Assessing The Church's Missions Program: An Overlooked Element

While attending a one-year Bible program, every student attending received an assigned work responsibility. My role was to work with the custodial staff, but that is not what the institution called the department. Instead, they used the Spanish word for ‘stewardship.’ When asked, students would respond, “I work in the stewardship division.” I always appreciated that label because it captured the importance and dignity of tasks that we too frequently refer to as ‘menial.’

Sometimes we forget the Christian call to steward God’s resources. Specifically, we fail to connect it with all aspects of the Christian life. For several weeks now, I have been addressing the need to assess how the church ‘does missions.’ Granted, that’s a lengthy discourse to tackle, so the trajectory of the conversation I want to have is more focused. So, I have intended to walk us down a path towards that matter. The next footfall to move us forward in that discussion is the issue of stewardship in missions.

When God declared, ‘I Am’ to Moses in Exodus 3:14, He drew attention to His nature. Coming from the verb ‘to be,’ this was an expression of God’s aseity or His self-existence. God was not created and needs nothing to continue to exist. He is self-contained, and therefore, He is everything He needs for life. God does not derive life from anything else. Instead, He is life, and we derive our life from Him.

What does God’s self-existence have to do with stewardship? Everything, because if anything exists at all, it is because God existed first. All that we have then is the result of His creation, work, and grace. We cannot claim ownership of anything. Instead, what we have comes from God, and as a gift from Him, it is entrusted to our care until He chooses otherwise.

Missions is not excepted from the influence of God’s self-existence. All the resources available to us for the completion of God’s Great Commission come from God. Whether money, time, technology, people, or specific tools, all come from God. Even the Word of God is an expression of God equipping us. Because they are not our own but gifts from God then, each requires that we act in a manner of stewardship.

When it comes to planning missions, stewardship of God’s resources is often an overlooked input. This is the rationale for some of the questions I proposed in creating a missions plan (in the previous post). Those questions are meant to prompt us to consider the resources God has given, especially people and their gifts, and guide us towards using those better for God’s glory in the Great Commission.

Never should we impose on God’s kindness. Never should we take advantage of God’s grace. Never should we demand more from God. When it comes to missions, our goal is not to take advantage of what God gives us but instead to leverage those gifts, using them resourcefully, responsibly, and resolutely.

Note: Next week I will address one specific aspect of stewardship in missions.

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