New Thoughts on the “M” Word and the Future of World Evangelization
Whole Gospel, Whole Church, Whole World.
By Grant McClung
(Second in a three-part series – the full-length version of this article appears in the Spring 2012 issue of Save Our World magazine from Church of God World Missions, available online at www.cogsaveourworld.org).
Whole Church
Biblical mission calls for mobilization of the whole church (Acts 1.8; 8.4), a Pentecostal “democratization of Christianity” without age, gender, or racial barriers. Biblical mission urges meeting with God [intercession] to pray for nations and kingdom workers. It commissions the evangelizing emancipation of all the people of God for missional witness in every sector of society and requires the support of monetary and human resources. Whole church mission revisits the Pentecostal heritage of an “ecumenism of the Spirit” with fellow Great Commission believers in all Christian families and is lived out in the global church through the mutuality of cooperation, interdependence, and partnership.
Mission from the whole church involves a global conversation of the assembly (local church), the agency (parachurch agencies), the academy (missiologists/missions trainers), and the agora (laity in the marketplace). The laity in the marketplace are taking an active lead in enterprising and creative world missions ventures through the “Business as Mission” (BAM) movement.
There are more than 300 “Great Commission companies” worldwide, led by business-for-profit leaders who see their business presence in another country as missions outreach.
In addition, there are untold millions of “world traveling Christian laity,” expatriates in countries outside their homelands, who are bearing witness for Christ through their professional skills. Philip Fujii is one of those emissaries for Christ. He attends the Tokyo Lighthouse Church of God in Tokyo, Japan where I recently encouraged this progressive and growing congregation to commit themselves to wider outreach in their world.
At the close of the service I spoke with Philip, a business attorney who spends much of his time on a plane between Tokyo and London. I asked him about the number of Japanese expatriates, most of them business professionals, in the United Kingdom. He estimated that some 40,000 Japanese citizens were in the U.K. and testified through his tears how he and his wife had such a burden to reach his expatriate countrymen for Christ.
Prayer Points: Let us pray (1)for those involved in missionary mobilization and information; (2) that God would raise up a powerful movement of global intercessory prayer;(3)for creative and Biblical approaches in missions fund-raising and marketplace ventures such as Business as Mission); (4) for a broader cooperation in mission.
————————————————-
Grant McClung is the author of Globalbeliever.com: Connecting to God’s Work in Your World (www.MissionsResourceGroup.org 2010) and International Missionary Educator with Church of God World Missions.
