active member who serves in your local church! We can often divorce our involvement in the local church in pursuit of cross-cultural ministry, but serving your church is one of the most strategic ways you can prepare for the mission field.

    We can romanticize mission work. In reality, some mission work can be quite mundane. Imagine with me that you finally join your team and land in the country. Where do you start? First, if there isn’t an established church for you to join, your team is the church. To be the church, you need to know what a church looks like. You need to be willing to serve the church in ways that may not completely fit within your gifting.

    Secondly, you will need to start sowing seeds. You will need to find ways to meet people in your new home and put in the work to build relationships with them. You will likely begin by going to language class and creating routines like grocery shopping and working in coffee shops.

    Thirdly, when you start building relationships, you will be able to start inviting people into your home, cooking meals for them, and hosting these people that are very different from you.

    The best way to prepare for this is to practice these things now.

    • Grow in humility: Serve unseen

    • Grow in hospitality: Welcome people into your home

    • Grow healthy habits: Establish a regular rhythm of evangelism

    In this step, we are going to explore ways to serve in ministry now, that will ultimately help you later. Remember, mission work can be mundane, but mundane is not bad. Mundane is where life takes place! If you can learn to serve people in the here and now, you will be a wonderful asset in a foreign field. What you learn here, you will take there. Get serving now!

What to expect from Step Four:

Ministry doesn’t start when you launch overseas, ministry starts here and now!

  • 1 PETER 4:101-11 - “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

    EPHESIANS 4:11-16 - “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds[a] and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

    1 CORINTHIANS 12:4-11 - “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.”

    1 CORINTHIANS 12 -14 - Read chapters 12 - 14

  • ARTICLES:

    BOOKS:

    • How Can I Serve My Church? by Matt Emadi

    • The Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield

    • Ask your church if there are ways for you to serve locally.