Sermon Illustrations on mission

Culture is like gravity. We never talk about it, except in physics classes. We don’t include gravity in our weekly planning processes. No one gets up thinking about how gravity will affect their day. ...

[Saint] Valentine was a priest in Rome when Emperor Claudius II began his hostile reign. Valentine was arrested for performing Christian weddings. While imprisoned, Valentine befriended the jailer’s d...

Some time ago, I read about the work of a Wycliffe Bible translator in a remote village in Papua New Guinea. When the opening chapters of Genesis were first translated into the native language, the at...

A Frontier Fellowship mobilizer once met a Chinese monk while leading a vision trip. Through a translator she said to him, “We are all followers of Jesus. Do you know Jesus?” The friendly monk replie...

An Irish church once had a humorous yet insightful motto that gets at the heart of the pain that often accompanies our relationships: “To dwell above with those we love will certainly be glory. But to...

An old American Indian [Native American] legend tells of an Indian [Native American] who came down from the mountains and saw the ocean for the first time. Awed by the scene, he requested a quart jar....

The very first word of the Rule of St. Benedict, that famous text that has guided the life of monastic communities since the sixth century, is listen . I want for us to put listening back where i...

It is helpful to understand the call of God in three distinct ways. First, there is the call to be a Christian. The God of creation invites us to respond to his love. This call comes through Jesus, wh...

What is the place of the church in relation to God’s mission? Pastor John Stott offers some crucial thoughts, For the church lies at the very center of the eternal purposes of God. It is not a div...

The US Navy SEALs are widely regarded as one of the most, if not the most, elite and effective fighting forces in the world. They are sent to do the most unique, complex, difficult, and critical missi...

The Church was the one institution whose mission depended on galvanizing attention; and through its daily and weekly offices, as well as its sometimes-central role in education, that is exactly what i...

What shall I say of the Romans themselves, who fortify their own empire with garrisons of their own legions, nor can extend the might of their kingdom beyond these nations? But Christ’s name is extend...

A documentary about Ernest Shackleton’s early twentieth-century exposition to the South Pole shows the classified ad Shackleton put in a London newspaper: Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wa...