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Pastor's May 2011 Message |
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The Fifth Mission Response: Send“…The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to SEND out laborers into his harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38 ESV As we enter into the month of May, we focus on the 5th of 7 Mission Responses that express our Christian Stewardship of Life: the act of Sending. In what has been referred to as the “Church Age” when the United States as a nation stood as “one nation under God”, consciously wrestled with “in God we trust” as we used our money, had prayers before sporting events, listed church affiliation when hospitalized, and, if interviewed for some article in the paper, included church membership… in that age that began to end in the 60s and came to an end by the turn of the century, when someone talked of mission work, minds immediately turned to “sending” someone “over there” to foreign mission fields. After all, there were plenty of laborers over here and the fields were consistently harvested. In the Post-Church, Post Christian era that we are now living in, we have been emphasizing the need to see the mission field all around us. Going into the mission field may be simply crossing the street, entering into a neighboring cubicle, skyping a relative in another US city. Yet while that is definitely true, we need to continue just as fervently to ‘send’ laborers into the harvest ‘over there.’ In a world where Islam is growing at an exponential rate, Christians cannot slumber, cannot coast until the end of time. Where we ourselves cannot go, we must continue to send. St. Paul puts it like this: “But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” Romans 10:14-15. Messiah is truly blessed to have a ‘sending support organization’ south of Waxhaw – JAARS. From that organization, we have had the privilege of building relationships with a number of missionaries that work in foreign fields. And we have had the privilege of commissioning some of our own members so as to ‘send them’ into foreign fields. We have supported these people with our prayers, letters and email, finances and personal involvement. In return, we have been blessed with their stories, hearing their trial and successes, and even some ‘hands-on experience’ (Jungle Jump off). So it is most appropriate that we focus on this 5th of the 7 Mission Responses – the response of Sending.
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