A Note from John Roach
God is on a mission. Throughout both the Old and New Testaments, God displays His desire for His people to live on mission for His Kingdom, and one of His primary actions is the action of sending.
As early as Genesis 12:1-2, God told Abram, “Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” God sent Abram. Psalm 105:26 says, “He [God] sent Moses, His servant, and Aaron, whom He had chosen. Exodus 3:13 records, “Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’” In Judges 6:14, God sent Gideon: “The Lord looked at him [Gideon] and said, “Go in this strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?” God sent Ezekiel according to Ezekiel 2:3: “Then He [God] said to me, “Son of man, I am sending you to the sons of Israel, to a rebellious people who have rebelled against Me….” In Jonah 1:2, God sends Jonah to preach to Nineveh. I’m sure even more stories from the Old Testament come to mind of God’s sending.
The New Testament follows this pattern as well. In Matthew 10:5, Jesus sends out the twelve. In John 10:1, Jesus sends out the seventy-two. In John 1:6-13, God sends John the Baptist. Ultimately, God sends Jesus. “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten son into the world that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9). “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:17).
Jesus, sent by God, then sends His followers into the world. John 17:18 records Jesus saying, “As you [God] sent Me [Jesus] into the world, I have also sent them [Jesus’ followers] into the world.” Jesus sends the Holy Spirit in John 14:26 and 16:7. In Acts 1:8, Luke records Jesus telling the disciples that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on them, and they will become His [Jesus’] witnesses.… In other words, Jesus sends them out to testify about Him in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
This sending language continues throughout Acts and again is found all over the Scriptures. The conclusion must be that God is a sending God. J.D. Payne adds: “Sending is necessary for mission.”[1] As the rescued and redeemed of God, He has sent you and me for His mission. Our purpose on earth is to make His name known so that others might experience the same goodness and faithfulness we experience in abundance. His mission is our purpose.
Christopher J.H. Wright says:
“The whole Bible itself is a missional phenomenon. The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of and witness to the ultimate mission of God. The Bible renders to us the story of God’s mission through God’s people in their engagement with God’s world for the sake of the whole of God’s creation. The Bible is the drama of this God of purpose engaged in the mission of achieving that purpose universally, embracing past, present and future, Israel and the nations, life, the universe and everything, and with its center, focus, climax and completion Jesus Christ. Mission is not just one of a list of things that the Bible happens to talk about, only a bit more urgent than some. Mission is what it is all about.” [2]
Mission is not just a ministry of the church; it is the purpose of the church. Wright continues, “It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world. Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission – God’s mission.” [3] Did you catch that? God does not have a mission for His church, He has a church for His mission.
What does all this mean? Simply put, followers of Jesus are SENT; we are all called to ministry. God has placed a unique calling on your life to serve His Kingdom in a way specific to the gifts He has given you. As my friend Todd Haymans once said, “Some of us are sent across the world; ALL of us are sent across the street.” The Mission team here at GABC takes this very seriously. Our desire is to utilize the plethora of gifts and talents God has afforded our members. We want it to be said of our church that we live SENT. Pastor Michael regularly says, “We measure the effectiveness of our church by our sending capacity, not our seating capacity.” This is the mission of our Mission team.
Our Mission team works hard to send Connect Groups within our own city to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with local, evaluated partnerships. Our Mission team works hard to identify, prepare, equip, and send Church Planters and Missionaries. Our Mission team constantly cares for, coaches, and evaluates the ministry of these Church Planters and Missionaries to ensure this same “sending nature” is present in their ministries. Our Mission team works hard to send over 25 short-term mission teams with more than 500 people to serve these very same Church Planters and Missionaries. Our Mission team strives to send healthy Green Acres members to live as missionaries in other countries and cultures for a summer, for a semester, for a year, or for their lifetime. Our Mission team wants to discover, develop, and deploy Church Planters and Church Planting Teams to cities in need of Gospel-preaching churches.
With all this said, your Mission team exists to help you live SENT according to God’s calling on your life. Consider praying about how God is using your life for His Kingdom, and keep those involved with our Mission team in your prayers as well. The work we do is not possible without your prayers. If you have any questions or desires to learn about local partnerships, living on mission, mission trips, becoming a church planter, joining a church planting team, becoming a missionary, or any other inquiry, please email us at missions@gabc.org.
Let’s live sent together!
[1] J.D. Payne, Theology of Mission: A Concise Biblical Theology, Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021.
[2] Christopher J.H. Wright, The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, Volume 15.2: 2011, 4-15.
[3] Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission, Tyndale Publishing, 2010.