Missions-Mindedness

Another distinctive of Hope Bible Church is missions-mindedness.

From the moment Jesus announced the Great Commission to His followers with the words in Matthew 28, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations …” the church has known her purpose in this world. We are to do our part to evangelize, baptize, teach, and disciple all peoples in every people group in the world. We are to work along with thousands of other churches on this mission until Jesus brings this age to a conclusion by rapturing His church out of this world. For 2000 years the church universal has had this mission, and every obedient local church to this day does its part in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Hope Bible Church is certainly not alone in its desire to take part in the global mission of the church. Today, thankfully, there are thousands of churches laboring hard in evangelism and worldwide missions. In fact, it is incongruous to think of an evangelical church not involved in evangelizing and baptizing people across ethnic and national barriers.

I list it as a distinctive of HBC, however, because many American churches do not beat the drum of foreign missions. They do support missionaries, but it seems mostly sidelined. Instead, these churches emphasize evangelizing their own small corner of the world and fail to think about the areas of the world that still do not have much of a gospel witness or many churches.

A missions-minded church works hard to instill in its members that we are to pool our resources to send out and support missionaries to all the nations, not just our own. We view our church as part of the church universal and see our labor as part of a global work that all churches do together. We do not think of missions as something separate from who we are. All we do helps to fulfill that one great mission that Jesus entrusted to His church.

Though we have much to learn in this regard, we resist getting enamored with programs and activities which focus on ourselves and our families alone. We resolve to make sure a good portion of our monies and other resources are pushed away from us to build up other churches, especially those in needier areas of the world. We build up churches in our region, but also those in other countries. We educate our people to make sure they see the great need among the nations so that they will do their part to help these churches in other lands.We also place missionaries before our people so every person at HBC, from the children on up, views them as an extension of ourselves and our work.

We want our people to know we are connected to those in other lands who are spreading the gospel. We pray that the Lord will raise up workers to enter into the vast harvest that He wants to have among the nations. In John 4:35 Jesus exhorted the disciples, “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.”

Missions is not just something we do, it is what we are all about - bringing people to Christ, multiplying churches, and producing more disciples who worship the true God across the whole world. Missions exists so that the worship of God will increase.

Whether it is evangelizing the neighbor across the street or helping a missionary build a new church in a spiritually dark land, missions is the heartbeat of our ministry to this dark and dying world.