Share this page:
TL;DR:
Many Christians want the gospel to reach all nations, yet sustaining a passion for world evangelism can be difficult. Emotional appeals concerning spiritual lostness or social crises may fade, while appeals based solely on obedience can produce guilt or a mere sense of duty. The most enduring motivation comes when believers’ hearts align with God’s heart—His deep love for people who have little or no access to the gospel. This page also includes a MOTIVATION acrostic encouraging involvement in world evangelism.
What is the best way to mobilize support for world evangelism? How do we help people develop a passion for praying, giving, mobilizing others, or even going themselves?
Would talking about the spiritual condition of billions of people who do not know Christ be powerful enough in and of itself to motivate people? Unfortunately, people may eventually tune out repeated appeals about almost any subject, including the tragedy of people dying without ever hearing the gospel. Sometimes, believers may even push back against repeated pleas to get involved in reaching unreached people in faraway places.
Another way to motivate people is to offer them opportunities to respond to physical needs and social injustices worldwide, including human trafficking, extreme poverty, malnutrition, gaps in health care, and limited educational opportunities. Sadly, appealing to physical and material needs can become like promoting a "flavor of the month." By that, I mean that missions passion aroused solely by physical needs runs hot or cold depending on how strongly the particular need being promoted appeals to people's emotions.
So, if thinking about lost people and hearing about unmet basic human needs can both fall short as motivators, what about simply urging people to be obedient? After all, clear commands about world evangelism appear in Scripture, with Jesus' Great Commission in Matthew 28:19–20 being the best-known. Quite frankly, it is our duty to "make disciples of all nations." Unfortunately, missions passion built solely on a call to obey can diminish over time, and people wind up halfheartedly supporting world evangelism only because they know they are supposed to. Or worse, the plea for obedience to God may morph into a self-righteous complaint about how much one person is doing compared with everyone else.
Could the most effective way to awaken a passion for world missions be to help people bring their hearts into harmony with God's heart—or at least encourage them to seek His heart? God doesn't ask His people to proclaim the Good News far and wide simply to keep us occupied. Doesn't He command us to do so because He loves every single person on earth? Sadly, many people today have little or no access to the gospel.
People frequently profess to love God "with all our hearts." If people are truly and deeply in love with God, shouldn't their passion for ends-of-the-earth evangelism line up with God's burning desire for it?
Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia, captured this concept when he wrote, "The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become."
To be sure, thinking about humanity's lost condition, hearing about staggering human needs, or being reminded that world evangelism is every Christian's duty may set some hearts on fire. Individually, however, each of those three starting points may prove inadequate by itself. Do we want to develop a lasting passion for world evangelism? If so, a call to get our hearts in tune with the desire of God's heart will likely be the most powerful and long-lasting foundation on which to make appeals for involvement in supporting ends-of-the-earth outreach.
The reflection above was one of 20 articles published in the "Mission Briefing" series in Engage, a monthly online magazine produced by the Church of the Nazarene. The separate mini-essay below belongs to another Engage series: 12 reflections on sayings about fulfilling the Great Commission.
What breaks your heart?
This is one of 12 mini-essays in the Engage series on stirring sayings about fulfilling the Great Commission.
I have Christian friends whose hearts get broken when things in the political arena do not turn out as they had hoped. I know believers whose hearts get broken over the ups and downs of their favorite sports teams. Some people's hearts get broken by the outcomes of television programs.
Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision, urged believers to allow their hearts to be broken by something far more important than all those things. He called on Christians to bring their hearts into such close harmony with God's heart that they would be broken by the things that break His.
What breaks God's heart? I do not think it is the outcome of a sporting event, a television show, a particular election, or the direction of the stock market. God's heart is broken because so many of the people He created are estranged from Him. For instance, God revealed His concern for the people of Nineveh in His words to Jonah (Jonah 4:11). Remember also that Jesus wept over the waywardness of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41).
Bob Pierce was an American evangelist whose encounters with children in need during his travels in Asia in the late 1940s deeply affected him. Those experiences led him to establish World Vision in 1950 to serve children and communities facing poverty and hardship.
Later, as Pierce raised awareness of World Vision's ministry, he often prayed that his heart would be broken by the things that break God's heart.
Wouldn't that be a good prayer for us to pray as well?
— Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
Christians may be motivated to spread the gospel throughout the world by a variety of factors, both religious and practical. Here are seven of the principal motivations:
M – Mobilize hearts through prayer and purpose
O – Open doors for the gospel with love and compassion
T – Take the message to every tribe and tongue
I – Invest time, talent, and treasure in missions
V – Value every soul as Christ does
A – Act boldly, trusting in God's provision
T – Train and send workers into His harvest
I – Intercede for nations still unreached
O – Overcome obstacles with faith and perseverance
N – Never lose sight of the Great Commission
"You cannot disciple anyone if you do not have a connection with them." — Nikki Boone, Nazarene Bible College student