So, just like that, we became missionaries. Well, not exactly just like that - it really took about 6 years. But that's the perspective it took for me, at least, to understand church planting.
We are missionaries in our own city. Not by running a soup kitchen or standing on a corner with a repent-or-die banner or by hosting a crusade on the beach - there's a place for all of those things (except maybe the banner). We are person-to-person, life-to-life missionaries in a very cold, dark place that just happens to be a tropical paradise.
When we study the lives of the apostles, and the early church, that is what we see. Personal relationships, small groups of people living and sharing life together. While the message can be shared via the mass media of your choice, relationships are where lives are changed. And the best way to have a relationship with someone is one on one. It's not efficient, but God doesn't have to be efficient. He is just effective.
While we don't have to sell everything and live in a yurt on the savannah, being a missionary in your hometown is not without its sacrifices. We did leave a few things behind, like the ability to disappear into a crowded church service - which I have a serious hankering to do right about now.
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