In the church I grew up in, “missionary” was a sacred and scary title, bestowed only upon the spiritual elite, the Navy Seals of the Christian world. We considered them heroes, sat in awe through their slideshows, and gladly donated our money to their ministries.

It was years later when I first realized that every Christian is a missionary, that all Christians are called to leverage their lives and talents for the kingdom. God’s calling into mission is not a separate call we receive years after our salvation. It’s inherent in the very call to salvation.

Every believer is given a spiritual gift and a role to play in the spread of the Great Commission. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “And I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19 ESV). That’s for everyone, not just those who have a special tingly feeling they interpret as the call of God, or those who see some message from heaven spelled out in the clouds. Too many Christians sit around waiting on a “voice” to tell them what God has already spelled out in a verse.

Another way to put it: the question is no longer if we are called to leverage our lives for the Great Commission; it’s only where and how.

“The question is no longer if we are called to leverage our lives for the Great Commission; it’s only where and how.”

Blessed Anonymity

When “normal” Christians embrace this idea of calling, the gospel spreads like a prairie grassfire. Luke, the writer of Acts, goes out of his way to show us that the gospel travels faster around the world from the mouths of regular Christians than it does through full-time, vocational Christian workers. Luke notes, for example, that the first time the gospel left Jerusalem, it wasn’t from the mouths of the apostles. Regular people went everywhere preaching the word while the apostles stayed in Jerusalem (Acts 8:1–4).

The first time the gospel actually went out into the world, not a single apostle was involved.

• The first “international mission trip” was taken later in that same chapter by Philip, another layman. The Spirit carried him to a desert road where he met an Ethiopian government official, and Philip led him to Christ.
• The church at Antioch, which served as the hub for missionary activity for the last half of the book of Acts, wasn’t planted by an apostle but simply by “some brothers,” whose names Luke didn’t even bother to record—presumably because no one would’ve known whom he was talking about.
• Apollos, a layman, first carried the gospel into Ephesus, and unnamed brothers first established the church at Rome. These Christians didn’t travel to Rome on a formal mission trip but were carried there through the normal relocations that come with business and life. As they went, they made disciples in every place (Acts 8:4–8, 26–40; 18:24–19:1; 28:15).

“Too many Christians sit around waiting on a ‘voice’ to tell them what God has already spelled out in a verse.”

As the historian Stephen Neill notes, “Nothing is more notable than the anonymity of these early missionaries. . . . Luke does not turn aside to mention the name of a single one of those pioneers who laid the foundation. Few, if any, of the great churches were really founded by apostles. Peter and Paul may have organized the church in Rome. They certainly did not found it.”

Next Missions Wave: Ordinary Believers on Mission

The next wave of missions will be carried forward, I believe, in much the same way—on the wings of business. Consider this: if you overlay a map of world poverty with a map of world evangelization, you’ll find that the areas most in need of business development are also the most unevangelized. Many of the most unreached places in the world, most closed to Christian missionaries, have arms wide open to any kind of businessmen.

Missiologists frequently refer to a “10/40 window” in which the most unreached peoples live (lying between the 10- and 40-degree latitude lines). For business leaders, the 10/40 window isn’t a window at all. It’s a wide open door.

“For business leaders, the 10/40 window isn’t a window at all. It’s a wide open door.”

God may not call you to leave the United States (though he might!). But if you’re a believer, he’s calling you to follow him where he goes, as he seeks to make his name known. Whether you’re an investment banker or a full-time pastor, a stay-at-home mom or an overseas missionary, God has a mission for you. From Raleigh-Durham to Dubai, the responsibility to think that way belongs to every believer. As we often say, “Whatever you are good at, do it well for the glory of God, and do it somewhere strategic for the mission of God.”

It’s time for the “ordinary believers” in our churches to recover the understanding that they are called to the mission and are shaped by God for a specific role in that mission. The question is no longer if we’re called to leverage our lives for the Great Commission. It’s only a matter of where and how.

J. D. Greear is president of the Southern Baptist Convention and the pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. He is the author of Gospel, Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart, Jesus, Continued and Not God Enough: Why Your Small God Leads to Big Problems.

Related:

• Let’s Stop Romanticizing Missions (Chad Bird)
• Limitless (Editorial Staff)
• Let’s Rethink Our Language of ‘Calling’ (Greg Handley)