I don’t know when I heard the term Great Commission for the first time, but I’m sure it was early on in my Christian experience. What I do know is that it seemed to always be expressed as a directive to some individuals and that's what I assumed. It was normally a challenge to missions. Does God want you to be a missionary, or not? Does God want you to fulfill the great commission, or not? Should you go or should you stay?
I realize that I’m exaggerating a little, and making it a little more black and white than it usually is. Still, the impression was, and often is, that this great commission is something that is given to individuals to carry out; and it’s a challenge for some of them to go, but of course not everyone. It's expanded sometimes to say that if you're not called to go, then you're called to give.
However, the more I have looked at it, the more I have come to realize that it is not individualistic at all. Those last few days before Christ ascended were spent not just with the 12 apostles, but with all of the key disciples who were committed to Him. This was the climax just as Jesus was about to ascend to heaven. The emphasis was not on the individual, but on this new body that was being called out. Jesus' focus was corporate.
My experience as a missionary has only emphasized this even more. I believe that we need to look at the great commission less in terms of the individual. It shouldn't be passive, waiting on whether God might be leading someone to become a missionary. Rather, we need to look at the Great Commission in terms of the church. In a sense, this is the founding purpose of the church. If the apostles were writing a constitution for the church as an organization, this probably would have been in the preamble as its purpose clause. The church exists to carry all this out. The church should see this as their number one responsibility–making disciples of all peoples.
Instead, the Missions program has been something that is extra, peripheral to the main ministry of the church. In many churches, the Missions budget is separate. It is set through extra pledges (faith promises) and extra giving. You can give to the missions budget as long as that comes after your tithe to the church. It's not a part of the church budget.
Some of that is changing. There already is less emphasis on waiting to see who God may call into missions, and then leaving that person to run around getting support from churches and individuals. But, we haven't gone far enough at all.
I think that the church should put more effort into thinking about what their role could be in making disciples of all nations, and then coming up with a strategy for how to do so. Of course, that is not just the overseas component that we often call "missions." It’s an overall plan that includes our neighbors, the people on the other side of the town, other nations and cultures across the sea. It's comprehensive. The key point is that the responsibility belongs to the church, and not just individuals. Missions and evangelism are certainly individual in that it is individuals who are the ones who are on the contact edge between the church and the unbelieving world. However, the individuals are part of a strategy, a vision and a mission of the church. We need to be less inward thinking and more outward thinking.
Missionaries can fall into a similar rut. One problem (issue) in missions is that missionaries are often independent and individualistic in spirit. It's easy for us to just drop into the mold of thinking about "my mission" or "but, God called me here to..." Sometimes we can forget that we are all part of a team with our sending churches and our coworkers in the plan to make disciples of all nations starting in the part of the world where we have been sent.
But, the mission is far greater than any individual and it is far greater than any mission organization. Missionaries are sent and are part of the "mission" of the church.
amen!
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