Why should we serve?  Why should we be a part of missions?

 

The simplest answer is this: When you decide to make even the smallest difference, you have taken the first step in changing the world.

 

Before I get into the 7 Pillars, I believe there is a need to clarify the difference between Missions and Evangelism.  

 

Evangelism literally means “to preach or to spread the gospel.” Evangelism can be done anywhere to anyone.  As Christians, spreading the good news about Jesus is something we should do on a daily basis, to our friends, family, and anyone else in our circle of influence.

 

Missions is a little different. I like to call it “doing the gospel.”  Missions happen when we purposefully do something to show others the good news of Jesus.  However, the thing that makes missions different than evangelism is that it’s done on purpose.  You see, evangelism can happen in the workplace or at home, but to get involved in Missions you have to go somewhere.  It requires us to show the gospel to people we wouldn’t encounter unless we went to them on purpose.  Most people don’t have a life that involves hanging out with homeless people on a daily basis, so when someone goes to a soup kitchen to feed the hungry, they don’t just happen upon the people they’ve seen there.  They go to a soup kitchen purposefully to encounter and help people that they wouldn’t otherwise see. The key to Missions is purpose, purposefully going out of your way to be the gospel to people you wouldn’t otherwise share Jesus with.

 

In Matthew 25, Jesus says, “What you did for the least of these, you did for me.”  According to this passage, the only criteria our life will be judged by is what we did for the least among us. In James 1:27, the Bible says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

 

I get the 7 Pillars of Missions from these simple verses about caring for others.  Jesus gives us a simple outline for each of the 7 Pillars.  He tells us what to do, and He tells us for whom we should do it.

 

  • Feed the Hungry. This is the one most people think about.  Starving children in other parts of the world need our help.  But what about the teenager that comes into the soup kitchen to get food for her family?  Has anyone seen her? Approximately 13 million American children go to bed hungry.

 

  • Give drink to the Thirsty. Digging wells in Africa so that a village can have potable water. Every year an estimated 1.5 million children die from diseases related to low water quality and inadequate sanitation.

 

  • Care for the Stranger. I consider this to also cover sheltering the homeless.  In Matthew 25, Jesus said, “I was a stranger and you invited me in.”  It also refers to strangers living in a foreign land.  The Lily & The Sparrow has a church in Brazil that ministers to Haitians living in Brazil.  What about the homeless veteran downtown that seems a little crazy, but might just need a place to stay?

 

  • Clothe the Naked.  This immediately makes me think of victims of sex trafficking.  Sometimes the best thing to give them is clothes or maybe a jacket they can wear when they’re mostly naked in the cold.  There’s also the kids that wear the same clothes over and over again to school because they can’t even afford goodwill.

 

  • Visit the Sick. How many of us have gone to visit someone that we knew was sick even if they weren’t friends or family?  When I was younger, my dad and I would take food every month to a man with AIDS that lived in the projects.  I would have never met him or probably ever go to the projects if we hadn’t purposefully gone to help him.  I remember in Peru when Sandra was sick with AIDS and Tuberculosis. I went along with a couple of friends in our ministry to visit her in the place she was staying. Her “room” was made of a cardboard type material.  She was coughing up blood, but I remember her saying, “You’re the only people that visited me since I got sick.” It meant so much to her just that we came to visit her.

 

  • Visit the Imprisoned. There was an older lady at a church I used to go to that would visit the prison often.  Every time we had a baptism at that church, there would be several prisoners in the line that were allowed to be brought to our church to participate in baptism because they had received salvation because of her.  I think so often of how many people get out of prison and change their lives because someone outside of those walls come visit them and believe in them.

 

  • Visit for the Orphans and Widows.  How many orphans or widows have we impacted?  I know a family that has fostered more than 60 children.  To have cared for and loved more than 60 children not your own is incredible.  They did that as a regular family.  They didn’t run an orphanage or a shelter, and yet they cared for 60 children that either didn’t have parents or their parents weren’t in the picture.  It’s amazing what we have the capability of doing.

 

All 7 of these require going out our way to help someone.  We have to make up our mind to help them.  It’s not something that will just fall into our lap.  Sometimes we think that we’re only responsible for impacting the people that are around us, but Jesus said, “GO!”

 

Being a part of missions requires us to step out of our comfort zone, leave our own culture and circle, and reach a people that we wouldn’t otherwise associate with.  Sometimes, that means moving to another country, and sometimes, it means going down the road to the projects to bring a man some food.   Either way, we have to go to them.  In the same way that Jesus, the very first missionary, came to us in our need, we have to go to them.  There’s no other way.