Rocks and Keys for the Global Missio Dei

Intro

My name is Matt Prine (picture of family??)

I have been married to my bride Cammy for 14 years and we have five children, Jude (10), Jace (8), Jackson (6), Evangeline (almost 4), and Jasper (almost 2).

I have served as a pastor in the local church setting since 2006 - and I currently serve at a church called Restoration Church in Bryan, TX.

I also serve as the Global Engagement Coordinator for a missions agency called WorldVenture.

In this role, I spend most of my time connecting with churches and pastors who are trying to create pipelines of workers going to the nations.

This includes long and mid-term workers as well as short term teams.

I love getting to brainstorm with pastors how to get their congregations engaged with the Great Commission work.

I have been doing this with WorldVenture for almost 5 years and have seen the Lord move in some bigs ways in that time.

Many of you may be familiar with WorldVenture - because you have some workers with WorldVenture.

Jason and Keri Gupta who are members here, I believe.

If you are not familiar with the Guptas, they have been serving in Ukraine for years, but have since taken on a leadership position within WorldVenture - now serving as Global Directors for the Americas.

They have been settling into this new role beautifully.

You also support the Newkirks who serve in Sengal and the McDonnels who serve in Ukraine.

But from what I understand, you have several workers, beyond the ones I listed who are serving cross culturally.

So, in part, I want to thank you for engaging in the support and ministry of these workers.

There is still a formidable task ahead...

But I also want to come and challenge you to engage more fully in what the Lord is doing from here to the ends of the earth.

There is still a formidable task ahead.

According to the Joshua Project, right now there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.34 Billion people who are considered “unreached”

A person who is among an Unreached People Group isn’t an unbeliever because they have not responded to the message of Jesus.

They are unbelievers because they have zero access to hear the gospel.

Statistically, they will never walk past a Christian, much less hear the gospel presented to them in their heart language.

Now, let’s zoom out a bit from here and talk about those that simply don’t know Jesus - regardless of if they have had access or not.

According to The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, the global population of Christians is somewhere around 2.56 Billion people.

Global population at the time I wrote this was 7.97 billion people.

What does this mean?

This means that more than 5.4 Billion people do not claim Christ in any way, shape, or form.

To help you gain a perspective of the magnitude of this, if each of these people were to represent 1 second, then this would be more than 171 years.

Just so we are clear, these 5.4 billion people, when their lungs stop transferring oxygen to their blood and when their brain function ceases, they will slip into a Christ-less eternity.

3.34 Billion of them without even the opportunity to hear that Jesus lived and died for them.

I don’t want to get overly simplistic here, or be “Polly-Annish” in my thinking, but you do understand that if everyone who claims Christianity were to take personal responsibility for explicitly and clearly sharing the gospel with three people, then we would hit virtually every person on the planet?

That takes this task from formidable to doable.

The Commission

Most of us are familiar with the Words of Jesus in Matthew 28: 18-20 where He said:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

He further clarified this commission, this command, by saying this in Acts 1:8

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Both of these

There have been many people who have said something along these lines in the past - but God doesn’t have a mission for His church… He has a church for His mission.

1. Confession demands contradiction

Confessing Christ naturally demands that you reject what the world says about Jesus to embrace what the Word says about Jesus.

He is not just a good man

He isn’t a good teacher or a prophet

He is the Messiah

He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!

2. He builds the Church

3. The Church kicks in the gates of Hell