"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" -Romans 10:14-15
I took my first mission trip as a 22 year old married man. My wife and I joined a mission trip my brother was leading to China. To be more accurate we went to China, Mexico. A Little town a couple hours south of our hometown. No Great Wall, or sweet and sour chicken where we went, but it was still a great trip.
This trip was a combination of hard labor and teaching the Bible while having fun with orphan kids. I have to say, my brother planned a well-balanced mission trip. We sweat and worked hard, as well as shared The Gospel, and spent time loving on people. Fortunately, this mission trip not only got my stamp of approval, but more importantly, it meet the Biblical standard for missions as well.
The book The Ology by Marty Machowski talks about the idea of an airplane. In this kids book explains that a plane needs two things to fly. It needs an engine to push it and wings to give it lift. A plane that has an engine but no wings is just a car with its doors open! It can go fast, but cannot fly. A plane with wings but no engine is like a buzz light year toy! At best, it can fall with style. For a plane to do what it was intended to do (fly) it needs both.
At Cross-Work, we like to think of our missions and outreach like that plane. It takes an engine and wings. For our missions and outreach efforts to do what we intend for them to do, we must meet needs and proclaim Jesus.
Meeting needs is not that difficult, if we remain observant. We look to see where our town or people in our community have needs, and we step up to help out. But our efforts should not end there. We should do more than hope that people we serve recognize in who’s name we do things in. Being nice won’t help people avoid Hell. The Bible teaches we need to proclaim Jesus.
We want to be ready to leverage meeting needs for sharing the Gospel. We want to proclaim Jesus. We want to be ready to tell people why we are helping out. We help out because Jesus helped us first! We are just trying to be smaller versions of Jesus.
This why at Cross-Work, we strive to do both: Meet Needs and Proclaim Jesus.
Your favorite church planter,
Mike Watt