Missions

The following is a continuation from the Junior Series date relating to missions.  The movements of persons to the filling of the earth have been commonly attributed to frontier escape – the act of getting away from circumstances that violate security and opportunity craved by human beings.  The political and state reasons for exploration of distant lands related to expansion of control, and the search for control of trade, riches and power – until the general frontier or rank exploitation closed.  The motivations were essentially to gain from frontiers something missing or not easily available from home environments.  Indians moved west to escape the undue pressure of the white man.  Mormons moved west to escape mistreatment to death and conflict with culture.  Even the dominance of men in the early movements was often related to escape from unhappy marriages or efforts to find a better situation for the later move of their needy families.

The advance of the church has been for the purpose of taking something to the inhabitants of other lands and frontiers – advancing that which is missing if there are no advocates for God and blessing related to the context for life anywhere in nature that includes faith in God.  Four institutions were made important to the American frontier.  If the story be told, they offered greatest influences for the evolution of American life and culture.  They included family, religion, education and government.  There was broad cooperation among the communities related to respect and mutuality.  The church movement was to carry through the command of Jesus to preach the gospel and care for the spiritual and moral needs of people.  No movement had a higher level of altruism than did the church.  The church pressed for spiritual life, decency, the advance of education, and the proper care of families, especially children, regardless of their relationship to the church.  The result was the rise of small towns across the prairie and mountains – towns that were generally wholesome and adequate for the meaning of the person and the limited society that gave fairly good health, relationships of mutual love and service, and something of simplicity to life. The rise of the large cities, sometimes unmanageable, and the advance of secularism in various accents smothered much of the mutuality and friendship related to wholesomeness, simplicity and family dominance.

The first mission of the church is to declare the gospel, and make spiritual factors (rights) integral to the local life of the people.  It has been clearly integrated in the command of Jesus, about to ascend from earth and expressing his final teaching and order – to go into all the world and preach the gospel.  It was needed when he said it, and there has been no change on it for any generation of Christians since the Apostolic Period of the first century – no change, not even slightly, in that major command to the faithful.  Serious church life/activity has always been engaged in serving the population of the earth, but that begins with the proclamation of the gospel  Off and on that accent switches with both social and spiritual needs changing places in the priority courses of the life of the church.  The social needs are so pressing and visible that it is understandable why the general movement gravitates to meeting physical needs, and become so occupied with that aspect of church life that the spiritual fades and the human side overcasts, dilutes and may lose the spiritual.  Many charitable groups, now secular in all, were begun as important secondary efforts of the church.  Even some businesses were begun with the open purpose of functioning within the open culture of the gospel even in the presentation of its products.  Usually these companies, even colleges, in a matter of a few years after the death of founders, take on a secular context.  The specific relationship to the gospel of Christ is greatly muted or lost.  I have been speaker in some annual conferences of companies and asked to accent the spiritual meaning in a whole life, even business life.  Following the retirement of the leaders, the spiritual accent is about the first change that occurs in the ongoing life of the company.  Even many churches fall into the pattern, ending up talking about great themes needed in society but bereft of the gospel presentation need for the development of individuals first and society second, but neglecting neither.  I would not join a church that did not have a mission program aimed at world evangelism both in sending the prepared missionary professional or volunteer and in human relief programming.