What?!! You don't have to go to a different country to be a missionary???!!!

I find it amusing when people say that to be a missionary one must go to different lands or cross cultural borders. I whole heartedly disagree with that. I will explain why in a bit first I want you to look at three passages.
Mat 28:19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Mat 28:20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Mar 16:15 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

Act 1:8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

The word missionary is never found in the NASB, NKJV, ESV, or NIV. So where did it comes from. Our Lord Jesus entrusted us with a mission or a charge to preach the gospel. That is how we now get the word missionary which literally means one who carries out a mission. If one is a missionary of Jesus Christ, then he must carry out the mission of preaching the gospel. I would say that anyone, who preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ whether in the US or any other country is a missionary.
Looking back up that these verses we have to assume that not all of these things happen all at once. First we go. Go doesn’t necessarily mean to go a different country, or different State or even a different city. To be a missionary you don’t have to cross cultural boundaries or go to distant lands. It just means to go out wherever you are to preach the gospel. To go where the Lord as put you at that time of your life. If you think about it someone had to stay in Jerusalem and share the gospel with the Jews. We see that there was a Church in Jerusalem. How did that start unless someone was preaching the gospel there?

Go where? Into all the world, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the remotest parts of the earth. Many people think that go means to go to Africa or to South America or to anywhere but the US. The fact of the matter is that although many people in the US say they are Christians they have no idea what the gospel is. The US is in need of missionaries as much as many other countries. All of you that preach the gospel here in the US are missionaries as well as those that preach it in other countries. We must GO. We must preach the gospel to the world. Those that come to Christ are baptized and taught to observe everything our Lord commanded. Why should or would the Lord send you to a different country to preach the gospel, if you are not preaching the gospel where you are at now. Everyone that preaches the gospel is a missionary. No matter where you are in this world, that is where the Lord has put you and you need to go and preach the gospel. Those people need to hear the gospel to. So as fellow missionaries let us all go out and preach the gospel in the towns, cities, and countries where the Lord has put us for the time being. Let us be missionaries where we are at and if the Lord works out opportunities to go other places them let us go to other places.

January Evangelism Part 1

I haven’t written a note on the evangelism going on around Helena so I decided that it was time to update everyone. Just about every week I go out sometime to do evangelism. All of those time have been very good times. Although the work has been going on for a long time here we have not talked to most of Helena and the surrounding area.  When people see that it is a “religious thing” they either throw the tracts away or they give them back. My heart goes out to all of those people. A couple of weeks ago I walked up to this African American and gave him a tract and he said is this a religious thing or something. I said yes. He said so If I were to point a gun to your head right now and tell you to deny Christ what would you say. I simple said “NO”. He asked why would you say that. I said I know where I am going when I die. He said Praise God, Your ready to go right now. That is a good thing brother. I was just testing you. He said with a big smile on his face. That is the first time I have ever had a believer do anything like that to me.

On Saturday we went out and again met people that say that they believe in Jesus Christ but they do not know what the gospel is. As I was talking to a kid I asked him what the gospel is. He said it was in the Bible, the first 4 books of the Bible. I then asked him what the word gospel meant. He didn’t know. He guessed it was an account of something. I told him it is the Good News. Then I asked him what the Good news was. He didn’t know. I asked him why he called himself a Christian. He said because the people at the church he went to said to pray this prayer and then you are a Christian.  Oh what a deception. It makes me want to weep for those that are being led astray by these people. They are no better than the Catholics, who believe that good works get them to heaven.  I got to share the gospel with this young man. He told me that it made sense to him more than what the people at the church he was going to said. It seemed to be a day full of people from this same church. As we went on, we met some kids in front of the movie theater. They were also people that went to this church.  There were 4 kids and all but one of them was goofing around the whole time. As I was talking to them about the Ten Commandments one of them pipes up and asks aren’t you TJ. I said yeah not really knowing who this girl was.  I kept going and gave them the gospel and they told me that that’s what they believed. I then asked them if they were living a life that God would want them to live. All of them said no. I said why not. They told me that they didn’t need to because Jesus had forgiven them already so they could sin and still be forgiven. I told them you know as far as I am concerned I can’t tell that you are different from the world and the Bible tells us that we are to be in the world but not of the world. They were kind of like whatever and started goofing around again. That’s when it hit me. The girl that asked me if my name was TJ is one of the girls that went to Frontier Bible camp when she was younger.  She had heard the gospel but still did not know it. I talked to them for a little bit longer about random things and then said good bye.  It has made an aching in my gut that this church is leading people astray. I only wish there was something that I could do about it. The only thing right now is to keep proclaiming the gospel and praying for those people that we would be able to proclaim the gospel to more of them. Remember just because they say they are a Christian doesn’t mean that they are saved. The Lord is working. Pray for all of us here in Helena. That is the latest in the Helena Evangelism. For more stories from one of the guys I go with. Go to http://2alltheworld.blogspot.com