“I’m on a mission to end missions.”
This was the wild proclamation I found myself scribbling down during what some might call a “burnout” or crisis of faith.
After devoting more than half my life to Christian humanitarian work around the globe, I was exhausted and restless. But, as it turns out, it wasn’t my faith that was in danger of falling apart; it was my calling (or lack thereof) that is often labeled as “missions” work.
Admittedly, after hearing the word so many times, it had become another Christian catchphrase that cheapened the work I believed in by reducing it to a label and a choice—like options on a Christian menu—instead of what missions was really meant to be: a lifestyle that we are called to embody every day. This siloing of missions as an extracurricular part of our faith spills over into how we think about serving people in need.
One of the biggest tragedies I see in Christianity today is the belief that a person’s spiritual condition is all that matters to God. That saving souls for heaven is more important than bringing God’s Kingdom to life here on earth. That Jesus cared more about salvation-counts than justice and healing. We are either/oring ourselves out of the hard but beautiful work of integrating our lives and our callings.
Best-selling author Bob Goff once said,
“There’s nothing wrong with matching shirts and wristbands. We just don’t need them anymore . . . We don’t need to go on ‘mission trips’ any longer. Jesus’s friends never called them this. They knew love already had a name.”
When we forget about “missions” and call this what it really is—living out our faith—I believe a new, freeing world opens up to us. One that allows us to look at things differently, evaluate things differently, and live differently.
As a result of this small shift, we will see “mission trips” as simply an exercise of our faith, not the culmination. Our imaginations will expand beyond a single “missions emphasis week” and spill over into every day of the week, wherever we are. We won’t be satisfied with part-time faithfulness or waiting around for God to clean up the world. We will seek justice and healing and restoration of the world because, as children of God, we ourselves have been justified, healed, and restored.
Missions is how we live.
It should consume us in our homes, across the street, in our churches, in our places of work, and in places of injustice around the world too. It should inspire us to seek human flourishing and to bring the kingdom of God to the home we all share.
That is the story of World Help, the Christian humanitarian organization I have the privilege to lead, and the story behind our anchoring belief in “help and hope.” We believe that without food, clean water, and medicine, the faith we profess means very little. But without faith that feeds the soul, meeting those physical needs is just a short-term fix. It’s when you focus on both body and soul that true transformation happens. Changing the world comes not from how much we are involved in “missions” but from lives filled with love.
I believe if you love something, you long to see it healed, whole, and flourishing. I long to see missions transformed into a way of life for a person of faith. The colors that paint a picture of what we believe for the world to see.
Noel Brewer Yeatts is the president of World Help, a Christian humanitarian organization serving the physical and spiritual needs of people around the globe. She is the author of the recently released book, Both: Living Outside the Either/Or of Your Faith.
