DEVOTIONALS

The Great Commission (Mt 28:18-20, Mk16:15) provides the Church with the most significant reason why it exists on planet earth! It presents a two-fold task, to make disciples of all nations (peoples or people groups) and to provide every person with the opportunity to hear and respond to the Gospel!  These two purposes are really one, for we can’t reach ‘people’ until we first reach ‘peoples’!  Every single person on earth belongs to a “nation” or a people group, which in scripture is defined not as a country but as a group of people linked together by a common language and culture. Within this bonded community people marry, interact, work, play, live and die and together they share their spiritual values and beliefs. A people or nation that has experienced the breakthrough of the Gospel within its people group can take on the task of ensuring that every person, among its people, hears the Gospel, in compelling ways, within their life time! For this reason we have local churches planted within easy access to all families!

Breaking through with the Gospel into a people group is of critical importance! Until this takes place the Gospel has no way of spreading among a people! There are more than six thousand ‘people groups’ today that have not experienced a ‘missiological breakthrough’! These six thousand ‘least reached peoples’ contain more than 2.5 billion individuals, about one-third of the world’s population. The tragedy is that people born into these people groups live and die without having the opportunity to hear, even once, the good news of Jesus!

The highest priority, to bring closure to Christ’s Great Commission, is to target these least-reached peoples! Mission agencies and local churches need to engage in intentional and planned mission endeavors to see breakthroughs among the world’s least-reached!

The shame we bear is that after 2000 years of Christian mission this situation exists! It could be argued that we are not responsible for the sluggish response, of the Church, to missions, in previous generations. But we are responsible for our generation! The exciting thing is that this task is very doable! With more than three and a half million local churches in the world today (Missiometrics 2006), it means that one, least-reached people group, is shared among 563 churches!  It all begins with a commitment!

Max Chismon

Kairos International Director

 

 

 
     
 


Lists of Past Monthly Devotionals

Trying to lift the profile of missions is always a challenge. A question I have used on a number of occasions has helped to put missions in right perspective! “What came first the Church or missions?” It’s a little like asking, what came first the chicken or the egg. As Christians we do know the answer, don’t we? It was the chicken – right? Everything begins with God, so the answer to my question above isn’t a difficult one.

God was on mission when He sent Abraham to bring God’s blessing to all nations (Gen12:12-3). God was on mission when He sent Israel to bring salvation to the nations (Ps 67:1-3). God was on mission when He sent Jesus to seek and to save the lost and to become the “sacrificial lamb” that would takeaway the sins of the world. From this “sacrifice” the Church was born. The Church was born as a result of mission and was born for mission.

As Patrick Johnstone, of Operation World fame, says in his book, ‘The Church is Bigger than you Think’, “Scripture, theology, the Church, and even Christians would not exist without mission. Therefore, a theology without mission is not biblical theology, a church without mission is no longer truly the church and a Christian without mission is no true disciple.”

Missions is the reason why the Church exists on planet earth!

Max Chismon

Kairos International Director

 

  
     
 

 

  
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