Why We Go

Encourage

Verses 1-4 in the Message: 

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

If God’s love has made any difference in your life

If you have a heart, if you care

Love each other, be deep-spirited friends

Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand

We Go to Encourage (Col 4:7-18)

• Short-Term Mission Trips have limitations
  • Limited time
  • Limited language knowledge
  • Limited cultural understanding and place in a community (1 Cor 1:26-31)
  • We need realistic goals and expectations
• We are not starting or ending the work
  • We join in the ongoing work of God’s Kingdom (Mark 1:14-15)
  • Long-term missionary partners are valuable
  • Local church leaders have the greatest investment
  • We have the opportunity to encourage these leaders

We encourage

• Through presence (1 Cor 5:10-11)
  • In Helping Without Hurting in Sort-Term Missions there is a story about a local mission partner welcoming a mission team by saying, “Ninety percent of your job is done. You’re here, your presence speaks volumes”
  • Our presence reminds mission partners that they are not alone in their work
  • Our presence reinforces the connections we all have to Jesus’s Global church
• Through shared history
  • When we go to Lesotho or Zimbabwe we encourage Allison because she is a part of this church family’s history
  • Her first missions experience was as a member of an FBNO team
  • We remind our partners that they are not working alone but are part of a larger family
• Through enthusiasm, passion, and energy
  • When reinforcements show up it lifts spirits
  • When someone shows up and wants to learn about and join in what you love and do it propels you forward
  • When we take a group to serve it reenergizes the ongoing work
  • They are not alone, but are joined by distant relatives who “Share the same mind, and one love”

Learn

We go to Learn

• We learn through an attitude of humility
  • ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
  • When we have this mindset we understand that we don’t have all the answers or have the only access to wisdom and the Holy Spirit
  • We enter another culture as guests and seek to understand not be understood (Eph 4:1-6)
• We learn by doing
  • Experiences we have on STMs shape how we understand ourselves, the world, and God.
  • Working on a STM equips us for living out the life God has called us to
  • “One reason why the body of Christ invests in short-term mission is that it is an exceptional discipleship and mission-education experience – further equipping us for a lifetime of service in God’s Kingdom” – Tim Dearborn
• We learn about our place in God’s Kingdom (1 Cor 12:12-26)
  • Realizing that the work doesn’t begin when we get there or end when we leave shapes how we understand God’s work
  • God is making all things new (Is 43:18-19)
    • We can see it in fresh ways when we are in a new culture and out of our routine
    • We are invited and allowed to participate in God’s work

Serve

We serve in obedience (Acts 1:1-10, Mat 28:18-20)

• 12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

This is Paul saying, “I’m not always going to be with you or able to lead you by the hand, so keep up the good work. It’s your responsibility now.”

We serve out of obedience and we go because Christ has sent us.

• We serve with willing hearts
  • "Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life."
  • We serve with grateful and cheerful hearts
• We serve as a way to model the love and service of Christ for a world that doesn’t understand selfless love
  • We hold on to the word of life
  • Our labor is not in vain
• We serve because to follow Christ is to serve
  • We take on the mindset of Christ Jesus
    • Who took the form of a servant
    • Who let go of his heavenly rights to humbly serve

At FBNO we “Gather to Go to the Need”

• Our life call is to follow Jesus.
  1. We lower ourselves
  2. We let go of what is rightfully ours

We go

Through Global Impact we challenge our church family to Pray, Give, and Go

• Pray for the FBNO mission work, mission partners, and the work of the Kingdom of God that we get to be involved in
• Give to missions through Global Impact
• Go
  • Go locally through Care Effect
  • Go globally
    • Ghana in September
    • Zimbabwe in June-July 2020

• Lesotho – Medical Trip in Dec 2020 – Jan 2021
• “Keep reflecting on the question, ‘How is God calling me to live differently once I’m home in light of what I experienced on this trip?’” – Tim Dearborn