Time for a guessing game! Who has the following mission statement? “To act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”?1 If you guessed the BBC, you are right.
What about this one? “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”2 You may have guessed that this one is from none other than Google, the online search engine, and you would be right again.
These two companies, and many like them, have something in common that the Christian church should also share. BBC, Google and other companies have a mission to get their products and services out to the entire world, not just their own backyard, neighborhood, state or even country. Their mission is to reach the entire planet.
Can we as Christians dream of reaching the whole world–every nation, territory and people group? Although we personally may not have envisioned this ideal before, God wants to see it happen. Throughout the Bible, we see God’s mission to reach the whole world with the gospel:
“All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You” (Psalm 22:27, NKJV).
“Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! for I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22, NKJV).
“Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people…” (Revelation 14:6, NKJV).
God desires that all peoples on this earth should know Him. In Matthew 24:14, Jesus said that the gospel of the kingdom would be “preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (NKJV, emphasis mine).
The bad news is that, after almost 2,000 years, we have not yet completed the work that Jesus asked us to do. There are over three billion people who still need to have a consistent, Christ-filled witness living in their communities and sharing the love of Jesus with them.
The good news is that you (Yes, you!) can join God’s mission in helping to fulfill this great need of the world. God does not want us to sit idly by and watch Google, the BBC, and other companies do better at reaching the whole earth. He asks us to join Him in being a part of His movement, and we can start preparing for and participating in that work today.
Make this your mission statement: Join God’s mission in filling the whole earth with the knowledge of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and His soon return. You can be a living witness who goes to share the gospel of Jesus with those who have never heard. Please get in touch with us at service@afmonline.org so we can help you take the first steps.
