A Missions Book for Every Believer
Who is it for?
Anyone in church leadership
Anyone who is interested in missions—locally, national, and regional
Anyone interested in learning more about relational evangelism
I recently read this book at the recommendation of a friend who is active in the world of missions. He knows that I have a passion for missional living, especially in the world of church planting, which is largely the context of this book.
Once I started reading it, I began to realize that I have largely functioned simply as a fan of missions rather than a member of God’s family who is actively contributing to God’s mission. That’s the kind of language that the authors use throughout the book.
Tradecraft is a challenging, convicting, motivating, and encouraging read for me. I know that for many believers, it will be the same.
It’s not a book that will constantly inspire with miraculous stories from the mission field (for that, my favorite recommendation is The Insanity of God by Nik Ripkin). What this book does provide is practical ideas and steps so that every believer can begin to move from spectator to participant.
In most churches, there is a major distinction between ministry at home and missions. There is a gap a mile wide between the two ideas and practices. The Bible never really draws this distinction. There is missional living within your local context—your friends, family, coworkers—and there is missional living outside of your context. This book calls for us to champion each of these areas as one and the same.
One of the major things that I took away from the book is the idea that we need to listen. I’ll outline 3 areas that spoke to me:
Listen to the Holy Spirit
Right out of the gate, the authors of Tradecraft do a great job reminding us that our work is a spiritualwork. We can have strategies and plans and implementations and any number of other buzzword organizational types of structures, but without the Holy Spirit as an active participant in every step of the way, it’s a farce.
Too often in local church work and throughout the mission field, we pray before we start something and ask the Holy Spirit to bless our plans or help us to see opportunities, and then we begin the work and never consult Him again. We have all of our ideas, then we ask the Holy Spirit to affirm it, and we move on with our plans.
Instead, we should remember to seek the Holy Spirit at every step, and walk in tune with Him. We trust that He will provide clarity and opportunities, and we seek Him often to that end.
Strategies and plans are great, and the Bible reminds us that the “plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance,”(Proverbs 21:5) but we cannot afford to do God’s work while neglecting to include Him in it. We start with the Holy Spirit and the continue to seek Him at every possible opportunity.
“Our mission depends on the Holy Spirit’s guidance every step of the way.”
Listen to the Culture
The truth of God’s character and salvation stands apart from culture and doesn’t rely on any one culture for it to be understood as true. However, not every culture has the same needs and motives. So the way that we present that truth must shift from context to context.
While God is unchanging, people are far more inconsistent. What convicts one person of their need for a savior may cause another from a different culture to firmly plant his feet in the roots of independence.
We can’t afford to try to take our westernized cultural Christianity and force that onto every other believer from every other tribe and tongue. The authors make the point that by doing that, we are subtly telling believers that they must be an American before they can be a Christian.
So we have to listen to the culture that we are trying to reach. Even in missions around the country, we have to be careful not to try to convert someone into being a southerner or a midwesterner before we convert them into a Christian (understand that we don’t do the converting, God does).
“In too many instances, church planting has become cultural warfare, as missionaries and local Christians attempt to conquer and change the culture rather than the hearts of the people.”
Listen to the People
Effective missions will always be relational. And sometimes, Christians are terrible at being relational. We can be really bad ostracizing ourselves from our surroundings so much that we don’t even know how to interact with people outside our Christian bubble anymore.
The make a point, and I agree, that perhaps part of our discipleship process should be making sure that people have conversation skills and strong social graces and understanding. The point is that if we can’t relate to people well, we’ll never have the opportunity to share an impactful gospel message.
So we must listen to people. We must learn to understand people. We have to care about people and show them that we are willing to make them a priority.
“For their infectious love to be noticed by the world, they must be near the world in relationship,”
And So Much More
There are a great deal of other topics that Tradecraft is bold enough to touch on. The rejection of using metrics as a gauge of effectiveness and health. Exploring expressions of the church that may not be numerically advantageous. Focusing on doing what we’re called to rather than simply what works—because those two are not always the same.
On the surface, this book looks like it should be geared toward church and mission leaders, and it truthfully will be of great value to any in those roles.
But I think every believer will benefit from the mentality shift to approaching every single opportunity in your life as a missions opportunity, not relegating mission work to only the annual mission trip that your church does.
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