The Big Idea

So, as promised in our email, I'll do my best to answer the question, "Why are we here?" (This will be beneficial for me, too.) In common missions vocabulary we would describe our work as church planting. However, Jesus tells us that He will build his church (that's His job) - He's told us to make disciples of all nations (and the words he uses in Matt. 28:18-20 suggest that He had all people groups in mind, not just political nations). Southern Mexico is home to the largest concentration of people groups in all of the Americas and at least 40 of those groups are unreached. "Unreached" means there is no church in the group capable of evangelizing the rest of the people in the area. For more information on the area we're working in check out: http://www.globalfrontiermissions.com/oaxaca.html.

Our goal here is to make disciples (people who fully obey the commands of Christ); and our role (as foreign workers) is limited and temporary. Our part is to first scatter the seed broadly enough to find and then train the first generation of good soil, the people who will reproduce themselves in a spiritually sense 30, 60, or 100 times over (Read Luke 8: 5-15 if this sounds too agrarian.) Once we see the people we have taught to follow Christ teaching others to do the same we'll know that we're close to working ourselves out of a job.

We acknowledge that there are many long-term workers serving Christ in foreign countries through medical missions, overseeing orphanages, and many other worthy things. While we see benevolence as an integral part of following Christ we don't feel led to oversee long-term compassion ministries here in Mexico. Nor do we see a point in serving here long-term as pastors or administrators for the churches that we see raised up. Rather we want to equip our disciples to appoint their own local leaders and to take responsibility for impacting their communities with the love of God as they respond to Christ's commands in the context of their own culture. ultimately depend on the Holy Spirit rather than foreign missionaries. With that said, one can see just how definable and definite our role is and why one day (hopefully in the not-too-distant future) we hope to be packing our bags and entrusting the fulfillment of the great commission to the local believers and the Spirit of God that guides them.

Our church planting team is not the only group working to see this accomplished in this region. Hopefully soon we'll be able to post again to give you an idea of some of the others who are on the same mission.