Does the Need Constitute the Call to Be a Missionary?
Throughout the decades that I’ve been a believer, I’ve heard and grappled with this question most often addressed in Bible college chapel services and missions conferences. “Does the need constitute the call to go out as a missionary?” Some say, “Definitely, why wouldn’t you go other than because you are disobedient? After all, Matthew 28 already says to go!”
It’s a zealous position. It makes believers a hero or a zero in others’ eyes, based on their “GOing” or “NOing.” By being a missionary, I’m referring to someone who leaves family and country and goes to some foreign land to win the natives to Christ. It’s what you read about in missionary biographies.
God’s Sovereign Guidance
I’ve concluded that the question “Does the need constitute the call to go be a missionary” is generally missing the layer of God’s sovereignty over every individual’s life. I’ve got two anchor verses for this that should free up the seized mind that thinks Christian service is a high-wire tightrope act.
· A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)
· For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)
God has good works planned for each of our lives (Ephesians 2:10), and He is perfectly capable of working in you to want to and actually DO His good pleasure.
Paul wrote this amazing verse to the Philippian church, which was in Macedonia. This takes us to Acts 16. We already know that Paul had a clear call to missionary work (Acts 9:15; 13:2). He was on the move in Acts 16, intending to preach the gospel in the Roman province of Asia, but the Holy Ghost forbade him to do so (Acts 16:6). We aren’t told how or why. Next, Paul and his companions came to Mysia and tried to go into neighboring Bithynia, but the Spirit would not allow them to go there either (Acts 16:7). The message is, God was specifically directing His willing servant.
And then we come to this: And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. (Acts 16:9) The method God used to steer Paul is not the point. (Acts is the Acts of the Apostles, and God worked in their lives in different ways during this transition to the Church Age and before the Bible was completed.)
What we see is that God had a specific assignment for Paul. Macedonia was where He wanted him, and one of the first results of that clear direction was the planting of the church at Philippi. And it is to THIS church that Paul later writes, For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Paul experienced that verse before he ever wrote it.
My Experience
I, for one, decided to “go” as a summer missionary to England after I finished Bible college. I was a hero to my Bible college and to my church for launching out across the pond to a gospel-hardened people, even if only for three months. I went through a mission board as part of a group of young adults assigned to go door to door and invite city folks to some upcoming evangelistic tent meetings.
In England, I was armed with pamphlets, tracts, enthusiasm and a dose of fortitude to handle any difficulties. Finally, it was time for the evening tent meetings. Night after night evangelist Roger Carswell preached his heart out, and over two weeks of meetings, not a soul came to know Christ.
I was puzzled and disheartened at the lack of response. After one of the fruitless meetings, I asked him, “Doesn’t it bother you that no one gets saved at these meetings?” I really wanted to know how he could endure this for a living. His response told me everything I needed to know.
First, he was so visibly frustrated that I thought he was going to quit right there on the spot in front of me. But then what he said became my missions take-away. “Yes, I get frustrated,” he admitted. “But two things I know. God has called me to do this, and I have such a great love for England.”
Wow. Clearly he had a calling, and that sustained him. Was I called like he was? Certainly not.
After the summer mission was over, the mission board asked me to write an article about my missionary experience for their quarterly magazine to donors. In it, I shared my take-away. God has to call you to be a missionary, or you likely won’t last long. They didn’t print it. It wasn’t the message they were hoping for!
But let me ask again, does the need constitute the call to be a missionary? I’d say the need should make every believer willing to go, but God still guides His servants individually and knows exactly where and how He wants each one to serve Him. There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand. (Proverbs 19:21)
Jody