Mission

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This is a session written and then delivered by Andy H, one of our student leaders, on a weekend away we took for a church from the South-East. So big ups and props to Andy H. Thanks to Simon D also.

-What is mission/evangelism?

-Why should we go on missions and spread God’s word?

-Examples of mission

-Preparing for a mission

-God equipping us for mission

-Your Story

What is mission/evangelism?

It is us continuing Jesus work on earth. John 17:18.

When we go on mission we are doing God’s work, the work He commissioned us to do. Matthew 28:16-20. To spread the word of God to all the nations, that is our job on earth – we will all do this in different ways for example my way of doing it maybe through music, but Dan will probably use sport to do his. This is because we have different giftings so we can use different methods of doing things. It wouldn’t be that great or exciting if we all did this in the same way like if everyone liked the same type of music then it would be pretty boring and we wouldn’t be able to have pointless arguments about whether or not rock is better than rap and so on.

There is this guy in America called Rick Warren and when his dad was dying his dad kept trying to get out of his bed saying ‘one more for Jesus, one more for Jesus’. That is such a dedication of a life that even as he was dying he wanted to save one more person for Jesus. I mean if all the Christians in the world took that view to life then there would only be Christians ‘cos if say every Christian in the world helped maybe 2 other people come to Christ then we would triple the numbers of Christians. And if those new Christians did the same then soon everyone in the world would be a Christian. 

Lord of the Rings video clip

From the fellowship of the ring where they have the ‘secret’ council meeting)

This is where Frodo is commissioned to take the ring to Mordor and destroy it. Mordor wasn’t somewhere that Frodo or any of the companions wanted to go but they knew that if they didn’t then Sauron would become strong again. 

When God calls us

When God asks us to go somewhere it may not be somewhere you particularly want to go. Like when I went to Manchester I was really worried because I didn’t know what it was like there I only knew what other people had told me and most of that was the really bad parts of it. But when I got there I knew God was with me and that He wasn’t going to let me be harmed and also that it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I had been told, in fact now that I’ve been there I want to go back there and actually have a fulltime ministry there. 

But when I was sent on my placement there again I didn’t know what to expect, I was thinking it would be like a really run down area with loads graffiti and violence but it wasn’t it was a suburb and it seemed quite upper-class and nothing seemed to be wrong with it. While we were there we cleaned up streets and ran a children’s centre for a week. But I didn’t see why God had taken me there cos I thought this place doesn’t need us to be there. But we had a really big impact on the people there, they didn’t understand why Christians from all over the country were going up there back alleys and cleaning them and getting rid of broken glass and all the rubbish that had built up. But there was this one guy who really liked what we were doing and he went round all the teams giving us ice creams and there were like 20-30 people there but when he did that I knew that God had taken me there for a reason, we had touched this guy’s life. I don’t know if he became a Christian but we established a connection with this guy and I know that God took us there to touch this guy’s life as well as all the people we met on trams and in the street.

Control game

Two volunteers one gets taken out the room by a leader and the leader tells them not to do anything when the other person says turn left, the person is bought back into the room and blindfolded, the other volunteer has to guide them around the room to locate the prize in this case a big book but a bag of sweets would probably be better – thanks to Simon D.

Life To God

When we give our lives to God, He doesn’t want us to only give a part of it, the way my life was for a while was like if my life was controlled by a remote control and when I gave my life to Jesus I gave Him the remote. But what I had been doing was just saying well I’d really like to do this and this but I know Jesus doesn’t want me to do them so it was like I leaned over and was still pressing the buttons even though I had given Jesus control of my life, so really I still had control of my life when I wanted it. But God wants complete control. Luke 14:25-27

So why should we do this and give our lives to God completely and go out on mission to save people for Jesus?

Because God sent His Son to die for us, I mean how amazing is that. If God can sacrifice His Son surely we can give our lives on earth to serving God. Cos if we do that we are gonna get to spend eternity with God in heaven. If I took a tape measure and laid it out between here and New York in America which is pushing towards 3000 miles and said that the first 10cm was your life on Earth, and the rest was the time you will spend in heaven, it doesn’t seem like a lot to ask does it 80 odd years on earth given to God’s work compared to spending eternity in paradise. That is the reward we get for serving God completely with our lives and I don’t know about you but for me certainly I want that reward I want to do God’s work and I want to spend eternity with Him.

Finding Nemo video clip

Ater the EAC where all the fish are telling the story of how marlin is travelling round Australia to find Nemo ends when he seagull flies off to tell Nemo.

What happens when someone gets some really good news? Everyone hears about it. Like in this film all the fish think its great how marlin doesn’t give up on his son at all, that he has even gone half way around Australia to find his son. That’s what we should be like when it comes to God giving up His Son to save us. We shouldn’t care that people might think of us as odd for thinking it’s so incredible because it is incredible and our lives should be devoted to that.

Examples of mission

We run an urban themed outreach event, it uses multi media in the forms of video clips and visuals, as well as performances from hip hop groups and bands. There is also a talk written as an outreach talk often based on one of the clips but not always.

Getting thousands of Christians getting together to try and change a city. Huge gigs, bands, hip hop groups, plus loads of time to help local communities and talk to the people you meet about Jesus. Tours by Christian bands and events run by groups like The Message Trust.

Football against local lads, one of our youth leaders had a thought from God to go and talk to the people in the local area and now  we are playing football weekly against a group of lads and we try to evangelise to them through are actions, not just our words, cos we try not to swear in front of them and we usually manage to keep our game very clean.

On the doors with Mark P, an evangelist who comes to our church. We go out on the doors with him speaking to the local people who he already has great connections with recently he managed to set up a small group meeting on a weekday after school where he talked to the children in the area about Jesus and got some really good discussions from them.

Do any of these things that we have been involved in give you any ideas about what you could do in your local area.

Preparing for a mission

When you are getting ready to go on a mission always try to get together as a group before you go, cos its gonna be better if everyone gets along well and you will be able to work better if everyone is in one bigger friendship than just doing things in small friendship groups. I’m not saying that you have to do everything together cos that might get a little bit personal. Always pray I can’t say that enough if you are going out on mission Satan is gonna try and stop you, he doesn’t care when we are sat at home doing nothing because its only our personal relationship with God then we aren’t trying to get other people to come to Jesus. When we pray the Bible says that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are praying with us, so when we pray we have the power of Jesus with us.

Simon’s power of Jesus’ name story (basically this guy was asleep in the room next to his young child and his son starts screaming and he runs in to check on him and he’s fine. But he chooses to stay in the room and falls asleep on the other bed and either in a dream or awake he sees a demon above him trying to kill him and he knows the only thing this demon wants to do is destroy him. The only thing the guy can do is to keep saying the name Jesus over and over again and he knows he is safe.) John 10:10

God equipping us for mission

James bond video clip (any clip with Q giving bond the equipment for his mission. I used Goldfinger with the Aston Martin db5)

This may not be how God equips us I would love it if He gave me an Aston Martin with ejector seats and watches with lasers on them but that isn’t what we need, our fight isn’t a physical one it’s a spiritual one against Satan, so we don’t need a watch that can cut through steel, or a brilliant car. God doesn’t give us those things because we don’t need them, but He does give us the armour of God. Ephesians 6:10-18

That again is yet another wonderful gift, His word, cos even when Jesus was being tempted Jesus just quoted scripture and even though Satan quoted it back Jesus knew exactly what to say in return like when Satan said to Jesus throw yourself off here because it says that His angels won’t let even your toe strike the ground. But Jesus replied it also says do not test the Lord your God. Jesus had such a knowledge of scripture that He could quote anything back at Satan and it would mean something. That is how we should want to live to know our Bible’s inside out. That is one of the most powerful things God has given us to use against Satan but we need to know how to use it effectively. But to do that we have to make a firm commitment to reading the bible everyday and to memorising parts of it, when we did the Purpose Driven Life course we learnt one verse every week and now even though that was several months ago I can still remember those and can use them in me fight against Satan.

Your story

I gave my testimony and then explained what is needed in a testimony and by the end we got one of the young people to give her testimony to the group having never done anything like that before in her life.

Andy H.