The Heart of Missions

Pastor Byron Chae

Missions is not a foreign concept to most churches today. Many churches are already preparing to send short-term teams this summer, whether across Canada or overseas. Yet it is still worth pausing to ask: What is missions? What is the purpose of missions? Why are we sending short-term missions teams every year?

Missions has become a familiar part of church life today. There is no doubt that it’s because faithful men and women before us were deeply convinced of the authority of Scripture and the centrality of the local church in God’s redemptive work for missions. Among them, William Carey stands as a foundational figure in the rise of modern Protestant missions. In his well-known work, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, Carey challenged the Particular Baptists to recover their biblical responsibility to proclaim the gospel and make disciples of all nations.

That burden eventually led to the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792, along with Carey’s exhortation: “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” But Carey’s vision was not merely pragmatic or strategic. It was profoundly ecclesiological. His goal was not simply the conversion of new believers but the gathering of believers into faithful local churches. He longed to see mature disciples, biblically ordered churches planted, and faithful pastors equipped for a lifetime of gospel ministry.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit Carey Baptist Church and Serampore College in West Bengal, India, where the lasting fruit of Carey’s missionary labour, alongside Joshua Marshman and William Ward, can still be witnessed. After more than 230 years, it was evident that their missionary labour was marked by Bible translation, the training of leaders, and most importantly, the planting and strengthening of the local churches. In other words, Carry’s missionary labour was not detached from the local church. It was carried out to establish healthy churches and strengthening those churches by equipping believers towards maturity.

So, what is missions? How should we engage in missions? What should be the goal of missions, whether it’s short-term or long-term? As we consider these questions, it may be worth reflecting on Carey’s ecclesia-centric vision of missions. Missions is not merely about going somewhere, nor is it for our personal benefit or growth. Missions is about proclaiming the gospel, making disciples, and seeing those disciples gathered into healthy local churches for the glory of God. At the heart of missions is God’s redemptive work among the unreached nations carried out through the local church and in the local church as Jesus promised: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt 16:18, ESV)

May we see a generation of mature disciples equipped to strengthen the local churches and sent out as qualified workers for missions.