I hesitate to say this as a missions pastor, but I’m a pretty locally minded guy. I’m naturally inclined to pay attention to the people, places, and tasks at the tip of my nose. Faraway friends and places become far too easily out of sight, out of mind. I’m often more interested in the happenings of the city council meeting than the breaking world news on BBC.

Perhaps you resonate. Perhaps, like me, you are a nearsighted Christian trying to keep your eyes on what seems like a distant mission. You know God has called the church to make disciples of all nations, yet you have trouble connecting your daily life with this remote work. A host of important and immediate concerns push the peoples of the world to the periphery of your prayers and attention.

The church, by the very nature of her mission, is to be attentive to global gospel advancement (Matthew 28:18–20; Acts 1:8). But how can we stay excited about God’s work among all peoples? How might we keep the needs of the nations before our churches, our families, and our own souls?

Reflect on the Glory of God

First things first: we won’t be concerned with God’s globe if we aren’t concerned with God’s glory. Right thinking about the nations begins with right thinking about God. Believers don’t ultimately become world Christians by watching more news and spending more time in the ethnic food market. We become world Christians when we encounter the God who deserves and demands worldwide worship.

The psalmist summons the people of God to “declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples” (Psalm 96:3). Why? “For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised” (Psalm 96:4). The logic of these two verses is simple: God’s people are to proclaim his glory all over the planet because his greatness compels it.

God is so glorious — so deserving of worship — that the praise of one people group is simply not sufficient. Our God is not like the petty pagan gods of the nations who supposedly rule over limited parts of creation (like the rain god or the god of fertility). Rather, he reigns as King over all creation and all nations (Psalm 47:7–8). Therefore, it is fitting for the infinite depth of God’s greatness and beauty to be magnified by a diversity of worshipers. We appreciate the voice of a gifted solo singer, but there is something especially magnificent when a multitude of voices comes together in glorious harmony. Similarly, God shows off his supremacy by patchworking together a multiethnic quilt of people who are joyfully committed to his praise.

And when we see God as he truly is, it will grieve us to watch the nations run after worthless idols (Psalm 96:5). We will long to see a multitude of idolaters from every place on the planet exchange their images in order to join the everlasting song of the one true God.

Read with Global Glasses

The theme of God’s glory among the nations permeates the pages of Scripture. As you work through your Bible-reading plan, take note of how many passages relate to God’s promises for the nations. When we read with global glasses, we discover that Christ’s commission in Matthew 28 is not the start of God’s heart for the nations but the extension of his ancient redemptive plan.

We see in the first pages of Scripture that God intended to fill the earth with people who image him rightly (Genesis 1:26–28). Even after the fall, God remained committed to blessing all the families of the earth through his promised offspring (Genesis 12:3). Throughout Israel’s history, God revealed that this particular ethnic group would be the means by which he saves all nations (1 Kings 8:43, 60; Psalm 67:2; 72:8–11; 96:1–13). And when Israel failed, the prophets left us with the hope of a coming Davidic King who would bring salvation to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6).

At the end of the Gospels, this messianic King spilled his blood to purchase a people from every tribe and tongue. Then he recommissioned his new people (the church) to fill the earth with disciples of Jesus, which begins to unfold in the remaining books of the New Testament.

“We won’t be concerned with God’s globe if we aren’t first concerned with God’s glory.”

As you regularly open the Scriptures with your family, small group, or church, draw attention to the global references along the way. Don’t let your kids miss the fact that Romans is a missionary-support letter. Remind your small group that Philippians is a missionary thank-you note. Draw your church into the eschatological excitement of Revelation 7, when we will worship the slain but risen Lamb alongside brothers and sisters from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

Personalize the Needs of the Nations

How do we move from scriptural awareness to real-life application? Many believers have begun to pray for the nations using resources like Operation World, Joshua Project, or (the more recent) Stratus Index. As valuable and informative as these are, the content they provide may feel theoretical and impersonal to some of us. If you are anything like me, the data can paralyze you. Should I pray for the Kanura tribes of Nigeria or the Kahar of India? Do I focus on the unreached, the unengaged, or the persecuted?

If the overwhelming amount of information discourages you, I’d encourage you to shift your attention to peoples and places to whom you have a natural and specific connection. In other words, personalize the global needs. Instead of trying to blanket the whole globe in prayer, familiarize yourself with one region of the world that you, your family, or your church have some personal ties to or interest in.

Consider rekindling friendships with foreign believers whom you crossed paths with at some point. Did your family ever host an exchange student? Has your church cared for a particular immigrant population? Leverage these connections and capitalize on modern technology to revive relationships, and see how this might lead to more inspired involvement in the missionary cause.

Another way to make global missions personal is to simply reflect on the cultures or places that interest you. Were you fascinated by the people group you read about in a recent missionary biography? Do you frequently eat a particular ethnic food? Do you enjoy entertainment or art from someplace where the gospel has never gone? If you are already interested in these people and places, let Great Commission objectives infuse that fascination.

And remember, the nations are at your doorstep. You may not be able to travel much overseas, but in our globalized age you likely have many nationalities represented in your neighborhood. Look for opportunities to interact with and learn about them. Expose your family to different foods, languages, cultures, and worldviews. Taking these steps will give you a more practical understanding of the difficulty of missions and will fuel your prayers for God to open “a door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27). But be warned: this may be the pathway God uses to draw you overseas. I have friends whose relationships with Somalis in their neighborhood eventually compelled them to engage in full-time ministry in the Horn of Africa.

Commit to Gospel Partnerships

When all is said and done, however, the most practical way I’ve found to make missions feel like “a small world after all” is to partner with brothers and sisters doing gospel work among the nations. The more specific and personal the subject, the more excited I am to pray and be involved. I regularly intercede for a little church in Higuito, Costa Rica, because a dear mentor and friend is a pastor there. I stay tuned into gospel work in the Arabian Gulf because God has stitched my heart to a brother and his family who labor there.

I would have to forget these friends in order to lose sight of the nations and churches they serve. My commitment to these partners keeps me tethered to God’s mission in the world. So, consider the dear ones you know serving overseas, and devote yourself to their ministry. Contribute financially. Encourage them regularly.

If you aren’t acquainted with any missionaries or national ministers, ask your church leaders whom they would recommend getting to know. Though it can feel costly to invest in someone who may soon move halfway around the world, strive to build lasting relationships with members of your church who are considering long-term work overseas. Committing to these people will make remote missions feel local, and these partnerships will keep gospel ministry in distant lands at the forefront of your mind and near to your heart.

“We shouldn’t be here.”

As my wife stepped into our home after a full morning of language study, I greeted her with these four hasty words. While she was conjugating verbs, I had been doing some studying of my own. After only a few months in the country, I was certain we weren’t fit to be missionaries.

I explained to her that we had been neither adequately trained for the task nor affirmed by a local church. “We should go home,” I abruptly concluded. My wife agreed with my convictions, yet she reasonably talked me off the ledge of a rash decision. We had, after all, committed to serve our team for two years. Surely God could use the remainder of our time to mature us and even make our labors fruitful.

Her counsel was wise. We stayed to finish our term and, in his kind providence, God did develop us in significant ways. We were folded into membership at a local church in our city, and the pastor discipled me until we returned to the United States to attend seminary.

While I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything, I remain convinced that we were neither sufficiently equipped nor properly affirmed to be missionaries. Why would I suggest that? We both regularly practiced the spiritual disciplines, we were not coddling habitual sins, we loved the gospel, and we had previously spent time overseas. Why, then, had I become convinced that the title “missionary” was not ours to own? The answer boils down to this: we were not sent out from a local church to contribute strategically to the Great Commission.

Missionaries as Sent Ones

Our English word “missionary” comes from the Latin missio, a translation of the Greek verb apostellō. Apostellō refers to sending someone out to accomplish an objective. Bible readers are most familiar with the noun form of this verb, apostolos, transliterated into English as “apostle.” In the New Testament, the word apostolos does not only refer to the official apostles, Jesus’s specially appointed spokesmen, but also, in other contexts, to “messengers” sent out by the church to fulfill specific responsibilities in advancing Christ’s mission.

These all followed the pattern of Jesus, “the apostle and high priest of our confession,” who, sent by the Father, faithfully came to do his Father’s will on earth (Hebrews 3:1–2; John 6:38; 20:21). Like the sent Savior, a missionary is a “sent one.” And being sent, of course, requires a sender. There is no such thing as a self-commissioned missionary.

So, who sends missionaries? The Spirit of Christ is the primary sending agent for gospel laborers (Acts 8:29; 11:12; 13:4). Nevertheless, the New Testament also sets forth the pattern of missionaries being affirmed and sent by local churches (Acts 13:1–3; 15:40). Just as congregations call and affirm their own elders and deacons, so too their members test and commission those desiring to labor among the nations.

Since each local church determines whom they send, neither I nor anyone else has authority to create some across-the-board criteria of missionary qualifications. However, I would suggest three general characteristics a local church and its elders might look for in those they commission.

1. Love for the Church

One of my seminary professors once said, “Penultimate to worship, the local church is the fuel and goal of missions.” In other words, healthy local churches are the instrument and intended result of missions. Ideal missionary candidates, then, are meaningful members of a specific local church who desire to see healthy, reproducing congregations among the nations.

I have met Christians, even missionaries, who love Christ and claim to love his bride, yet fail to put this love to work by committing to build up and submit to a local church. However, biblical instructions regarding church discipline (Matthew 18:15–20; 1 Corinthians 5:1–12) and elder-congregant relationships (Acts 20:28; 1 Timothy 5:17–19; Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 5:1–5) assume that the universal church will organize itself into local assemblies with identifiable members. God calls Christians to gather and commit themselves to each other in local churches as a way of protecting and preserving his people and his word. Therefore, as a starting place, future missionaries should be faithful members of their local church.

Furthermore, missionaries need to know what a biblical church is, what it does, and the central role it plays in the Great Commission. The conviction that local churches are God’s kingdom outposts, designed precisely for advancing the name of Christ among the nations, is critical for those who aim to advance this work.

A full scriptural defense of the essential characteristics of a local church is beyond the scope of this article, but local-church leaders can help aspiring missionaries by providing a definition. For example, my church’s elder affirmation of faith defines a local church as a group of believers who “agree together to hear the word of God proclaimed, to engage in corporate worship, to practice the ordinances . . . to build each other’s faith through the manifold ministries of love, to hold each other accountable in the obedience of faith through biblical discipline, and to engage in local and world evangelization.”

If aspiring missionaries can’t explain and defend the basic elements of a church according to Scripture, they are not yet ready to plant or strengthen local churches overseas.

2. Knowledge of God’s Word

Explicit communication of God’s word is central to the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20). Therefore, global gospel laborers need deep roots in Scripture and the ability to articulate sound doctrine to others.

First, future missionaries should be personally transformed and increasingly sanctified by God’s word. The sacrificial love of Christ will form the central content of their missionary message. Missionaries faithful to this message will live in a manner that demonstrates deep gratitude for and dependence upon the gospel of Christ. Love for that gospel and that Christ will fuel their missionary ambitions.

In preparing candidates for missionary service, one of the local church’s tasks is to observe ongoing growth in godliness. Many churches have sent young people zealous for missions but lacking in spiritual maturity. Churches would do well, then, to ask a few diagnostic questions:

Does the word of God order their affections and behaviors?
Do they fight sin by the power and promises of the word?
Are their minds set on things above, or do they waste their time with social media and worldly anxieties?

Questions like these provide important data points for churches as they aim to send missionaries who are devoted to the truth, increasingly conformed to the image of Christ, and exemplary models for others.

Second, prospective missionaries need to know God’s word well enough to communicate it faithfully and effectively to others. Missions is fundamentally theological work. It requires missionaries to proclaim truth and teach others to know and follow Christ. The ability to faithfully explain sound doctrine and the meaning of biblical texts is not secondary to this task. Theological error, confusion, and syncretism easily arise in places where the gospel is newly advancing. This danger should encourage churches to send theologically astute members to lay solid foundations for the church in unreached regions of the world.

Sending churches can seek to discern candidates’ giftedness for proclamatory ministry by asking questions like these:

How frequently, clearly, and boldly do they share the gospel with others?
Can they give examples of people they’ve discipled and what that discipleship looked like?
Are they able and willing to gain fluency in another language and culture for the purpose of clear and credible communication of Christian doctrine?
Would we entrust them to teach in our Sunday assembly or in our Sunday school classes?

3. Fitness for the Task

Many influential evangelical voices have appealed to any and every Christian to consider becoming a missionary. Unfortunately, the emphasis on urgency sometimes overshadows the importance of sending those who are mature and competent.

The Bible does not call every Christian to be a missionary. Instead, it suggests that certain types of people will make good missionaries according to the abilities God gives them (Romans 12:6). The apostle John tells us that we ought to support gospel laborers “like these” or, more literally, “ones of such a kind” (3 John 8). We are wise to preserve a distinct category for those who go out “for the sake of the name” as evangelists, disciple-makers, church planters, and teachers (3 John 7). Churches can seek to use Spirit-led reason and judgment to determine which members they might faithfully send and what roles they might be best suited for.

Church leaders would do well to patiently observe the faithfulness and fruitfulness of members who aspire to minister cross-culturally. Just because someone desires the task does not mean he is competent for it. Discernment will come as churches fan the flames of those desires and test candidates’ zeal by guiding them toward robust preparation. If they endure and demonstrate effectiveness, churches can give them greater responsibilities and opportunities to develop. Asking pointed questions, calling attention to character flaws, challenging them toward growth, and watching how they respond form important aspects of this preparation.

At the end of the day, the nations need those your church would prefer not to lose — the people you would hire on staff, recommend for church office, or entrust with a major ministry area. We are not wise stewards if we send the unprepared and immature to the nonexistent or fledgling church abroad while we stack our own church staffs with the equipped and gifted. Be willing to dispatch to the nations those you’ve poured countless hours into, those you’ve seen grow in ministry effectiveness, those who have a proven track record of holiness and faithfulness to the word.

King Jesus transforms the nations through ordinary believers — each with weaknesses and sin struggles. But let us not use this as an excuse to send ill-equipped and premature people to the front lines of this work. If our goal in missions is to proclaim the gospel, make disciples, and gather them into healthy local churches, we will send people who love the church, know the word, and are fit for the task.