15 World Christian Discipleship

Studying this lesson will help you:

• Describe what it means to be a World Christian.
• Describe specific disciplines and practices that help World Christians pursue lives of strategic significance in God’s purpose.
• Describe a variety of ways that ordinary believers can take initiative to become participants with God in His greater purposes, beyond the traditional roles of the missionary and those who send them.
• Describe the factors that contribute to short-term missions being done well.
• Describe the strategic value of reaching international migrants and visitors.

The “perspectives” you have gained in this course have given you a vantage point from which you can behold your God accomplishing His global purposes. He has been at work with His people throughout history. In some generations, He may have seemed to be working slowly. But in our day, you can see how swiftly God’s hand seems to be moving. Because you have observed the Ancient of Days unfolding His promises through many generations of history, you can look forward to the future to see many things that God has promised to accomplish among all peoples.

Hope helps you see what is not yet visible. You can continue to pray, even when you don’t see God respond to prayers immediately. You may never be able to read your Bible again with a self-centric viewpoint. You are going to see Christ and Him glorified everywhere you look. In many places and among many peoples, He may not yet be honored or even named, but you can see His day coming, as surely as Abraham saw Isaac coming.

Now you know what His coming kingdom might look like in terms of new churches, transformed communities, and reconciliation between peoples. You have traced the facts of the numerical increase of His kingdom. More people are being drawn under the blessing of His lordship than ever before. You can feel the spiritual war raging, but you can see His glory coming. Yes, you see things differently now.

This lesson is about how that vision can integrate your life for His global purpose. We’ll learn about the crucial role of those who send and the special value of those who mobilize others. We’ll mark out the pathway to becoming an effective missionary. We’ll discover the value of strategic partnerships.

Now that you have a vision, a perspective of God at work through the World Christian Movement, you can no longer be an onlooker. Step into the movement. God is giving you a role. When God calls people, He does not call them to go away from Him to distant places. God always calls His servants closer to Himself. He may call you to be closer to Him as He works among the poor of Cairo, or the Hindus of Delhi, or the Muslims of Jakarta. He may call you to be with Him as He renews His churches in your home country to risky faith and blazing hope. You may not know where you will go or what He wants you to do years from now, but you do know the one who has promised to fill the earth with glory. You are free to follow Him with the same single-hearted hope.

The title of this course has a double meaning. It is a movement of World Christians who focus their lives on God’s purpose. This course is about discipleship in God’s purpose. But the course is also an invitation to join a Christian movement exploding throughout the world with diversity and increasing unity. This aspect means that it’s about forming a partnership with others in God’s global family. Discipleship and partnership. Intentionality and community. God’s purpose with God’s people. Look for these themes throughout this lesson.

I. Stepping into the Story

We’ve each been given a place in the grand story. David Bryant describes what it means to be a “World Christian.” He does this by reversing the narrative that the goal of life is to be loved and blessed by God. Yes, the Father loves the world so much that He gave His Son. We all know John 3:16. But just a few verses later, we read of a greater love: “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hands” (3:35). The Father loves the Son so much that He gives Him the world! And this brings us to Bryant’s title, “Beyond Loving the World: Serving the Son for His Surpassing Glory.”

A. The Story. Bryant compares the Narnia fantasy tale to our day. Like the figures in that story, whether we know it or not, we have been caught up in a tremendous war, with an astounding leader bringing forth something of utmost worth. Best of all, He is with us—or rather, we are with Him.

B. World Christians. Although every Christian is summoned into this war, many are unaware or refuse the role offered to them. But some have determined to make Christ’s global cause the unifying focus of all they are and do. One way to describe them is with the term “World Christian.” World Christians are not better people or some kind of elite who achieve a higher echelon of discipleship. They are day-to-day disciples for whom Christ’s global cause has become their integrating, overriding priority. Other ways of describing what it means to be a World Christian include:

1. The Person-Driven Life. The urgency of the task and the desperation of the needs have compelled many to be part of the work. The idea of a “purpose-driven life” is a powerful way to describe World Christian discipleship. But in the long run, World Christians are sustained in their commitment by quiet exhilaration that springs from the confidence that ultimately, Jesus will be loved as Lord by all peoples. To live a truly purpose-driven life, we must live what Bryant calls a “Person-driven” life.

2. Serving a Monarch, Not a Mascot. It’s all too common to regard Jesus as an inspiring figure and call upon Him for help in times of crisis. He can become someone we admire and ignore at the same time. But World Christians, instead of looking to Christ merely as one who might help them, dedicate their lives to being servants of Jesus.

C. Volunteers in the Day of Power. Bryant points to Psalm 110 as a biblical template for World Christians. Using this psalm, early Christians celebrated that God had exalted the risen Jesus above every power. There are two different time frames mentioned in the psalm. The “day of His wrath” in verse 5 speaks of the final coming of Christ. But before that, in the present time, verse 3 speaks of the “day of battle” (sometimes translated “day of power”). During this time frame of the day of battle, the Messiah is given the mandate to extend His rule. He accomplishes this even in the midst of great enemies.

Psalm 110 predicts that in this time of struggle, His people will “volunteer freely” to serve Him (v. 3). Bryant says that World Christians “rise to serve Him every day, willing and ready . . . to volunteer freely to be with Him wherever He is engaged . . . to serve Him and to fulfill His global purpose” (p. 490).

II. Life on Purpose

Claude Hickman, Steven C. Hawthorne, and Todd Ahrend blend their ideas and mobilization experience in an article showing how World Christians can pursue a life of strategic significance in God’s purpose. World Christian discipleship is best likened to a journey that is pursued with intent and purpose.

A. Not a Map but a Compass. To find one’s way on a journey, there are innumerable patterned routines to follow. Almost any culture offers standardized scripts or schemes for a successful, respectable life. Such preset life plans are likened to maps. As much as we may want God to give us a detailed map of our life, this is not His way. Instead of giving step-by-step instructions, God reveals His purpose in the great story of the Bible. This revealed purpose is like a compass, which always helps believers move toward the “True North” of the fulfillment of His global purpose. This means that there is a wideness to God’s will. Instead of assigning a narrow set of steps, God entrusts us to find the best way to pursue His purpose.

B. Practices of the World Christian Journey. In earlier editions of this course, World Christian discipleship was a matter of either serving as a missionary (as a “goer”) or helping to support or recruit missionaries (as a “sender” or “mobilizer”). It was thought that multiple roles opened the mission enterprise for everyone. But instead, this distinction often made people feel sorted out and stuck in one of these roles. We decided that it may be best to speak of practices instead of roles. Every World Christian should expect to major in one practice, minor in the others, and plan on practicing them all. As World Christians move through different seasons and connections in their lives, they will find themselves emphasizing one practice over the others.

1. The Practice of Going: Going Cross-Culturally. Not everyone will or should gain the training and experience needed to pursue dedicated, decades-long cross-cultural mission work. But we are seeing many people getting involved in short-term missions or finding business-as-mission opportunities in foreign countries.

2. The Practice of Welcoming: Connecting with Those Who Come to Us. Every World Christian should be ready and eager to befriend, serve, and disciple visitors and contacts from the nations. Some make this strategic approach the primary focus of their lives.

3. The Practice of Sending: Supporting Those Who Go. Every World Christian, even those who are missionaries, should be involved in supporting, encouraging, and praying for cross-cultural missionaries. Some specialize in sending as their primary contribution to world evangelization.

4. The Practice of Mobilizing: Enabling Others in His Purpose. Every World Christian will find seasons in their life when they help cast the vision for the Great Commission, renew conviction, recruit new laborers, or train others to be cross-cultural disciple-makers. Many will find God giving them a strategic role in mobilizing, which becomes their life work for God’s purpose.

C. Essential Disciplines: Turning Grand Intentions into Real-Life Decisions. Aiming your life toward God’s great purpose is fine, but to get anywhere, you need to make decisions every day. To fight the drift of mainstream culture, there are basic disciplines that have proven practical and valuable. Four of them are essential for World Christians:

1. The Discipline of Community: Walking with Others. Resist the temptation to go it alone. Link your life with others. Find or form committed communities of others who are pursuing the same vision.

2. The Discipline of Prayer: Co-working with God. Our best praying is always that God will do great things. This way of praying is never happenstance. World Christian conviction dies without intentional, well-informed praying. Coordinate your life with others to pray regularly for world evangelization.

3. The Discipline of Simplicity: Living to Give. Every believer, even those sent as frontier missionaries, should order their lifestyles in ways that liberate them to give generously and regularly to advance world evangelization.

4. The Discipline of Learning: Grow What You Know. Increase and update your vision of God’s work in the world, or it will fade. Structure your life in ways that help you take in what is currently unfolding. Grow in your understanding of God’s great story working out in history.

Every World Christian should seek to be involved in the work of world evangelization. But it’s not a simple matter of some going as missionaries and others praying and paying for them to do so. We’ve mentioned four different practices: going, welcoming, sending, and mobilizing. We now explore some aspects of how to pursue each effectively.

III. Is Every Christian a Missionary?

Denny Spitters and Matthew Ellison raise a common question: If every Christian should respond with obedience to the Great Commission, does that mean that every Christian is a missionary? The authors respond to this question with a clear review of the biblical mandate. We are not wrong to see that God has entrusted His people—all of us—to work together to fulfill world evangelization so that Christ is followed among every people.

God gives each of us a fruitful way to help in the global task. Some are gifted and called to do the difficult work of evangelizing across cultural boundaries. There are those who are “set apart” to pioneer the work. But God honors every believer with a part in His global purpose.

IV. The Awesome Potential of Local Churches

George Miley expresses the high hopes of many—that their church will become a sending base for ministry to unreached peoples. Miley points out that churches are incredibly varied. Each church is laden with God-given potential and resources that can powerfully advance world evangelization. Some churches will express that life through traditional channels. Some churches are owning their part in the total task of world evangelization. And some churches aspire to focus their energy on one of the remaining unreached peoples as a way of making a strategic contribution. They take on a particular people with whatever-it-takes zeal. Miley calls this approach “people group–focused mission.” Miley has observed hundreds of churches attempting this kind of mission. He points out that it can be done poorly or it can be done well.

A. People Group Focus Pursued Poorly. Miley lists five things to avoid. Study them carefully. In the years to come, you may be able to advise a church on some of these critical points.

B. People Group Focus Done Well. Many churches are doing a fantastic job. Their effectiveness has much to do with attitudes of humility and patience. One key feature of churches that are effective in evangelizing unreached people groups is that they either form a partnership with an established mission agency or they end up forming a new mission agency. Miley describes again the distinction between modality and sodality, using the terms “apostolic structures” and “pastoral structures.”

C. Mobilizing Your Church. Many people are part of churches that do not pursue God’s purpose. How can a World Christian help influence their church in fruitful ways? Larry Walker offers counsel, warning against being critical. Instead, he suggests taking the time to understand the unique nature of one’s church and to patiently work within it to help bring forth the unique purpose God has for it.

V. Serving Christ with the Discipline of Simplicity One of the essential disciplines is simplicity. God does not need our money. What He loves is servants who order their lives to advance His mission.

Pam Arlund makes it clear that God formed us with desires. Our desires can become conflicted. But God in Christ gives a way for us to abide near Him, with Him, and in Him so that we can find ways to order and tame misguided desires. In this relational nearness, we can mature as servants who serve the living God as stewards. Stewards are servants entrusted with resources to bring forth fruit for their masters. God honors us by entrusting us as stewards in His purpose.

To be fruitful in things that matter in His mission requires people to live with intentional lifestyles of simplicity. It is wonderful to realize that our greatest desire is the joy of beholding the delight on God’s face when all peoples worship Him in Christ.

VI. Maximizing Short-Term Mission

Short-term mission (STM) ventures have received some justifiable criticism, but the number of STMs is increasing rapidly. To help leaders and participants pursue STM in a valuable way, Roger Peterson surveyed the growing STM phenomenon and offers important ideas about how these ventures can be done well.

A. Short-Term Mission Described. STMs are on the rise, moving to and from almost every part of the world. There are three different roles in any STM: senders, goer-guests, and host-receivers. Three features distinguish STMs from conventional mission efforts: STMs are swift, temporary, and voluntary.

B. The Critical Criterion. Connection to God’s Mission. STM, as with any kind of Christian mission, is best defined and evaluated by how closely we align ourselves with God Himself as He pursues the fulfillment of His mission. Peterson says:

God’s global purpose, sometimes summed up with the Latin expression missio Dei, or “mission of God,” has been unfolding . . . for thousands of years. The degree to which we honestly attempt to understand and to contribute to what God has already been doing will be the degree to which our short-termers will work in sync with the missio Dei rather than mutating to the “missio me” of STMs done poorly. (p. 509)

This long-term view leads to the challenging question: “How can short-term ventures make long-term contributions to God’s ancient, ongoing global purpose?” By asking this question, Peterson identifies three factors contributing to STMs done poorly and three factors contributing to STMs done well. Connecting well with the global missionary task means that STMs should also seek to have vital connections with seasoned, time-tested mission agencies and national churches.

Read and consider the document “Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission,” written by Peterson and several other short-term mission leaders.

VII. Welcoming Newcoming Migrants

Mouyassar Alshahf tells his story of being one of many millions of people in our day who are migrating, searching for home and family. He mentions no less than ten different countries in his story of searching for safety and employment. But he was searching for a true home and family. At several points, there were Christians who showed him kindness and gave him practical help. One Christian worker in a refugee camp introduced him to his “true family . . . [which] was the body of Christ.” He found “a home in Jesus Christ” (p. 507).

He describes the importance of welcoming newcomers to one’s community. Welcoming refugees and migrants doesn’t require a great deal of knowledge. Many refugees are seeking people who will “sense the Holy Spirit welcoming them through you” (p. 508). He closes his account with the story of the prodigal son, in which the father was watching. Yes, our Father God is watching the many refugees. God sees each of the seekers, making the work of welcoming migrants and refugees fruitful.

Conclusion of Certificate Readings for this lesson.

After studying this section you should be able to:

• Describe how many are finding fruitful roles working in business with mission goals.
• Describe what is meant by the term “tentmaking.”
• Describe some specific ways of getting connected to ongoing ministries of mission outreach, mobilization, and training.

VIII. Restoring the Role of Business in Mission.

Steve Rundle says that a conceptual barrier is falling, one that has kept many people from thinking of themselves as having a part in mission. He calls it a “spiritual-vocational hierarchy” that governs the way some people think of roles in Christian ministry. This hierarchy treats some vocations, such as full-time Christian workers, as more God-pleasing and honorable than others. This mindset has relegated many people, businesspeople and others, to the sidelines of missions as those who can just “pay or pray.” Now business leaders want to be on the “playing field.” Not only is the full engagement of businesspeople a welcome development, but it is necessary to meet the challenge of mission in our day.

A. Back to Normal. Using business as a vehicle for missions and ministry is not new. Throughout mission history, beginning in biblical times, working in business has been blended with laboring to fulfill Christian mission.

B. Four Variations. Rundle helpfully clarifies the integration of business with mission by listing four variations:

1. Tentmaking. Christians finding employment in cross-cultural contexts.

2. Marketplace Ministry. Christian business professionals becoming effective witnesses in the workplace.

3. Business as Mission (BAM). Business ventures created and managed specifically for the purpose of advancing the cause of Christ in unevangelized parts of the world.

4. Christian Microenterprise Development. Microenterprise development seeks to help the world’s poorest people start successful, God-honoring businesses with the help of small loans.

C. Challenges and Opportunities. Take note of the challenges that Rundle mentions. Complexities abound regarding accountability, identity, security, and funding. There are clear needs for training. We have exciting times ahead, Rundle says, because “God is using the forces of globalization to bring the entire church, and all its resources, back into mission” (p. 515).

D. Tentmaking Realities. Ruth Siemens dispels the idea that tentmaking is supported by only one verse in Acts (18:3). There are many examples of tentmaking in Scripture. Siemens explains that tentmaking compares well to the conventional approach of sending “full-time” missionaries. But there are many “hybrids” of the models. She corrects some of the misconceptions about tentmaking.

IX. Your Part in a Global Movement

Ralph D. Winter highlights that the goal of the Perspectives course is to introduce you to a great movement. It is truly a Christian movement of global proportions. He urges every person in this course to find their God-given part in His global purpose and pursue it with daily discipline.