The Role of the Local Church in Global Missions (Part I)
To the ends of the earth - Acts 13:1-3 (esv) - Pastor Tim Kroeker
Romans 10:14–15b:
"How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?”
Space missions are organized projects to send manned or robotic spacecraft into space for the purpose of exploration, scientific research, and technological advancement. Since the launch of Sputnik and the dawn of the space age in 1957, there have been over 7300 orbital rocket launch attempts and 415 human spaceflights.
Launching rockets into space is complicated and costly. A single active space mission relies on an immediate ground support network of hundreds of people working concurrently. If you consider the broader engineering and manufacturing infrastructure that enables a mission to happen, that number dramatically increases to tens of thousands of personnel.
As we continue in the book of Acts, we read about another kind of mission: taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. Until this point in our story, gospel expansion depended on individual initiative, or it came about as the result of external factors such as persecution. However, in chapter 13 we see that the church in Antioch intentionally sends two of its most gifted leaders to accomplish the work that the Holy Spirit had called them to.
Paul and Barnabas would spend the next two years traveling, taking the gospel to unreached places where the church did not yet exist. This was the dawn of Christian missions.
But, like launching rockets, Christian missions is costly and complicated, requiring lots of ground support. In Acts 13:1-3, we see the primary role the local church plays. God uses Spirit-led local churches to launch missionaries who take the gospel to the ends of the earth.
