When Christians publicly confess the truths that the church has always confessed, God is distinguishing between the church and the world—as well as between true and false churches. Historic doctrinal standards help draw a sharp line between orthodox teaching and false teaching in the articulation of “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

Some of my earliest childhood memories center on being with my family in worship on the Lord’s Day. In the Reformed and Presbyterian churches that we attended, expository preaching, hymn-singing, and prayer were fixed elements of worship, as were the historic creeds and confessions of the Christian church. We regularly confessed the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed—or some particular doctrinal statement out of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Westminster Shorter Catechism, or Heidelberg Catechism. Our pastors cited doctrinal statements from the Westminster Shorter Catechism in their sermons. Though I was unaware of it at the time, these historic doctrinal formulations were shaping my young mind in regard to biblical doctrine, worship, and the Christian life. Over a decade ago, I had the privilege of planting a Reformed and Presbyterian church. I enthusiastically incorporated many of the historic creeds and confessions into our worship service for the express purpose of instruction—as well as for the preservation of the core truths of the Christian faith and the worship of God.

In his 1973 article “Towards a Confession for Tomorrow’s Church,” J.I. Packer insisted that historic creeds and confessions assist the church in carrying out four principal responsibilities—its doxological, declarative, didactic, and disciplinary tasks. Accordingly, churches should make use of these historical doctrinal statements in their worship (doxological), witness (declarative), teaching (didactic), and conservation (disciplinary). Packer proceeded to define how they function in each task:
Their doxological function is to glorify God by setting forth his works of love and putting into words a responsive commitment. Their declarative function is to announce what the communities that espouse them stand for, and so to identify those communities as belonging to Christ’s church, the worldwide fellowship of faith.

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Physically being with other believers leads to encouragement that’s necessary for us to persevere to the final day. Given your missionaries can’t regularly gather with your church, why not choose to send some of your most encouraging members to spur them on? It could be just what your missionaries need in order to endure.

What does your church aim for in its short-term mission trips? Maybe you try to find one or two projects you can accomplish with a small team and focused effort. Maybe you shoot for evangelism—meeting as many unbelievers as possible in a short period and in a unique place. Or maybe you spend the whole time looking for an experience—a personal encounter, a story, or a picture—to stir up the rest of the church back home.
One kind of trip I think most churches should prioritize may not accomplish any of those goals. It’s something your missionaries may not ask for. It may not even get people back home excited. In fact, it could mean spending resources and time on a trip where you can’t bring many others along—if any at all.
Less exciting, less interesting, and less people. I can imagine you’re anxious to learn what kind of amazing mission trip I’m selling here. In short, I’m suggesting churches should consider taking mission trips where the sole purpose is to encourage missionaries.
Exhausting Trips
Faithful missionaries work hard in hard places. At least one reason you should want to go on a trip, I presume, is to encourage them. Who among us would ever say, “No thanks, I’m not interested in encouraging missionaries”? Yet the reality is, when you bring a group from your church, this aim most often falls to the side. Missionaries can be the collateral damage of such mission trips. 
I live in a city that has its fair share of short-term trips. Let me tell you what your missionaries may not be willing to: even the best mission trips are exhausting.
When you bring a group of people who don’t speak the local language, don’t know anyone other than one or two families, and may have never taken public transportation before, it requires a certain level of preparation and hand-holding from your missionaries. And many of your missionaries feel the weight of being good hosts more than you may realize.
That’s not to say those trips with grand goals are bad. But there’s a cost to them.
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Just as bodies in pews aren’t hard evidence of heart change, neither is a certain type of bodies in pews evidence that a church is racist or self-absorbed—or that a church has practiced true hospitality. Christ builds his Church. Christ is already building a diverse Church from every tribe, tongue, and nation. It’s our job to celebrate and welcome that while serving each other and spreading the gospel in the time and places in which He has—for now—scattered us.

Somewhere in the tiny Himalayan country of Nepal, there’s a small Christian church. In fact, there’s quite a few. Nepal has one of the fastest-growing Christian populations in the world.
Imagine I—a curious, white, English-speaking, American Christian—land at tiny Lukla airport. Maybe I’m about to trek up the rocky face of Mount Everest. Before heading for base camp, I stop for Sunday services at a small rural church. I’m far from home. I’m really cold. I’m a little scared, too.
Is the church ‘ready’ for me? Is there an English-speaking greeter, ready to make me in particular feel comfortable? Is there a group of English-speaking western worshippers, guaranteed to make sure I don’t feel ‘out of place’ or ‘othered’? Will the liturgy accommodate my western expectations?
To put it another way: how is the Nepalese church’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy going?
The thought experiment isn’t quite fair. But there is a fair number of American Christians and Christian institutions calling for similar diversity efforts here at home. A charitable read of their efforts would suggest more reasonable expectations: that the people who make up our congregations would reflect the communities we’re in; which are on average much more racially and ethnically diverse than a small Nepalese village.
There has been racial and ethnic partiality in the American church in the past. Still, modern calls for focused diversity efforts in American churches are often problematically shallow. The Nepal thought experiment, silly as it might be, offers a helpful illustration. Diversity for diversity’s sake doesn’t make sense when it’s applied without context. The American church isn’t just one church, but hundreds of thousands. Widespread undertaking of “diversity” efforts within churches and ministries warrants a few questions on the front end, then.
First: what do we mean by “diversity?” Modern conversations tend to use the word almost exclusively to describe diversity of either race or ethnicity. But what about diversity of age? Of socioeconomic status? And does diversity for diversity’s sake—when we widen the definition — always make sense? Imagine criticizing a college ministry for not having elderly members. Imagine faulting an urban church in a city center for not having enough farmers in its congregation. The logic breaks down.
This leads to another question: why, exactly, should we pursue diversity? Often Christians advocating for diversity programs answer by reminding us that partiality is sinful, and that the global church at the time of Jesus’ second coming will include people of “every tribe, nation and tongue.” In other words, calls to achieve diversity are meant, in part, to encourage Christians to celebrate diversity. Celebrating the wide human diversity within the body of Christ is a good thing in itself.
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