Missions at a Glance: February 17

Missions at a Glance spotlights the past week’s articles and resources relating to global missions. We trust that it will encourage your faithful obedience to our King’s Commission.

Be Patient, Missions Is Urgent

While the gospel need is urgent around the world, Josh Manley helpfully writes that we must always utilize God’s means to accomplish God’s ends. In our effort to evangelize and plant churches, we should never sacrifice biblical discipleship and healthy ecclesiology on the altar of the speedy. Manley encourages the church to recapture categories for both biblically oriented urgency and biblically oriented patience.

Is Happiness Essential to the Missionary Call? 

“It is not the comfortable who are blessed, but rather those who weep.” Stacey Hare encourages Christians against letting personal satisfaction and material happiness be the criteria by which they consider going to or staying on the mission field. Instead, she advocates for a deep-rooted joy found only in forgetting oneself and pursuing Christ.

You Are My Joy: The Deep Reward in Discipling Others 

At Desiring God, David Mathis reminds us that while the cost of making disciples is often high, there is life-giving joy for those who lay down their lives for the sake of others.

Meet the Gateway People to the Muslim World

Read what God is doing among the Azerbaijani people, a predominantly Muslim people group dispersed around the world. Learn who the Azerbaijanis are, what the primary challenges are in evangelizing them, and how you can pray.

Healthy Sending Means Going Along with Those You Send

This helpful piece advises churches to be actively involved with those whom they send to the mission field, seeking to build a church missions strategy upon the sending of its members. This model dove-tails long-term and short-term missions, as well as missionary support and church mobilization.