The Bible begins with God creating a world that He claimed to be good. God created the land, seas, light, dark, animals, and plants, and He saw that something was missing. Then He created man and woman, giving them the responsibility to care for His creation (Gen 1:27-31). In Genesis 3, the Bible tells of a massive rebellion by a small number of people that affected billions for generations to follow. Since the day that Adam and Eve ate of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge and good and evil, God has been seeking after a right relationship with His people. Gailyn Van Rheenen writes, “Mission does not originate with human sources, for ultimately it is not a human enterprise.” God’s plan has been a mission of redemption for His people since the man and woman disobeyed. Andreas J. Kostenberger and Peter T. O’Brien state, “From the first glimmer of the gospel in Genesis 3:15 to the end of this age, however, mission is necessitated by humanity’s fall into sin and need for a Savior, and is made possible only by the saving initiative of God in Christ.” God has been active in His mission to seek after His people; He went looking for man and woman in the garden (Gen 3:9). This same pattern is evident throughout the Bible. In both the Old and New Testaments, God commands His people to seek after others who will become His people.
From Team Bangkok
We received this from our Team Bangkok leader Bret Cox yesterday. He has asked that we pass the note along to the church.
Dear LifePoint Church,
I am sorry this has taken so long to get to you. We have been balancing reading, class time, ministry, and personal time with our Lord. That really isn’t an excuse though as you dropped everything to rise up and meet our needs. Team Bangkok was completely and totally amazed at the response from our church when we had to relocate to unfurnished apartments. The body went above and beyond by supplying all our needs right down to forks and spoons! This was a picture of how Biblical community is fleshed out as modeled in Acts 2. Since we don’t know who made all the donations, maybe this can be posted on the website. We truly want everyone to know how much we appreciate our Church and their heart for missions.
A special thanks to Pat, Tim, Leslie, Jason and Witt for their sacrifice of time and energy to make the trip to Atlanta and work tirelessly to get the furnishings from the truck to each apartment, then make the late night drive back to Smyrna. What a long day for them! As we are learning in our training, we are blessed to be a blessing and you have certainly been a blessing to us. We LOVE each of you and look forward to all the glory God is going to receive through our faithful body of believers. With sincere love, Team Bangkok
Team Bangkok
Let’s Get Involved
Lord willing, I will one day be in Belgium working to spread the Name of Christ to those who do not know Him as Lord. Even though I will not live in a 10/40 window country I think we need to have Ms there spreading the Fame of His Name . I never want to be so narrow focused to think that “real missions” happens in “hard places”. I hope people will have a wider view of mission than just what happens in the 10/40 window. In fact, God is sending people from the “hard places” to live in other parts of the world so they can hear His story. I hope this video encourages and inspires you to be involved in His mission.
Memphis and Mission
On July 1o Pat, Tim and I went to Memphis to meet with four other churches and the leadership of the International Mission Board (IMB) to discuss the process of sending missionaries from the local church. The other churches involved with LifePoint in the process are Cornerstone, Pinelake, The Church at BrookHills and Summit Church. The gathering was very informative and historic I believe for the way mission is implemented and carried out in our denomination.
The main focus of the meeting centered around how the local church can lead out in being the mission sending organization and the IMB return to being a facilitating organization for the local church. Because of the local church’s abdication of it’s responsibility the IMB has had to pick up the task of being the sending organization. God has ordained the local church not para-church organizations. Somewhere along the time line of history the local church got involved in looking inward for too long of a period of time and the mission stopped being the “main thing”. Let me be clear, we do not want to stop being cooperative with others or change any offerings. The local church must get back to sending, strategizing, and caring for the missionaries that come from their church. It will take all of us to accomplish the task, but we must take responsibility for those we send and how they are sent.
Sometime in the next month each of the churches that were represented will have their Mission pastor travel to Richmond to hammer out more specific details of what the partnership could look like for churches that are ready to take the task of sending missionaries from the local church. Please pray for the leadership of the IMB as they seek to help the church mobilize it’s members to spread the fame of God around the world to each nation and people group. Pray also for the local leadership of the church to be bold and responsible for the sending of the church into the world to Spread His Fame among the Nations.
July 10th. Huge Day
Friday July 10 will be a huge day for LifePoint Church.
Over the past several years God has re-arranged everything at LifePoint to focus on sending leaders out to reach the nations for His glory. In the last four or five years we have mobilized around 500 people on short-term mission opportunities around the world. We have watched God call a families to South Asia, South America and West Africa. Today, LifePoint is in the process of sending two church planting teams to live long-term in other parts of the world. One of those teams will plant in Thailand and the other will plant in Belgium.
Well, this brings us to Friday July 10th. On this particular day our church will have the privilege of sending a short term team to Brazil, we are sending our Thailand team on a discovery trip, we are sending the Schroder’s to West Africa and some of our staff team will be in Memphis meeting with the senior leadership of the International Mission Board about new methods for partnership. No one can say LifePoint isn’t committed to seeing God’s glory spread throughout the nations.
Please pray for our church specifically on July 10th. Pray for God’s will to be done in each of these endeavors as we mobilize for the sake of God’s kingdom.
Go…ology Week 1 Outline
Here is the outline for week 1 of my talk. Hopefully the podcast will be loaded later today. www.lifepointchurch.org
Go…ology (Outline#1)
Emil Brunner (Theologian) –“The church exists by mission, just as fire exists by burning. Where there is no mission, there is no church; and where there is no church nor mission, there is no faith.”
Any study of missions must start with a study of mission theology.
Missiology = the study of missions.
Every great missionary movement was preceded by a movement of spiritual awakening.
John Piper – 3 types of people 1. Those who go 2. Those who send 3. Those who are disobedient
Not all can go, but all can send
Define Missio Dei–Mission of God
Mission = God’s activity
Missions = Man’s activity to
Mission always precedes missions
God was the founder of mission. Jesus was the model of mission. God sent His son, Jesus, on mission to the earth to seek out and to save a people for God. Luke 19:10
Jesus taught the disciples they were to take on the mission of God in the commissions of the N.T. (Matt 28:19-20; Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:47-48; John 20:21-23; and Acts 1:8).
Commission #1 Matthew 28:18-20
Primary verb is “make disciples”
Participles are going, baptizing, and teaching as you are making disciples
We are to develop followers, not learners.
Connection between authority and going–“therefore”
Commission #2 Mark 16:15-16
Main verb in the passage is proclaim/preach
“Go” is part of both verses, not central
This reiterated what the biblical message has stated from the very beginning. God’s redemptive mission is for everyone, not just one group of people.
Commission #3 Luke 24:46-48
Central theme of verses is message of repentance and forgiveness of sins
Commission #4 John 20:21-23
Culmination of the Book of John
The one who has been Sent, now becomes the Sender
Jesus tells His followers that as He has been sent, so He is now sending them (John 20:21).
Commission #5 Acts 1:8
The Book of Acts follows the outline of verse 8. Chapters 1-6–Start of the church in Jerusalem Chapters 7-12–Scattering of the church into Judea and Samaria Chapters 13-28–Sent out to uttermost
In Acts, Jesus tells the disciples they will be witnesses to the things they have seen.
The Holy Spirit directed and empowered the disciples to accomplish the task of reaching people, which is still the mandate of the church.
He came…He sought…He sent,
We go… We seek… We send…
