The Mission Field Can Be Anywhere
Jesus’ Great Commission directs us thusly: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” [Matthew 28:16-20].
Jesus sent the disciples to “go”. The word “go” in this case meant – spread out across the Earth to establish relationships, teach them to be like Jesus, and then equip them to go do the same. In essence, it is because the disciples as Jesus told them that we are Christians today. We are no different than the original disciples in that we are to go, to baptize, to teach. In our Western understanding of the word “go” as it relates to the Great Commission we think that we have to raise thousands of dollars, pack our bags, and fly off to some Third World country or developing nation. This can be daunting, intimidating for anyone who doesn’t feel qualified to be reaching, preaching, and teaching as Jesus has told us to do.
Furthering the discomfort is that in his book Radical author David Platt states “we are all called to the mission field”. This can cause quite a bit of internal conflict when faced with Jesus’ directive and Platt’s flat statement that none of us are exempted from going to the mission field.
But to interpret both statements in this way would be shortsighted. The mission field is not only in some far away, unfamiliar land. The mission field is wherever there are people who are broken and who have not heard the life-saving message of Jesus. Those people exist not only across the world but across our country, across our community, and across the street.
The mission field is also in the prison system. Tony and I have been led to a mission field focused on the prison system and creating disciples among the incarcerated. There are some people who have expressed concern about why we would focus on people behind bars. The guilty. The people who owe a debt to society. Aren’t there better people – not criminals – to be talking with about Jesus, about the Gospel?
The question then is this: If Jesus were on earth today, would we find Him in the prisons, talking and dining with criminals and outcasts? Of course we would. Think of who he spent the most time with in the Bible. Was is the religious elite and experts? No. Jesus spent the most time around the lepers, the tax collectors, and the prostitutes – some of the most despised people in their time. If we look closer at the Bible, God used prisons as an important place for ministry.
Many of great people of the Bible experienced periods of imprisonment — Joseph, Samson, Jeremiah, Micaiah, Zedekiah, Daniel, John the Baptist, Peter, James, John, Silas, Paul, and Jesus himself, who was held in custody between his arrest and execution, and then, in death, was imprisoned in a guarded tomb. Society may intend prison to be a place of punishment, but God can use it as a place of refinement and transformation. He does not give up on those in prison but pursues them in love. It upon this Biblical foundation we at Team Expansion have built a ministry inside our local prison system.
No matter if an individual is incarcerated or not, God seeks to set prisoners free, not just from a physical prison but imprisonment by sin, ignorance, rebellion, and foolish choices. Jesus identified Himself as the source of this freedom. As this is an important part of God’s work, it is an important part of the Church’s work as well.
“...we are all called to the mission field”.
This is why many of us work in prison ministry. We recognize that from God’s perspective we on the outside of prison walls are really no different from those inside the prison walls. The main difference between us on the outside and those on this inside is that most men and women are in prison because they committed a crime. Many offenders who end up behind bars find that they have hit rock bottom in life. Hitting rock bottom is what motivates many offenders to take an honest look at their lives and cry out to God for mercy. And God is ready to give that mercy.
This is why Tony and I are dedicating a disciple-based ministry in the prison system – those people in our prison system have cried out to God for deliverance and we have obediently answered this call to be fishers of men and women in this very particular mission field. We all have the ability to be someone’s answered prayer if we take action – regardless of where the mission field is.
We have seen God working through this ministry and we have seen firsthand the transformation of the imprisoned. These people want freedom but first and foremost it is not a physical freedom they crave but freedom in Christ that transcends any physical bondage. Please understand we are God’s workers in the mission field but we take no credit for the miraculous turnaround in criminals’ lives. We are simply obedient to the Great Commission and go where we are called.
Where are you feeling called to serve? Is it that neighbor you don’t know as well as you should? Is it a refugee that has moved to your community still trying to navigate an unfamiliar country and culture? Is it the barista or convenience store worker you see every day and chat with but have never taken time to get to know beyond a simple transaction each day?
We are all called to the mission field. The mission field is just closer than you think it is.
