The church at the center of missions

Beloved, if you're sending missionaries to share the gospel and gather disciples into gospel preaching churches that glorify Christ, shouldn't they have an exemplary commitment to the local church here before they go? If a man or a woman does not love and live a life centered on the local church where they are.

Aubrey Sequeira: why send someone who doesn't love the local church here?

to be a faithful church member today. They must find this out before they go, before they get on an airplane, before they cross an ocean. Where do they find this? They find it in a church that values membership. They find it in a church that knows them and that they know well also. Read into that steady, faithful attendance. I worry for the college student that has never been a faithful part of his church and wants to go to the mission field.

Brooks Buser: goers must find the church before they cross an ocean.

Yeah, I'm just thinking functionally. I look at the kids. We've got a whole bunch of them and I want them to grow up in a context where missions has a it's got it's a robust category in their mind, and that they understand that they have a part to play in that. So I think a healthy missions. Culture in a church. People would just realize this isn't an appendage. We are a missionary society and every member is a member of that society. So that's just how we think about being a Christian and what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ.

Dale Van Dyke: missions isn't an appendage; every member belongs to a missionary society.

Sending missionaries centers on the church, not an independent organization. The church of Jesus Christ. What do we see about this church as it's introduced to us? In verse 1. I want to look at three key descriptive details that the text gives us.

Jonathan Master: sending missionaries centers on the church.

I've seen agencies that sometimes can act in this way. We're the experts. Now, they serve many needs. We love them. We pray for them. They provide training and support, but they serve the church. The church sends. And this provides significant clarity for churches as well. In fact, I think this really should be where the primary application is made.

Missionaries shouldn't answer to professionals outside the church.

The mission of the church is the church continuing and prospering, helping new churches being planted, especially where the name of Christ has not yet been proclaimed. About a year ago, David Garrison, one of the pioneers of the contemporary idea of church planting movements, the longtime missionary himself, published a celebratory volume called, Inside Church Planting Movements, with the promising subtitle, What 25 Years of Assessments Reveal.

Mark Dever's definition of the mission of the church.

But those churches should also be the end, the goal of your missionary work. You want to see other churches like that established. When you send a missionary out, you're looking to see that replicated. There'll be language differences, cultural differences. There'll be all kinds of things that will be different. Some of which you expect, some of which will surprise you.

The churches we plant should look like the churches that send.

Go find a good church in that country so you can learn the language and you can be a member of a faithful church. Remember that when you're going to these contexts, like and again, this is where Baptist and Presbyterian ecclesiology comes into things. You're talking about the elements here. You're talking about the sacraments, baptism in the Lord's Supper.

On the field, join a faithful local church while learning the language.

And that has huge implications to the church also to say. One, and then Brooks can take it from here. but one of the biggest things is we've got to stop telling people or we've got to stop thinking our church needs a better missions program. Like it needs a better children's program or women's program or men's program or whatever.

The church is a missionary society, not a church with a missions program.