You are where you are for a reason. Your vocation, your neighbors, your community and your many associations are a world you inhabit to which you were sent. Every one of us has a sphere of influence that involves at least one other person and that makes us eternally significant.

If you ever heard about God sending people to the mission field and assumed everyone like you who didn’t go are somehow without a mission, you assumed wrong. In terms of mission, there is no difference between you and me and Joe Missionary heading out to some South American jungle. In fact, in most environments we can accomplish more than a missionary can because people see a missionary coming and say, “Look, here comes a missionary!” and whatever they think of missionaries is immediately predisposed upon you regardless of who you are. People also excuse a missionary’s faith because that is what missionaries are supposed to have. They probably wouldn’t ask a missionary a whole lot of questions about their faith unless they were really seeking God.

I guess I’m thinking about all the people, who, for whatever reason, are not seeking God, but who might be interested in meeting Him if they knew He wasn’t part of a missionary’s agenda.

Contrast this to being just a regular guy. See, if you are just a regular guy, someone might say, “Look here comes a regular guy,” and treat you like they would anyone else. There are no expectations or predispositions. They see you like a normal person (which you are) and they may not be expecting you to have a strong faith in Christ (which you do), so when you end up having one and they already like you and respect you, they will have to give credence at some level to what you have to say, even if they were already predisposed in some way against that belief.

Don’t get this wrong either. We are not surreptitious. We are not stealth bombers slipping in under the radar and waiting for the proper moment to drop our bombs on people; we are simply people with a mission who do not broadcast it. Our mission, anyway, is not offensive. It is ultimately to love people and tell them what Jesus means to us, when given the opportunity. Some people will find Jesus offensive no matter what we do, but if we have their respect and they are still offended, we will know for sure about the offense. I think it is probably safe to say that more people today are offended by Christians and/or Christianity than they are by Christ.

More people need to have the opportunity to be introduced to Christ, and who, but you, could have a better chance to give them that opportunity, since you are an unMissionary on a mission?

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