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Seven
Dynamics for Advancing
Your Church in Missions
Page 6 — Dynamic #4: Intergration
This dynamic makes mission a natural outflow of the life of the church. Intergration
helps overcome the tendency to marginalize missions to a department in the
church. If God is a missionary God, and the Bible is a missionary book, then
missions should be a natural and central part of the life of the Church, involving
everyone in the Church. The intent of the integration dynamic, then, is to
make mission education and participation a spontaneous part of every age group
and program in the church. The intent is not to compete for people and finances,
nor is it to try to make missionaries out of everyone. However, it is our
conviction that every ministry in the church ultimately exists to help the
church fulfill its role in world evangelization!
The
integration dynamic accepts the fact that people have different receptivity
levels. Everyone is not going to be a mission enthusiast over-night. There
always will be people open to missions, and those who are closed to missions.
The integration dynamic allows for these various levels of receptivity and
deals with people where they are.
It
is critical that mission enthusiasts refrain from projecting unrealistic expectations
on people. Mission leaders have a special inclination towards missions that
God uses to mobilize others. But if this inclination and zeal is overdone,
mission leadership can very easily come across as dogmatic or fanatical. The
goal is to attract people to missions, not to drive them away. Mission enthusiasts
have been known to do great damage to the cause by their overzealous attitudes
and approaches.
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