Why We’re Excited About The Global Internship At High Pointe

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As the senior pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, I’m writing this article with just one goal in mind: to tell you how excited our church is to partner with Reaching & Teaching in their first-ever Global Internship.

Here are four reasons why:

1. The RTIM Global Internship provides a pipeline for our church to send missionaries.

We regularly ask the Lord to raise up workers for his harvest from High Pointe. Sometimes it feels like we talk about it a lot, but there’s not a clear pathway for sending. RTIM’s global internship changes that. We now have a pipeline to send our members through a likeminded agency. Admittedly, there’s much work that needs to be done before the internship. It doesn’t replace the normal discipleship process that encourages godliness and wisdom, and identifies possible missionaries. Nonetheless, this internship will help us guide those who come to us with a desire for international missions.

2. The RTIM Global Internship provides training in ecclesiology that many missionaries lack.

I realize that’s a broad statement, but in my experience with various sending agencies, it’s clear that many current missiological methods fail to emphasize biblical ecclesiology. Too often, popular missions methods turn out to be little more than rapid multiplication strategies that actually undermine the health of the church.

When we consider both Jesus’ promise to build his church (Matthew 16:18–19) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-22), it’s clear that Jesus means to build his church through church planting. The Great Commission mandate it to make disciples by going to preach the gospel, baptizing those who repent and believe, and teaching those disciples to obey all Jesus has commanded. So we ask, what are believers baptized into, and who is being taught to keep Jesus’ commandments?

When we read the book of Acts, we see that the Great Commission motivates Paul as well. He’s fulfilling Jesus’ commands. In other words, Paul goes from place to place preaching the gospel, baptizing those who repent and believe, and gathering them into local churches. He then returns to those churches, ordering them properly with biblically qualified men to serve as elders.

Today’s missionaries need to be trained in biblical ecclesiology. That’s why the RTIM global internship places missionary candidates in healthy local churches where they learn biblical ecclesiology, both in theory and in practice.

3. The RTIM Global Internship encourages us to serve the wider church by helping them equip and send.

By receiving qualified, passionate missionary candidates into the life of our church, we help sister churches in their own missions sending. We’re excited to meet new brothers and sisters who will encourage our church for a season.

4. The RTIM Global Internship will allow us to build life-long relationships with missionaries who will serve all over the world.

We look forward to building relationships with missionaries who will come through the internship and then go out into the field. We look forward to how those relationships will unfold into future gospel partnerships.

To be sure, I could keep going. The saints at High Pointe are thrilled to participate in the RTIM global internship. These four reasons simply highlight our priorities as we seek to raise up missionaries through our local church.

I encourage you to think carefully through your view of missions. Answer questions like, “What is missions?” “What is the gospel?” “What is the local church?” “What does the gospel and the local church have to do with missions?” As you study the Scriptures to answer these questions, I pray the Spirit will lead you to a clearer understanding of the mission of the church. If you come to the same conclusion as us, then get to know RTIM—and get to know the global internship.

Perhaps you could even apply!

Juan Sanchez

Juan Sánchez (MDiv, ThM, PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the senior pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, and a Council member of The Gospel Coalition and Coalicion por el Evangelio. He and his wife, Jeanine, have five children.

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