Missionary Aspirations

Dear Victorious,

I'm a senior in high school and would like to be a missionary. I can't seem to find any information about what a missionary does. What is a good job description for a missionary?

David T.

Dear David,

Missionary is kind of a broad concept. In terms of a job description, it can mean lots of things - because missionaries serve in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most surprising definition of a missionary is found in country's where the government does not allow open missionary work. There the missionaries must enter with some trade or secular skill, and work in that capacity while ministering to the people they find there.

The best information I know of about what a missionary does comes from the New Testament, specifically with the book of Acts or Romans, where we can see what the Apostle Paul and his peers did on their missionary journeys. Let's take a look.

The Bible says that all people inherently know that God exists, but since the fall of Adam and Eve we have suppressed our relationship with Him by way of our sinful nature. We may even deny the existence of God because we don't want to deal with it. Missionaries confront such mindsets, pointing people to God.

Although people may believe there is a God, they still don't commit themselves to Him. Missionaries help to persuade them (to make that commitment) through loving words and caring actions. In other words, they see Christ in the missionary and find that attractive.

Missionaries convince people who reject God of the danger of their disobedience. They help people understand the eternal consequences of their choices. In other words, missionaries call people to repentance and show them how to confess and turn from their sins.

Churches on the aggregate must obey the Great Commission (to take the Good News to all the world). Missionaries help the churches do that. It isn't practical for most churches to have their people running all over the world preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ. So they support missionaries in partnership to obey the Great Commission.

People may know about God, but they need to be told about Jesus, and how, through Him, they can have a personal relationship with God. They need to be taught how to surrender their lives to Christ and live for Him. Knowing God is not enough. People must learn that God is loving. they must understand what He did to demonstrate His love for us. They must be shown how to accept God's forgiveness of their sins.

Finally, I imagine if you asked most missionaries what their job entails, many would use the word sacrifice. Most missionaries I've ever known or heard of found that making sacrifices was a necessary and regular part of their job. That could mean doing without conveniences, or it could range up to suffering or even death. More than one missionary has been jailed, tortured or killed as they went about executing their missionary calling.

Different organizations that do mission work may have different job descriptions that would help you understand what they're specifically asking someone to do. That could be teaching in a school, building a church, running a business, providing medical care, flying supplies, providing disaster relief, translating the Bible into a local dialect or a whole host of other jobs. The thing you would do well to remember is the Biblical illustrations of a missionary's objectives. Then understand that you'll need to be obedient and attentive to those responsibilities (that I've listed above) as you go about execution of whatever tasks you may be assigned in the process.