Why Mission?

From start to finish, the Bible tells the story of God’s relentless pursuit of people. He created humanity in his image to show himself to us, love us and be loved in return, and he will stop at nothing to bring people the world over into relationship with himself. This became a reality when he came to live amongst us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Born as a baby in an obscure Middle Eastern village, he lived his adult life as a wandering teacher and healer, and was crucified by the Roman occupiers just outside Jerusalem. In Jesus, God certainly did come to ‘seek and save the lost’.

 But the story of God’s pursuit of people doesn’t end with Jesus, his death, resurrection and ascension. It continues now through the church, those who become ‘his body‘, the people who choose to follow him – you and me. ‘As the Father sent me, so I am sending you’ defines our identity and purpose. By nature, we are people on a mission, sent into this world with the same purpose as Jesus who was sent by his father to seek and save the lost.

Without a conscious, visible outworking of this core identity, church is just not church. The early Christian community recognised this – the book of Acts summarises the outward expansion of the church throughout the Roman Empire, as believers chose to risk all and take the amazing message of God’s love in Jesus across boundaries and borders to other peoples.

We’re no different today. As God’s people, we give expression to God’s heart when we find creative means to bring Jesus to those who, as yet, don’t know of his love for them. Some of these people will be close to home, either from the same ethnic background as ourselves or from those who have come here in search of a better life. Others, despite our ever-shrinking, globalised world, will be further away – people of ‘every race, tribe, nation and language’, hidden in the deserts and valleys and cities of the world with precious few local Christians, if any.

This is who we are. This is church, the missionary church. There is no other.

At World Horizons we would count it our privilege to work with you in developing your own mission strategy as you, too, live out your identity as God’s people.