What's in a Word?

"I'm going on a mission trip!"  While my heart jumps when I hear about someone moved toward missions, I always wonder what "missions" really means to them.  Sometimes it's used to describe that needed, valuable trip to our own inner city.  Other times it involves a trip across the country or over the ocean to help reach out, build something, or bring healing to a needy community.  At other times it describes someone committing months, years or even their careers to engaging the unreached.

God has always been on mission.  His pursuit of the lost started in the Garden of Eden, and does not simply end in salvation.  God continues to pursue our hearts.   As He draws us deeper into worship, adoration, and understanding of His heart, He propels us out toward those He loves and for whom He died.  As with Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, we have been blessed in order to bless others. 

When God's momentum sends us beyond the reach of the local church, when it sends us to those who have little or no access to the gospel, we call that missions.  Perhaps "pioneer missions" is a better term to separate it from the common and broad usage now.  Either way, bringing the gospel to the least reached is the passion which drives VMI.

What's in a word?  The driving force of God's pursuit, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10) compels us to do no less.