The theme for this year’s Missions Month is “Knowing Christ and Making Him Known”, and the theme applies to our missionary partners globally and locally – and also to all of us as believers in Jesus.
Our Scriptural theme this year is taken from Isaiah 6. When Isaiah had been saved by faith “your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for”, he responded to the call of God to go and proclaim the Gospel message by saying “Here I am! Send me”. Similarly in Matthew 4:19, Jesus calls to brothers Simon and Andrew saying, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men”. Those who are called by the Savior are transformed and respond to the call to make him known!
Os Guinness referred to the same thematic idea by using the words “Primary Calling” and “Secondary Callings”. Our Primary Calling is to Christ (to faith, to fellowship with Him, to The Kingdom, to eternal life, and to holy living). And our call to Christ works itself out in Secondary Callings – to human family, church, community, and our vocational work. These secondary callings flow from the primary calling. As ambassadors of Christ, we make Him known in the various spheres of our callings.
The questions for us and our missionary partners, therefore, are:
- How is your relationship with Christ? Are you daily surrendered to Him for His glory alone?
- Is His life, which flows through us, resulting in fruit for the Kingdom?
“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples”.
– John 15:8
May this Missions Month conference be a time when we all grow in knowing Christ and making Him known.
Pastor
Reverend Chris Peters, Ph.D. (with help from my Ghost Writer, Paul Johnson)
