Missions (9Marks Building Healthy Churches Series)
Every local church should be engaged with global missions, even if most individuals in the church aren't called to go overseas. But what does this engagement actually look like? How can local churches train, send, and support missionaries well?
Unpacking principles from the Bible and applying them in the context of real life in a local church, this new book in the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series is filled with practical steps and advice for supporting missionaries, forming international partnerships, sending short-term teams, and engaging with the nations here at home. This book casts a vision for the local church as the engine of world missions—for the joy of all people and the glory of God.
- Series Preface
- Foreword by David Platt
- Introduction: Missions at a Crossroad
- A Biblical Foundation for Missions
- First Things First
- Sending and Supporting Well
- Getting the House in Order
- Healthy Missions Partnerships
- Reforming Short-Term Missions
- Engaging the Nations by Other Means
- Conclusion: Stepping toward the Nations
- Notes
- General Index
- Scripture Index
Top Highlights
“So again, I’ll stick with the historic, traditional understanding of a missionary as someone identified and sent out by local churches to make the gospel known and to gather, serve, and strengthen local churches across ethnic, linguistic, or geographic divides.” (Page 36)
“The core of missions preparation is not missions studies. It is godliness and Bible knowledge and evangelistic zeal and love for Christ’s church and a passion to see Christ glorified.” (Page 47)
“From the very beginning we should decide that every short-term trip will aim to benefit the work of long-term missionaries and local believers.” (Page 92)
“Missionaries are not just self-styled free agents. They should be accountable to a specific local church.” (Page 39)
“And he has told us that his global mission will advance through holy lives, faithful prayer, gospel proclamation, and healthy reproducing churches.” (Page 28)
I love this book. I love the way it begins and ends with the glory of God in the gospel. I love the way it places the local church at the center of both sending missionaries and the task of mission. I love the way it’s driven by biblical principles yet full of practical advice. All the ingredients are here to transform the place of world missions in your congregation. World mission is our responsibility, your responsibility.
Tim Chester, pastor, Grace Church, Boroughbridge, United Kingdom; faculty member, Crosslands; author, Good News to the Poor and Mission Matters
What a helpful book! Andy Johnson has a clear eye on the gospel as he helps us think through the basic principles a sending church needs to have in place before anyone leaves for the field. Drawing on years of experience as a missions pastor, Andy skillfully and winsomely tackles what it means to have healthy mission partnerships. He then helps us think through a number of modern missionary issues: short terms, the international church, and more. I long for every church with a shred of missions interest to read and apply this book.
J. Mack Stiles, author, Evangelism; Marks of the Messenger, Mack and Leeann’s Guide to Short Term Missions and Speaking of Jesus
I am grateful for Johnson’s wise, sensitive, and practical insights for the local church committed to going global. While written by a North American, this book is neither culturally bound nor ethnocentrically blind. The issues addressed apply to any healthy local church anywhere in the world. In other words, Missions is thoroughly biblical. And for this reason, those like me who minister in another culture will find its lessons doable. I heartily recommend it, praying that God will grant it a wide readership, for his global glory.
Doug Van Meter, pastor-teacher, Brackenhurst Baptist Church, Johannesburg, South Africa
- Title: Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global
- Authors: Andy Johnson, David Platt
- Series: 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches
- Publisher: Crossway
- Print Publication Date: 2017
- Logos Release Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Mission of the church; Missions
- Resource ID: LLS:9781433555732
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-19T04:01:41Z
Andy Johnson (PhD, Texas A&M) serves as an associate pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC.