International Missions

Many hours, conversations, and prayers have gone seeking the Lord on how He might direct us - to Him be the glory, honor, and praise!  This philosophy seeks to provide clarity to our approach to missions, guide us to properly steward our resources, and encourage our entire church to care about what God cares about–making disciples of ALL nations!!

• Genesis 12:1-3 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
• Matthew 28:18-20, The Great Commission: “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’”
• Psalm 46:10 "Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
• Revelation 7:9-10 “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”

Mountain View community church (MVCC) exists to make Christ known as we passionately love Him together.  We believe that God’s heart, as revealed through the scriptures, has always been for the nations and that people everywhere should call on Him for salvation through Jesus Christ.  God’s Word demonstrates this in several ways:

• He reveals His glory to all mankind through creation (Ps. 19:1-6, Romans 1:20).
• In the Old Testament, He raised up one nation (Israel) to represent Himself to all other nations, blessing Israel to be a blessing, so that all nations would also worship Him (Gen. 12:1-3, Ps. 67).
• God sent forth His Son (the ultimate cross-cultural missionary), who is the only way for salvation, so that whoever believes in Him (whether those who believed in Him with a forward-looking faith before He came, or those who believe now that He has come) will not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).
• He has commissioned His people, the church, to take the message of salvation to all nations (Matthew 28:19) and to the remotest part of the earth (Acts 1:8)!  As people respond to the Good News, churches form and help disciples mature and grow to continue this process until Christ returns. 
• In Revelation, we see a picture of Heaven with representatives from “every nation, from all tribes and people and languages.”  This is the inevitable result of God’s redemptive story.

Missions is about proclaiming the greatness and glory of God among all the nations.  God’s heart throughout scripture is to make known the way of salvation through Jesus Christ so that men, women and children from all nations will call out to Him for salvation, becoming a part of God’s family as we worship and glorify Him together.  In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John gives us a vision for God’s heart for missions to the world, “And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, ‘Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters" (Revelation 14:6-8).  The whole of Scripture affirms that God is pursuing people of every nation with the good news of His son Jesus Christ for the purpose of magnifying His name and to share the beauty of His glory with us so that we may joyfully know and worship Him!  

The culmination and realization of God’s missional heart is seen in John’s vision of the age to come in Revelation 7:9 where he writes, “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages…”.   We see all nations represented in Heaven—together worshiping Jesus on His throne. God’s concern that He would redeem representatives from every nation is not a new idea in the New Testament.  The Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 12:1-3 is the first description of God’s promise to “bless all the families of the earth”.  We learn in Galatians 3:7-14 that this “blessing” is actually the Gospel itself, God redeeming lost and broken people through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection—this gospel blessing was always meant to extend outside of the Nation of Israel. The Hebrew phrase for “all the families” (kol mishpehot) in Genesis 12 and the Greek phrase for “all nations” (panta ta ethnē) in Matthew 28 are best understood to describe what are known in missiology as ‘people groups’—groups of people who share a common language, culture, religion, residence and who have a common affinity for each other.  Anthropologists and christian missiologists estimate there are around 17,000 of these distinct people groups in our world today (God certainly may define these groups differently so we must be careful to hold this number loosely—the point is that God’s Kingdom is meant to be global and diverse).  People groups who do not have access to the gospel or the scriptures or who have no (or minimal) followers of Jesus within their midst are known as unreached people groups.  God, in His wisdom, has commissioned the church to bring the gospel to unreached people groups, but He promises that those efforts will be successful in His timing—how encouraging that God WILL reach all nations as we are obedient to His call to go and “make disciples of all nations”.  Currently, it is estimated there are around 7000 of these groups currently unreached by the Gospel, representing around 3 billion people (~40% of the world’s population).

It is important to remember that our basic theology of salvation does not change when we embark on missions work.

• The work of salvation is still God’s work. Only He can break through the hardness of the human heart and show a person his need for salvation (John 6:44, Ephesians 2:8-9).  It is not our missions efforts that saves people, although God is gracious to ask us to participate with Him.  The offer of salvation through the gospel is given to all people, and “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13) and God invites us to send people to preach the good news so that they can hear and believe in the Lord.  God is in the business of drawing men, women and children all over the world to call on His name for salvation, and we desire to be used by Him to carry out the work He is doing.
• Jesus is the only way of salvation for every person on the planet, and the activity of missions is to be centered on the message of the gospel!  There are not “many paths” leading to heaven. Jesus said that He is “the way, the truth, the life” and that no one comes to the Father but through Him” (John 14:6). Acts 4:12 states, “There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Only a deep resolve that Jesus is the only way will motivate and sustain people to take the gospel to the nations. 

The Bible, from start to finish, affirms missions work as a God-ordained endeavor to extend God’s glory and gospel and church to the ends of the earth.

In light of the above, we have several core principles that we believe will drive our involvement, our direction, our passion, and our perseverance in world missions as a church family. 

1. The local church and church planting are pivotal to missions: Christ has entrusted the commission to make disciples of all nations to the global church. It is the local church that serves as the primary community through which God accomplishes His plan on earth. The local church is uniquely positioned to assess, equip, and affirm the calling of a cross-cultural missionary, provide emotional/spiritual/financial support to a missionary, and safeguard the gospel and witness of Christ by providing oversight and accountability of sent missionaries. As disciples are made on the frontiers of missions, local churches must and will be formed/planted.  Healthy disciples and ministries are created and sustained in the context of healthy local churches. This does not intend to diminish any non-church ministry (we joyfully labor alongside the parachurch). It means we believe there is a clear biblical focus on the local church as God’s central vehicle of discipleship and choose to prioritize this in our limited resources.  One goal of “making disciples of all the nations” is to see a healthy, reproducing, indigenous church among every people group in the world!  The great commission involves not only evangelism (or the proclamation of the gospel) but also the task of bringing to maturity those who believe. The pattern shown throughout the New Testament is that when people believe in Jesus Christ, they gather together into local churches for teaching, equipping, encouragement, worship, and mission. The spread of the gospel and the establishment and growth of the local church go hand in hand. Our desire and the model we see in the Bible is to see a strong, reproducing, indigenous church for every people group of the world.
2. Sending well:  In Acts 13, God calls Paul and Barnabas into “world” missions in the context of the local church in Antioch. They were among the leadership team of that church. While praying and fasting together in community, it is said that the Holy Spirit told the church to set Paul and Barnabas apart for the special work He had called them. We then see the local church in Antioch support and send them out on their missionary journeys. The connection with the local church in Antioch is seen throughout all the missionary journeys as Paul returns to encourage the church in Antioch, be encouraged by the church in Antioch, and to be sent out again. We also see in 3 John a local church being encouraged to send missionaries “… in a manner worthy of God” and in so doing to be “fellow workers for the truth”.  Akin to the biblical model we see in Acts and Paul’s missionary journeys, we assess, develop, affirm, and send out faithful and capable missionaries from among those God raises up within our body–these people uniquely embody our passion to make disciples and plant churches cross-culturally where they plan to assimilate long-term into their local context with language and cultural fluency.  We also believe in the necessity of Bible translation and send those called to this type of pre-church work. Every MVCC sent missionary has a support team, known as a Barnabas team, of local church goers seeking to extend love and care during their time overseas and can expect strong financial commitment from MVCC.
3. Focus on the unreached: We recognize the great imbalance of Christian resources in our world.  We understand and our hearts are broken that between 2-3 billion people have never heard the good news of Jesus Christ and many do not have access to the Bible in a language accessible to them.  David Platt defines unreached people groups and places as “those among whom Christ is largely unknown and the church is relatively insufficient to make Christ known in its broader population without outside help.”  There is significant need among the nations for gospel work.  We understand that most missionaries and church resources go to people and places that are already saturated with gospel access and resources.  About $1 of every $100 given to missions goes toward work among the unreached.  Of about every 100 missionaries sent, only 4 missionaries go to work among unreached people groups.  We are sensitive to this imbalance and strive to steward our resources to people and places with limited or no access to the gospel or God’s Word.   
4. No follower of Jesus can opt out of missions:  The great commission is a commission for every follower of Christ. We are all His ambassadors, representing Him to the world wherever He has called us to live, work, or play.  As a Christian, you must either go or send (for clarity, we believe most will participate in sending not going).  Since sending requires significant prayer, finances, and relational support, we at MVCC attempt to engage, encourage, and equip our body to become “fellow workers” in this task (3 John 1:7-8), learning how to live sacrificial lives (both spiritually and materially) for the global advancement of the gospel.

Worldwide, the church of Jesus Christ is involved in a myriad of activities to advance the gospel and build up local churches and make disciples.  As a church, we desire to have an effective role in carrying out the Great Commission. This means that we can’t be a part of everything that is going on in missions, but rather we must decide where and how, as God directs, we will focus our time and energy as a church. From the driving principles explained above, we have decided to focus our resources in the following ways:   

1. Focus on sending those passionate about church planting and discipleship: There are many good ways a church can go about participating in missions.  At MVCC, we have artificially made a distinction between “supporting” versus “sending” missionaries.  We feel led to be a church that fully sends people to the mission field–meaning they go with MVCC’s full sending force (substantial resources and full commitment).   A supporting church typically supports more people with fewer resources.  We want to offer each sent person/family a significant amount of ongoing support (prayer, financial, relational, accountability, authority, etc).  At MVCC, we desire to be intimately involved with the entire sending process.  We want to know and vet those we send out to the mission field, fully assessing calling, character, and competency.   We want to participate in discerning the call of God on a sent missionary (when, where, how, what the mission role will be) and making sure the actual “mission” fits the overall vision of the church.   And we want to continue to have a robust relationship as the missionary returns on furlough or returns permanently from the mission field. At MVCC, we know God calls faithful people to international missions work in many different capacities and contexts.  We celebrate any and all missionary endeavors that God is stirring in His followers.  MVCC would love to partner with everything that God is doing in this world, but with limited resources we must be wise and prayerful stewards.  At MVCC, a distinction is made between missionaries who fully align with our missions philosophy versus those who are called by God to other missionary endeavors that do not fully align with our missions philosophy.  While no less valuable to the Kingdom of God, this typically means less financial resources and less pastoral involvement or oversight.  This also means sometimes saying ‘no’ to requests of people we love who are called by God to do worthy things on the mission field.  However, when and where possible we aim to assist those requesting support with prayer, resources, and/or a support team when possible.  We prioritize sending out those missionaries focused on making disciples, planting churches, pastoring, and raising up future church leaders.
2. Partner with like-minded indigenous local churches and their leaders:  Though God calls people to cross social, cultural, and language barriers – we believe the best people to reach a people group are those who are already naturally part of that culture.  We want to partner and support indigenous ministry. Where healthy indigenous work does not exist or is in process, we desire to focus on raising up and empowering indigenous leaders.  We expect that these partnerships will provide mutual blessing to both parties.
3. Invest in Bible translation:  God’s Word transforms hearts. It is living and active and God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through His Word. We desire that all peoples of the world may have access to God’s word in their own language. We therefore prioritize the translation of God’s word. This relates to the goal of seeing a healthy, reproducing, indigenous church in every people group because without a Bible in the language of the people, discipleship and evangelism can be limited or even ineffective.  Bible translation is pre-church work that is necessary for a future church to exist.
4. Look for ways to invest in unreached people groups: The picture John gives us in Revelation is of a great multitude from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne of God worshiping Him in Heaven (Rev. 5:9, 7:9-12).  It is our desire to see a healthy, growing, reproducing indigenous church in every people group that is reaching its own people through disciple-making and church planting. Often, humanitarian efforts (or other creative access methods) in areas where unreached people live are strategic ways to bless people and gain access to proclaim the Gospel.   As people are raised up and sent out from MVCC and as new cross-cultural partnerships develop, MVCC will be committed to invest in specific unreached people groups as the Lord guides. 
5. Create a missions culture at MVCC: We want to create a culture where all who call MVCC home understand that the Great Commission compels us not just to make disciples, but to make disciples of ALL nations.  We will focus on engaging our body with God’s missional heart for the nations as displayed throughout scripture and calling those in our charge to respond to this call.  We would like our sent missionaries and our international partnerships to be known by our body and received well by our body on visits/furloughs.  We want our church body to regularly pray for our church’s missionaries and indigenous partners.  We would like to challenge our body to be financially generous and live sacrificially for the sake of those (both locally and internationally) who do not know His love and grace.  

Mountain View Community Church has a vision to be a multiplying church reaching the city of Fort Collins and impacting the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to see unreached people groups become reached by Jesus and develop healthy churches that seek to make disciples who transform communities for God’s glory.  We will faithfully steward our resources to make Christ known to the many who do not know Him and His lavish love and grace!