A Missionary God and His Missionary Church

Words matter.

Sometimes the difference between one word and another can have serious consequences. A tourist once tried to order pomegranate juice in Portugal and accidentally asked for a grenade instead. What he meant and what he said were very different—and the result was an arrest.

In the church, something similar can happen when we talk about missions. We often use the same words, but mean very different things. And when the church misunderstands what missions is—or why we do it—the consequences can shape generations of ministry in the wrong direction.

Romans 15:18-33 helps bring clarity. In this passage, the Apostle Paul shows us both what the missionary task is and why the church must be involved in it. At the heart of it all is a simple but weighty truth: we should be engaged in the missionary task because God is a missionary God.

What Is Missions?

One reason missions can feel confusing is that the Bible never gives us a single dictionary-style definition of the word missionary. Instead, Scripture shows us missions through example—especially through the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul.

In Romans 15, Paul reflects on his missionary work, and from his description, a clear picture emerges. Missions is not simply “doing good in another country” or “any kind of religious activity overseas.” Biblically defined, missions is crossing cultural distance to make disciples in local churches, especially among the least reached.

At its core, missions is about making disciples. Paul describes his work as “bringing the Gentiles to obedience”—calling people to respond to the gospel in repentance and faith, be baptized, and learn to obey all that Christ has commanded. This kind of disciple-making ministry is inseparable from the proclamation of the gospel.

Missions also requires the local church. New believers are not meant to live the Christian life alone. They are gathered into churches where they can grow, be taught, and walk together in obedience. Faithful missionaries do not bypass the church; they plant it, strengthen it, and serve alongside it.

Another essential element of missions is crossing cultural distance. While making disciples in our own community is vital, missions involves stepping into different languages, cultures, or worldviews for the sake of the gospel. Paul’s ministry stretched from Jerusalem to Illyricum because he intentionally crossed those barriers to reach people unlike himself.

Finally, missions has a particular concern for the least reached—places and peoples where Christ has not yet been named. Paul made it his ambition to preach the gospel where there was no existing foundation, driven by a desire to see worshipers raised up where Jesus was unknown. Not every gospel work qualifies as missions, and that clarity helps the church focus its efforts wisely.

Who Is a Missionary—and What Is the Missionary Task?

If missions is the work of crossing cultures to make disciples in churches, then a missionary is a Christian set apart by the Spirit and sent by the church to do that work. Not every believer is called to cross cultures in this way, but some are—and when they are, the church plays a crucial role in sending them.

This leads to a key insight from Romans 15: missions is never a solo effort. Even though Paul was uniquely called as a missionary, he depended deeply on the partnership of local churches.

That shared responsibility is what can be called the missionary task—the work of the whole church supporting missions by praying, sending, and going.

Paul explicitly asks the Roman church to strive together with him in prayer. He looks to them for help as he prepares to take the gospel further. And he values personal encouragement and presence, not just financial support. Missions advances when the church holds the rope for those on the front lines.

Why Do Missions?

Clarifying the task is not enough. The deeper question is why the church should care about missions at all.

Over the years, Christians have been motivated by many things: admiration for missionaries, a desire for adventure, guilt over global need, compassion for suffering people, emotional appeals, or dissatisfaction with ordinary life. Some of these motivations may spark short-term interest, but none of them can sustain long-term faithfulness.

Romans 15 points us to the only motive strong enough to endure: God Himself.

Paul refuses to boast in anything except what Christ has accomplished through him. His ambition is not personal recognition, numerical success, or visible results, but the glory of Jesus Christ. His concern is not merely that people make decisions, but that they become worshipers who obey Christ in word and deed.

Missions exists not because people need help—though they do—but because God deserves worship. From the beginning of Scripture, God has been moving toward sinners, calling nations to rejoice in His mercy. Missions is not a human strategy; it is God’s plan unfolding in history.

One day, missions will be no more. The work of praying, sending, and going will give way to something greater: eternal worship around the throne of Christ. That future is what drives the church’s mission now.

A Missionary Church

Romans 15 leaves every believer with a searching question: not whether we are part of God’s missionary plan, but how.

Some will be called to go. Most will not. But all are called to participate—to pray faithfully, give sacrificially, and support those who carry the gospel to the least reached.

If the church gets missions wrong, it risks aiming itself at the wrong goal. But when the church understands that it serves a missionary God, it begins to live as a missionary people.

And that is a mission worth giving our lives to.