Google seems to believe that mission should involve travel, when it defines it as ‘An important assignment carried out for political, religious, or commercial purposes, typically involving travel’.
Now I am not trying to degrade or criticise those travelling abroad for mission as I myself aim to travel for mission in 2014 (and will be taking loads of pictures for Facebook). However, as Christian young people, I believe we should be seeing our day to day life as a mission trip whether we are at school or work.
Yeah, it’s scary to be so honest about our faith and beliefs. As teenagers we are constantly bombarded by the pressurising social media encouraging us all to ‘fit in’. But the media is deluded as it is constantly encouraging us young people to be ‘comfortable in our own skin’, while constantly disapproving of celebrities’ weights, fashion sense and even personalities! So why should we care what people think?
I have a friend who is from a non-Christian family, but started attending my Christian youth group and never taking part in any of the activities. However gradually over a year she seemed more and more interested in Christianity, and after a while (and also a lot of me trying pluck up the courage), I asked her if she wanted to come to church with me. To my surprise she replied ‘yeah sure’. This was the start of her journey as a Christian. Since that day she has grown in faith and was even able to bring her non-Christian mother to my church on my baptism. I am so relieved I asked her! I was one of the key people in her life involved in bringing her to faith and spreading the word of God to her. This - in my opinion - is mission.
In Britain we are extremely fortunate to have so much freedom to express our beliefs and thoughts, so we should be taking advantage of this. I’m not saying stand in the middle of the street shouting ‘I BELIEVE IN GOD AND SO SHOULD YOU!’ because I, like many people my age, would avoid this with all my strength. The word ‘missionary’ sounds extremely grand and often holds the connotations of an extremely confident and loud person preaching their views to massive crowds. But we must be realistic; not all of us are confident or loud. So how can a quiet person take part in mission? In my opinion mission is not all about this big gestures but also the small ones (for example saying ‘God bless’ or ‘I’m praying’). These small gestures also cause people to notice and question you further. You never know - this could start their journey into faith.
