missions on Impact

Sometimes what seems like a failure is actually the seed of God’s work. As Mark Batterson tells the story, it started with David and Svea Flood. Sent to the Congo by a church in Sweden, they helped es...

Nearly 200 years ago there were two Scottish brothers named John and David Livingstone. John had set his mind on making money and becoming wealthy, and he did. But under his name in an old edition of ...

This scripture guide is adapted from the Summer Settings sermon guide Road Trips II . For more Summer Settings sermon guides, click below. Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered A...

What Value is there in Short-Term Missions?  Over the years, I have had people ask me why my family and I go on short-term mission trips. Some of the more cynical have wondered aloud, “Isn’t it reall...

Context Standard Letter Format In all of Paul’s letter there is a basic format, which is based on the Greco-Roman form that was common at the time. Paul’s letters almost always include: Salutat...

Context Standard Letter Format In all of Paul’s letter there is a basic format, which is based on the Greco-Roman form that was common at the time. Paul’s letters almost always include: Salutat...

Ancient Lens What's the historical context? Dissolving the Divisions Generally speaking, the Psalms divide the people of the earth into two groups: “Israel” and “the nations.” Psalm 98 surpr...

Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.

When do you schedule the “fun” activities on your short-term mission trips? JULY 2018 When I was in youth ministry planning mission trips, we often scheduled a short sightseeing adventure for the end...

Context — Community First It’s important to remember that, like many cultures in the world today, Paul’s context is community-oriented. This is often hard for Americans to truly grasp. We are focuse...

Context — Community First It’s important to remember that, like many cultures in the world today, Paul’s context is community-oriented. This is often hard for Americans to truly grasp. We are focuse...

If one looks at the world scene from a missionary point of view, surely the most striking fact is that, while in great areas of Asia and Africa the church is growing, often growing rapidly, in the lan...

Social responsibility becomes an aspect not of Christian mission only, but also of Christian conversion. It is impossible to be truly converted to God without being thereby converted to our neighbor.

We are not bringing Christ to poor communities. He has been active in these communities since the creation of the world, sustaining them, Hebrews 1:3 says, by His powerful Word. Hence, a significant p...

Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes.

If we are honest with ourselves, for many of us who celebrate the sacraments on a regular basis, at times we take them for granted. We lose sight of their nature to inspire and remind us of our covena...

I've seen far too many Christians who are more than willing to travel halfway around the world to volunteer for a week in an orphanage, but who cannot bring themselves to take the personal risk of...

[Jesus] sends us into the world as he was sent into the world (John 17:18; 20:21). We have to penetrate other people’s worlds, as he penetrated ours: the world of their thinking (as we struggle to und...

People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa....It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege.

Why is it that some Christians cross land and sea, continents and cultures, as missionaries? What on earth impels them? It is not in order to commend a civilization, an institution or an ideology, but...

As a missionary … it was always comforting to realize that I did not bring God along with my physical and cultural baggage to my new host country.

The missionary activities of the church are the circulation of its blood, which would lose its vital power if it never flowed to the extremities.

In 1947 huge crowds came to hear a thirty-two-year-old Californian preach at mass evangelistic rallies throughout China. Although Bob Pierce had no knowledge of Chinese language or culture, his messag...

Context If you're jumping into Luke partway through the story, it helps to do one of those "Previously On..." clips you see at the beginning of an episode in a TV series. The most impo...

A missionary friend of mine once said, ‘Things were simple before I went to Africa. I knew what the African’s problem was, and I knew the answer. When I got there and began to know him as a person, th...

The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.

It’s estimated that more than a million North Americans participate in short-term mission trips overseas each year, up from an estimated twenty-five thousand in 1980. During this same period, long-ter...

I knew I'd pay for it later, but I drank it anyway. Have you had one of those energy drinks? The ones that have lots of caffeine and other ingredients meant to keep you awake? I don’t recommend t...

A Multi-faceted Church Who loses by the church and parachurch’s lack of unity and cooperation? Absolutely everyone : congregations, ministry organizations, ministry leaders, individual believers . ....

One of [Lamin] Sanneh's key arguments is that while the spread of Islam has drawn ever-increasing numbers to the globalizing influence of Arabic, the spread of Christianity binds ever-increasing n...