Many times, I have heard people justify their lack of overseas missions involvement with a comment to the effect of, “Why should I share Jesus with people thousands of miles away when there are people in my own backyard who don’t know Jesus.”
It is a compelling comment and something that I have been considering since I began planning for community outreach projects along with the global outreach projects of our church. Here are my conclusions:
- Loving your neighbor as outlined in Luke 10:29-37 is not an option. We are called to cross cultural, ethnic, religious and socio-economic lines to meet the needs of others and share Jesus with them. We cannot just merely look out for those within our church or faith.
- Making disciples of the nations with the good news of Jesus is not an option as outlined in Matthew 28:19-20. Jesus left the Church with a mission to make disciples of all nations. We must not quench the Holy Spirit as He moves God’s people to be witnesses to the ends of the Earth (Acts 1:8).
Therefore, global outreach and local outreach are not mutually exclusive things. They are actually both required of God’s people.
So people geared towards overseas missions must not overlook ministry to the unreached in the local community in the same way that people geared towards local outreach must not overlook the mandate to spread the gospel to the ends of the Earth. We cannot make excuses about being involved with one over the other.
Sure, not everybody is called to be career missionaries overseas. But we are all called to be involved with what God is doing around the world, both local and abroad.
