How will God tell me to be a missionary?
Is everyone called to be a missionary? More specifically, are you?
How will God tell me how I will work in mission, where I will work, or in what capacity (i.e., full-time, short-time, etc.)? “In the abundance of counselors there is wisdom!” Here’s how the IMB talks about calling:
First and foremost, calling is the gracious act of God by which He draws people to become disciples of Jesus and members of His church. The call to salvation comes through the proclamation of God’s Word in the power of God’s Spirit. Accompanying the call to salvation in Christ is a call to freedom, holiness, and suffering in Christ. The call to salvation forms the unshakeable foundation of a disciple’s primary identity now and forever. (Matthew 9:13; Acts 2:39; Romans 1:6, 8:28–30, 9:22–26; 1 Corinthians 1:9, 24; Galatians 1:6, 5:13; Ephesians 1:18, 4:1–4; 1 Thessalonians 2:12, 4:7, 5:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:14; 1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 1:9; 1 Peter 1:15–16, 2:9, 20–21, 5:10; 2 Peter 1:3, 10; Jude 1:1)
Call to mission. The call to salvation includes a call to join God in mission. God is on a mission to gather a people for himself from every tribe, language, and people who will enjoy his goodness and display his greatness. All followers of Jesus should be involved in making followers of Jesus and in the ongoing spread of the gospel in the world through establishing and supporting healthy churches.
After the calling to salvation and to be used in His mission, it can be helpful to think of our calling to both station and service. A call to station might be a calling to family, where Christians are called to be faithful sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and mothers and fathers for the spread of God’s gospel and the display of God’s glory. The Bible also talks about a specific call to singleness for the sake of mission, whether for a period or for the entirety of one’s life in this world. Other calls to specific stations include Christ’s call to meaningful membership in His church, and responsible citizenship in one’s community (1 Corinthians 7:17–40). (See IMB’s Key Terms and Definitions)
A call to service is how God directs us to make disciples in a certain way, at a certain time, among a certain people, in a certain location, or through a certain vocation. “Calls to service may be fluid, operating at varying levels and open to varying assignments from God.”
Often, missionary calls are calls to service. How does God tell us we are called to service?
A friend of mine summed it up like this: “Respect what God is doing in your life.”
As you make decisions about where to serve, think about how God may be speaking to you in the following ways:
Through the timing of your life: Esther was called “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).
Through the circumstances of your life. Acts 17:26-27 “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,”
By giving you specific talents and gifts: 1 Cor 12:4-7 “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
Through your local church: listen to the church! Your local church has been given to you by God to help you prepare for mission—full-time or not. They are there to affirm you and to help you at all times (see Eph 4:11–16).
Through His Word: search the Scriptures. Often, God will direct us where to serve by helping us with direct commands and instructions from his word that align with specific opportunities in our lives. Don’t expect God to speak to you outside of Scripture if you are not spending time getting direction from him from within his Scriptures (Psalm 1).
Through our desires. In 1 Timothy, the Apostle Paul says that someone who desires to be an elder is desiring a good thing. Notice he didn’t say that his desire is evil or that it automatically disqualifies him from service as an elder. Instead, God can give us good desires for service. Just make sure to check your desires with those around you.
Through searching our hearts (see Matt 15:8). God says that people draw near with their lips while their hearts are far from God. God wants our hearts! Be careful about sterilizing the decisions you are trying to make from the heart issues in them. God cares about your heart and that you love him much.
Through prayer: spend time in prayer asking him to give you direction.
It seems that God sometimes calls his people to service through specific and subjective means—but this doesn’t seem to be the norm for all calls to service. Don’t insist that God give you a sign from the sky or a dry fleece (see Gideon’s story in Judges).
As you consider where to serve, respect what God has been doing in your life. God speaks to us in so many ways! And resist the thinking that you need to restart your life. Some full-time missionaries used to be engineers, or accountants, or pastors, or mechanics, or doctors and nurses—but not anymore: now they’re going to be missionaries. We should resist this thinking.
A good friend of mine is a normal guy with lots of colorful tattoos and a shaved head. He happens to be a really talented artist who loves Jesus. He and his family moved to Asia and opened up an art studio. He spent his days hanging out in the local art community among Muslims, putting on exhibits with his art that explained the gospel. Every time he put on an exhibit he explained God’s salvation to a people who had never heard the gospel. What a great example of a call to service: here is someone blessed by God as a talented artist so that a community of people in a Muslim mega-city could know the gospel.
Respect what God is doing in your life - and don’t buy into the thinking that you need to start a new life. Use all the talents and unique ways that God has made you to sing his glories on His mission and for the sake of a dying world who needs to hear the gospel.