John Piper offers the following five points for building a vision of world missions in our church congregations.

1. We must build our missionary vision on the Word of God. “When we choose and send missionaries, let us send those who can preach and teach the truth about God with an understanding of central biblical doctrines. The apostles built their lives and missions on these great truths. So should we.”
2. World missions is God’s work through us. “We speak and we do. But in and through us God speaks and God does, or all is in vain. We rely on Him. Our job is to obey and be faithful and trust Him. Just as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:6–7: ‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So then neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.’”
3. The aim of world missions is the worship of God. “The reason the universe exists is that creatures might have the joy of worshiping God. Therefore, missions exist where worship doesn’t. Missionaries are seeking to awaken worship for the true and living God through His Son, Jesus Christ.”
4. The way to do world missions is to go to unreached peoples. “The way to do world missions is not to settle down with the peoples that already have churches (even if they are across the ocean), but to keep going to the unreached peoples until all the peoples are reached and have their own Christ-worshiping churches.”
5. God calls some to be wardens of the mission who watch over it from home. “You have three possibilities in world missions. You can be a goer, a sender, or disobedient. The Bible does not assume that everyone goes. But it does assume that the ones who do not go care about goers and support goers and pray for goers and hold the rope of the goers. Paul was linked with many churches, and they sent support to him over and over again. So it should be with every church and its missionaries.”

These are all great points, but I especially appreciate the emphasis on the Word of God in missions and going to the unreached peoples. What are some key components of world missions for you?

I thought this was a pretty good quote for the New Year.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
    – Gen. Eric Shinseki, former U.S. Army chief of staff

Here is a recording project our whole family worked on together over the Christmas vacation. Don’t let the piano intro fool you. The actual song kicks in after about 20 seconds. Enjoy!

Angels

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    – Recorded and produced by Sam Fowler
    – Arranged by Sam and Rose Fowler
    – Lead vocal by Rose Fowler
    – Guitars by Sam Fowler
    – Piano by Ramón Fowler
    – Percussion by Timothy Fowler
    – Background vocals by Rose and Ray Fowler

So, what did you do over your Christmas vacation?

Related posts:
    • A Very Merry Guitar Christmas from Sam Fowler
    • Guess the Famous Christmas Trees

After many hours, plenty of mistakes, and lots of backtracking, I finally finished upgrading the blog to WordPress 2.7 and K2 RC7. A big thanks to Tom Nasiatka for all his help and to all the helpful people at the WordPress and K2 Forums. (I think the upgrade would have gone smoother if I actually knew what I was doing!)