Am I a Missionary?

Driving to church today I realized that David and I could technically be called “missionaries”. But then I began to ask myself, “what is my mission?” and even far more bewildering, “what is an “ary”?” In regards to the latter question, my answer must be (and will probably always remain) that I have no idea what an “ary” is and therefore I cannot be one.

However, looking at the former question, I am sure that many would have a handful of good answers for me. Your “mission”, they would say is …the great commission…the conversion of lost souls…to seek and save the lost….to preach the gospel (who’s version?)….and on the list could go. And while none of those answers is wrong, none of them really encompass the whole, and so none of them quite fit.

So what is my mission? If I see mission as the job I am to DO, then perhaps one of the above answers fits my question. But if I see mission as something I am to BE, then…well…there has to be another “answer”. And what is it that I am to be? A follower of Jesus who commits to the gospel of “Jesus is Lord”. In that small phrase stands all the difference.

I will follow Jesus – in His causes, where He leads me, in the way that He does things, in His attitudes towards the Father, people, creation and situations
Committed to the gospel of Jesus is Lord – therefore my life (and every part of it) is under His kingship, I am part of His unfolding kingdom here and now, and I get to live out now how I will live then (in my thoughts, actions, words, everything)

So my mission –“simply seeking, receiving, and manifesting the kingdom of God, the reign of God, the reality of God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven” – leaves the realm of something I am simply doing and enters a more holistic world of something I am both doing and becoming. I become missional rather then just a missionary.