What It Takes To Be a Missionary

A few days ago I gave you a link to Dassi’s Mexico Blog, and I made a few comments about what it means to be a missionary.

As usual, it included a lot of words. Today, I saw a blog from Aubrey, who’s down there for a couple weeks. It includes the following paragraph that says what I was trying to say but, of course, much more succinctly:

I really love being here. It is easy to think that if you’re going to be a missionary you need to be really spiritual, quick witted, and some kind of a leader. Of course these things come in handy and you do need a solid relationship with God to sustain you in tough situations, but the needs of people are very basic. If you can love all the time, which isn’t always easy, that is pretty much all you need. That probably sounds dumb. It just kind of hit home for me though being able to watch Nichole and Jason take care of these people.

That does not sound dumb, Aubrey, it’s profound.

I don’t know how to link to her individual pages. That quote’s from December 15. Make sure to read her Dec. 12 post, too, especially the part about the steam.

About Paul Pavao

I am married, the father of six, and currently the grandfather of five. I teach, and I am always trying to learn to disciple others better than I have before. I believe God has gifted me to restore proper theological foundations to the Christian faith. In order to ensure that I do not become a heretic, I read the early church fathers from the second and third centuries. They were around when all the churches founded by the apostles were in unity. My philosophy for Bible reading is to understand each verse for exactly what it says in its local context. Only after accepting the verse for what it says do I compare it with other verses to develop my theology. If other verses seem to contradict a verse I just read, I will wait to say anything about those verses until I have an explanation that allows me to accept all the verses for what they say. This takes time, sometimes years, but eventually I have always been able to find something that does not require explaining verses away. The early church fathers have helped a lot with this. I argue and discuss these foundational doctrines with others to make sure my teaching really lines up with Scripture. I am encouraged by the fact that the several missionaries and pastors that I know well and admire as holy men love the things I teach. I hope you will be encouraged too. I am indeed tearing up old foundations created by tradition in order to re-establish the foundations found in Scripture and lived on by the churches during their 300 years of unity.

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1 Response to What It Takes To Be a Missionary

Channah says:

12/20/2010 at 9:40 pm

A,men! I was going to highlight the same thing from that blog! "If you can love all the time, which isn't always easy, that is pretty much all you need.