Next Door Missions
Mission Moment Monday is a weekly blog post meant to give your family practical ways to cultivate Family Missions.
Missional living is a call for each of us. We serve a God who loves his people and who offers us a role in his great plan. He allows us to carry his gospel to the world. What an amazing gift!
We may not be able to fly off to the other side of the world this week but we can be a part of God's great commission of making disciples of all nations.
In fact, God has made it pretty simple for us.
He gave us neighbors.
Right across the street, twenty steps away are neighbors who God loves, who God adores, and who he wants us engaging and loving!
Sometimes we over analyze things, at least I know I do. I can over analyze myself right out of God’s plan, which includes making relationships with those he has placed around me.
If I'm being honest, engaging my neighbors isn't the easiest thing for me. I hate awkward silences, and sometimes I feel very inadequate.
Usually my conversations with God go something like this:
"God, I know you want me to engage my neighbors, but I have no idea what to say? They’re probably busy anyway."
"They probably aren’t home (even though I see their vehicle in the driveway)."
"I might be coming down with something (cough) so I wouldn’t want to give it to them."
Do you hear it? Do you hear I'm only focused on me?
I tend to get so focused on me and my failures, inadequacies and sin that I miss the point. The point being that IT'S NOT ABOUT ME.
In his mercy he has allowed us to be apart of the plan, but we are not the point. He is the point.
Its about him and his power. His grace and love. His strength through our weaknesses.
As 2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”
The Bible is filled with men and women who God uses in their weaknesses. I love that God does this! He uses those that no one else would use. That's good news for me because that's the category I fit in. He doesn't ask us to know everything, or to be something, he simply asks us to be willing. It is all for his glory and it is all through his power, so lets quit looking to ourselves and instead focus on the confidence in Him, that he will work in and through us.
The point is... just start. Put one foot in front of the other and go knock on the door. Be wiling to start a conversation.
It comes down to trust.
Trust that God is gonna do what he says he will do.
Trust that we don't have to be eloquent or awesome, because He is.
So, lets trust when he says he will do the work, if only we would take those steps of obedience. Lets all be willing to invite someone to dinner, take them some treats, offer to serve in someway. These are the things we are called to do, not because we are so awesome that God needs us, but rather God is so awesome that he uses us, the weak, the flawed, the broken, to fulfill His plan.
His beautiful redemptive plan.
Yes, we are all called to missions.
Go next door and just knock.
Nicole Kraus is a partner in the Gospel ministry with her husband in Highland Village, TX, where they disciple their two children and serve alongside their home church, The Village.
