A Deeper Understanding of the Biblical Basis for Mission

Declare his glory among the nations,

his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

(1 Chronicles 16:24, NIV)

During the month of October on the Unreached Network internship, there was a focus on deepening our understanding of the Biblical basis for mission. Learning more about God’s heart for the nations is an important step to take in preparing to go out and preach the Gospel among them.

What We Have Been Learning

An online video module was made available to us on the internship and foundational training programmes, through which we could listen to different speakers teaching on various topics related to the Biblical basis for mission. Both the Old and New Testaments were explored, showing us that God has always had, and continues to have, a heart for the nations.

The first speaker started his teaching by looking at the book of Genesis. Man had been cut off from God, but in Genesis 12, God appears to Abraham. Prior to this, Abraham would likely have been a pagan (see Joshua 24:2), yet here, God shows favour to him, and does something new: He reveals Himself to Abraham and makes a promise to him that through his seed, all the families of the earth would be blessed. Abraham was going to be a father of many nations, not just one. Romans 4:16 confirms this in the New Testament too.

Another speaker taught about the priority of remembering the poor. Even those who don’t truly know God call to Him in times of need, and God answers them through us, the Church. If we want to see the Church grow, we need to go to the poor and the oppressed. Not only does God’s word remind us about poverty and justice (there are about 2000 verses on these in the Bible), but the Father is glorified when we help those in need. Hearts become opened to Him when they see us working for Him. This speaker also taught that remembering the poor should be in the genes and foundation of the church, which is something to remember when church-planting.

The last speaker was a missionary who spoke about the godly ambition to preach where Christ is not known (see Romans 15:20). This speaker emphasised the importance of listening to God and being obedient to where He calls you, as not everyone is called to go to the ends of the earth; the place where God has you right now is the mission field He has for you at this moment of your life. There is important work we can do for His glorious kingdom everywhere, even if we aren’t called abroad.

This missionary also brought forward some statistics regarding unreached people groups around the world:

Peoplegroups.org have distinguished about 12,000 people groups globally, with about 7,000 of these being classified as unreached – this means less than 2% of their populations are evangelical Christians.
Out of 7,360 languages worldwide, almost 4000 have no portion of Scripture in their language. 1.5 billion people globally don’t have the full Bible available in their language.
In the USA, for every $100,000 a Christian earns, only $107 goes towards mission work. Only 1% of this makes its way to work among unreached people groups.
For every 30 cross cultural missionaries that go to reached people groups, only 1 goes to the unreached. Most of the missionaries and funding seem to go towards reached people groups rather than the unreached.

If we aren’t called abroad, perhaps ways in which we might be able to contribute to reaching the nations is by supporting others who are being sent, or through funding in specific directions, such as to organisations looking to translate the Bible into more languages.

How Do We Know God Has a Heart For the Nations?

On our programme’s monthly training call, the speaker asked us: if Matthew 28:19 wasn’t in the Bible, how else would we know God’s heart for the nations? What often comes to mind for me is God’s heart for the people of Ninevah from the book of Jonah, whom God sent his prophet to that they might be spared judgement through repentance. Revelation 7:9 reveals that among the saved will be individuals from every nation, tribe, people and language. Genesis 12:3 shows us God had planned to bless all peoples of the earth through Abraham. There are many other examples throughout Scripture – far too many to reference here. I’ve found that since this training call, my eyes have been much more open to seeing just how often God’s heart for the nations is expressed through the Bible, even when I’ve not been looking specifically for these verses.

My Teaching Placement

By the end October, I had completed my placement, where I had worked alongside teachers at an English language school to teach refugees, asylum seekers, and others who were hoping to learn English while living in the UK. This experience pushed me out of my comfort zone, and has taught me valuable teaching skills which cannot be learned through an online course. Most importantly, it has taught me to trust and depend on God more.

For most of the placement, I had been observing other teachers and helping students one-to-one with classwork, but during the last week, I was given the opportunity to teach in front of a couple of classes. The first class I taught didn’t go very well; the students were beginners, and I felt I hadn’t explained the tasks very clearly to them, or engage them into the lesson well. As a result, my confidence was knocked. Prior to this lesson, I had prayed to God for help during the class, but remember still feeling anxious about it. This now, to me, seems like evidence I wasn’t really trusting in God as much as I could have done.

The next day, another teacher put me in front of her class, and prompted me through teaching her students vocabulary. Through this, I gained confidence in speaking to the class in a loud, clear voice. It also gave me experience in trying to listen to the whole class at once as they practiced their pronunciation – this was more difficult than it had looked when other teachers had done this same exercise in classes I’d observed. Overall, this experience helped to boost my confidence before my next teaching session the following day.

I prepared for my final teaching session through much more desperate prayer than before. After praying, I felt a peace about the coming class I would never have been able to feel if not for God. I also made sure to write out a more detailed teaching plan, and put together more engaging activities for the students. As the result, this class went much better than my first attempt! The feedback from the teacher was much more positive, and I learned more about the importance of depending on and trusting God always.

It was wonderful connecting to students from so many different nations. This placement taught me so much about interacting with people of other cultures, and the difficulties many face in their home countries. Many of the stories I heard will definitely stay with me for a long time.

My Return

Returning home was bittersweet. I was so happy and grateful to catch up with many I had missed while away, but a few days after my return, my family and I had to say goodbye to our dog of over 14 years. Despite this difficult moment, I’m very grateful to God that the time for her passing didn’t come while I was away from home. Though it has been a hard loss for us, the timing has been a real answer to prayer.

The fellowship and support of my church continues to be such a blessing to me through this internship. Besides this, big things are happening in this season in our church, and I continue to look forward to seeing what God will do next!

If you would like to pray for me, I’d be grateful for prayer for the following:

That what I’ve learned on my teaching placement will remain fresh in my mind for my coming placements.
That I’ll know what I need to do to prepare for my next placement, which should involve starting a language café with a church.
That my family and I will be able to adjust to the loss of our dog.

Thank for praying for me! Let me know if there’s anything I can pray about for you!

Crossing Cultures with God