Growing Church Missions

In Mark 16:15, Jesus tells His disciples to "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation." While you may not be able to physically go yourself, there are other ways to get involved. Guest host Collin Lambert welcomes Matthew Ellison to talk about how you and your church can become more involved proclaiming and reaching the world for Jesus Christ. Join us for the next Equipped.

Resource mentioned:
The Sending Shepherd (available Sept 2025)

July thank you gift:
Surrendered Sexuality by Dr. Juli Slattery

Equipped with Chris Brooks is made possible through your support.  To donate now, click here.

Become a Monthly Partner: http://moodyradio.org/donateto/equipped/partners

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

S1 (00:19):
Well. Hey there friends, welcome to another exciting edition of
equip with Chris Brooks! I'm so thrilled that you've joined
us today. Do me a favor strap on your seat
belt as we navigate through the contours of culture, as
always with the lens of the biblical worldview on. But
before we do that, let me remind you, this is
the day that the Lord has made. He is giving

(00:40):
it as a gift so that you and I can
rejoice and be glad in it. So let's do just that.
Let's follow the words of the Apostle Paul. Let's rejoice
in the Lord always. And again I say, rejoice. Today
I want you to help me to welcome to the
hot seat my good friend Colin Lambert. Colin is a
man of God who ministers through radio for decades, including

(01:02):
many years at Moody Radio. He's the host of Missions
today and is passionate about seeing people across the globe
growing Christ Jesus. Colin, thanks for leading this edition of Equip.

S2 (01:16):
Thank you Chris. Great to be here. Thank you for
spending some time with us today. We're excited to talk
a little bit about missions today. You heard Chris say,
I host missions today. It's a national radio program and
a podcast. Would love for you to be a part
of it on a weekly basis. You can find it
on your favorite podcast platform. Uh, you can also hear
it on many of these moody radio stations on Saturdays

(01:39):
or Sundays, so I encourage you to check it out.
But I have a heart for missions. I love missions,
and we're going to talk a little bit about missions today.
But before you think we're going to be talking about
going off to another country and that part of missions,
we're actually going to talk about missions a little closer
to home. And there's nobody better that I know of
to talk about that than my friend Matthew Ellison. He

(02:00):
is the founder, president and missions coach at 1615, and
he's with us today. Matthew, great to have you along.
Thanks for your time.

S3 (02:10):
Well, Colin, it's always a pleasure to be with you
and I'm looking forward to this conversation for sure.

S2 (02:16):
Uh, before we get to some of the specifics about
the topic itself, for those who may not be familiar,
tell us a bit about 1615.

S3 (02:23):
Yeah, well, it's named after the reference in Mark's gospel,
chapter 16, verse 15, which says, go into all the
world and preach the good news to all creation. And
we're about 20 years old, and our primary focus is
helping local churches to really understand their global mission, to
understand what it is God's called them to accomplish. And

(02:44):
that's really important because often churches don't have a clear
biblical understanding of their fundamental purpose as it relates to
reaching every nation, tribe, and tongue. And so we help
them to really clarify that, and then we help them
to develop endemic vision. And by that I mean a
vision that really accounts for their unique gifts and talents
and passions as a local body of believers. We believe

(03:07):
that programs don't mobilize churches. It's a process. When God's
people work together through a process. And here the Holy
Spirit speak. That's what mobilizes the church. And so we
want them to have a vision that they can call
their own, that really reflects their unique fingerprints. And then
we connect them to opportunities around the world through our
cadre of agency partners. So once vision emerges and the

(03:31):
Holy Spirit is spoken about what God has called the
church to do, we then introduce them to organizations that
have expertise. And there are organizations that want to do
missions with churches, not for them. And so we act
as a bridge builder, if you will, between the local
church and missions organizations. And so that's kind of the
nutshell of what we do. And we talk about unleashing

(03:53):
the missions potential of churches. We believe every church has
God given potential to reach the nations, but that potential
is often latent. And so we want to surface that
potential and see them express it in real time.

S2 (04:08):
I want to dig more deeply into that in just
a moment, but I want to think for a moment
as we consider even who's listening today. I think if
we were to take a survey, we would find people
who are in churches who never talk about missions. Uh,
people who are in churches who take mission trips, short
term mission trips, maybe some who actually have a missions

(04:31):
team on their staff, and then some who fully engage
missions throughout what they do day in and day out,
week in and week out. Is the church called to
be part of missions? Is that a call to the
local church?

S3 (04:48):
Absolutely. And the reason it's a call to the local
church is because missions is the meta narrative of Scripture. Uh,
a lot of folks think that missions surfaces in the
New Testament for the first time. But in fact, in
Genesis 12, God gives the Abrahamic covenant. And he says
to Abraham that all the families, all the nations of

(05:10):
the earth will be blessed through Christ, through through Abraham's seed.
And we see that thread of redemption go from Genesis
all the way to revelation. And so it is the
master story of Scripture. And so you might conclude that
God is a missionary God. If we want to be
like him, we will make important the things that are

(05:31):
important to him. And then, of course, we have the
marching orders of Jesus in the New Testament. He said,
go make disciples of all the nations. And he didn't
just give that once. He gave it five different times
in five different settings. Um, in five different contexts. And
what's interesting is after the resurrection, prior to the ascension,

(05:52):
scripture records that Jesus appeared to his disciples repeatedly. He
taught them many things, but he only returned to two
themes more than twice. Calling one of those themes was
the resurrection. I'm alive, I fulfilled the prophecies, and the
second was the Great Commission. Go make disciples of all
the nations. And so if we want to be like Jesus,

(06:13):
then we want to engage in the things that are
near and dear to his heart. And so, yes, every
church is called to participate in this global story of redemption.
It's not just for a few churches or some churches.
It's for every church.

S2 (06:28):
Yeah, well, I know that you have a book that's
scheduled to come out shortly. I believe you said in
September it's called The Sending Shepherd, and it's talking about
the importance of the church and the importance of the
shepherd in that process. Talk a moment about why you
put this book together and why now.

S3 (06:52):
Yeah. Well, um, there's a scripture in Amos three three.
I believe it is like people like priest, um, that
maybe that's Hosea two nine. I should have, um, looked
up that before I said that. But anyway, I'm trying
to spin up my mental hard drive here. That might
be Hosea two nine, like people like priest. And so, um,
you know, so goes the pastor, so goes the church.

(07:15):
And so we have this passion that if we want
to see local churches mobilized to engage the nations, then
it really begins with senior leadership. And I've been involved
in mobilization 30 years, calling ten years at a local church,
as a missions pastor, in 20 years at 16, 15
and over that three decades of time in various audiences

(07:36):
all over the place, I'm often asked the question, how
do I get my pastor engaged in missions? And so
it is an important issue. And sometimes pastors are the
barrier and sometimes they're the gateway. There's a quote from
George Murray that I find really interesting. He is a
former chancellor at Columbia International University. And he says when

(08:01):
it comes to missions in the church, the pastor either
holds the key to the front door or he holds
the padlock. And that has been my experience. 1615 as
I mentioned, does missions coaching. And when we started 20
years ago, Colin, we were eager to work with any church,
any church that wanted our help. We were happy to
step in. And what we realized over a period of

(08:22):
a few years is we were meeting with big hearted, well-intentioned,
missions minded people and committees, but they were marginalized. They
didn't have the influence to change the culture in their church.
And so we were engaging with them, but we were
seeing little progress in their missions, vision and strategy. And
we concluded, gosh, we got to get the right people

(08:44):
in the room. And when we said, listen, if you're
going to go through this process of really clarifying your
vision for missions, your senior leaders have to speak into it.
They have to bleed, if you will, into the process.
And when we said that and required that of the
churches we were consulting and coaching, we saw tremendous difference.
And it shouldn't have come as any surprise, Colin, because

(09:07):
in acts 13, acts 13 we read about the church
in Antioch of Syria. It's the very first church in
Scripture that made sense of the global cross-cultural dimensions of
the Great Commission. And it's no surprise that it says
the leaders of the church, the prophets and the teachers,
while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy
Spirit spoke to them and said, I've called you to

(09:30):
reach the nations, the Gentiles. And so we see the
leaders in the church at Antioch were the ones that
really heard from God about the mission's vision for Antioch.
And we see that played out today. So what's it about?
It's about pastors really embracing their role to mobilize their people,
all of them. Not just the missions minded few, but

(09:52):
the whole church into God's story. It really begins with leaders.

S2 (09:56):
Yeah. So important because, as you said, you see churches
where they are fully, fully engaged in mission activity. And
very often you're hearing that pastor regularly talk about that
from the pulpit. Other places where maybe missions is, uh,
sidelined or maybe non-existent. Uh, that's something you probably rarely

(10:18):
hear the pastor speak about from the pulpit. We're going
to come back in just a moment. We're going to
learn more about this book that's coming out, the sending Shepherd.
But we're going to learn more about how it impacts
the local church or could impact the local church. We'd
love to hear from you as well. 87754836758775483675. Maybe you

(10:41):
have a missionally minded church. You'd like to share how
you're engaged with that. Or maybe you wish your church
was more missionally minded. Maybe. We've got some tips for
you on how to walk through that process. We'll also
talk today about your own mission, what God has called
you to do, and how that falls in line with
what the church is doing and what God is doing

(11:02):
around the world as well. Our guest, Matthew Ellison of 1615.
He'll be with us. Here's the number again. 87754836758775483675. More
of equipped with Chris Brooks coming up in just a moment.
Stay with us.

S1 (11:22):
Do you have questions about your sexuality that no one
seems to address? Whether it's sexual sin, gender confusion, or
issues in your marriage, surrender Sexuality by Doctor Julie Slattery
has insights you need. She'll help you to see that
God wants to be invited into your questions and struggles.
And when you do, everything changes. Request your copy with

(11:46):
your gift of any amount. To equip, simply call [phone]
or visit.

S2 (12:02):
Welcome back to equipped with Chris Brooks I'm Colin Lambert
sitting in for Chris today. And you know programs like
this are not possible without the help of those behind
the scenes. My thanks today to Ryan, who's running all
things technical. Tahira is producing, Steven is answering your phone calls.
And my thanks to the folks at the bridge here
in Austin, Texas for providing the studios so I can

(12:23):
be with you today. Our guest is Matthew Ellison. He's
the founder and president of 1615. Our topic is growing
church missions. Matthew, we've been talking about this book that's
coming out a little later this year called The Sending Shepherd.
I understand that you commissioned Barna Research to get involved. Why?
And what did you ask them to do?

S3 (12:45):
Yeah. So we commissioned this survey in partnership with pioneers,
one of our ministry partners, and we wanted to get
an understanding of how pastors feel about missions. What are
their perceptions? What's their understanding? And we wanted to make
sure that the book was not just surfacing anecdotal, you know,

(13:05):
stories from us. I mean, I mentioned some earlier my experience.
I've run into a lot of folks trying to mobilize
their church, and they often meet resistance in the place
you wouldn't expect it. That's from their pastor. And so
we didn't just want to conjecture. We wanted to make
sure that we were actually sharing hard data and real
information about how pastors feel about missions. And so this

(13:29):
book was born out of the findings from that study.
It's a massive study, exhaustive, but in the book we
surface kind of the aha moments. What were the the
big standouts? And how can we move the mission's needle?
And one of the things that we wrestled with, frankly,
calling and writing the book is some of the data

(13:50):
is not very encouraging. And the last thing we wanted
to do was browbeat pastors because we know pastors, uh, gosh,
they have a tough calling. We have expectations of them
that are very unrealistic. A lot of pastors are burnt out.
A lot of pastors left the pulpit, in fact, after Covid,
after the difficulties facing Covid. And so we wanted this

(14:10):
book to be a source of encouragement. We wanted to
pull rather than push. But yet we wanted it to
have a prophetic edge because I said, as I said earlier,
like people, like priests, so goes the priest, so goes
the people. That's, by the way, Hosea four nine, not
Hosea two nine. If anyone looks up Hosea two nine,

(14:30):
they're going to say, what on earth does that have
to do with pastors? Um, and so we really believe
that pastors are the key to mobilizing the church, because
they're the ones who speak the oracles of God to
the people of God. And if pastors do not champion
the cause of missions calling, who will?

S2 (14:48):
Yeah, we're going to talk about a lot of data today,
but obviously there'll be much, much, much more in the
book itself. But as you looked over the material, what
stood out to you as most important?

S3 (15:02):
Yeah, well, we've broken it up into three areas in
the book. Again, it's an exhaustive, comprehensive study, and it
would be difficult to work through all of it. And
so we really surfaced the main findings. And I'm going
to give you a couple of the dilemmas and challenges
I'm going to start there. We will then move to
strengths and opportunities. I don't want to leave us lingering
at those challenges, but you mentioned this earlier, Colin. Missions

(15:24):
is rarely taught or preached in churches. Uh, Barna surveyed
their proprietary audience. That's 500 evangelical churches and pastors around
the United States, and 50% of pastors report they rarely
or never preach on sending or reaching other faiths. Wow.

(15:45):
And once again, that's a challenge, because what comes out
of the pulpit is going to influence and affect the
culture of the sheep in a church, and it's going
to change the atmosphere in the church. And so you've
got a problem here because you have the plot line
of scripture, as I mentioned earlier. It's the master story
of the Bible, and it is a subplot, apparently. Um,

(16:08):
you know, the information reveals in many churches, uh, another one.
And this was not surprising. The definition of missions is
confused and deluded. 45% of pastors say that everything their
church does is missions. And that's a problem because, as

(16:28):
Steven Neil has said, when everything is missions, then nothing
is missions. Whatever. What's everybody's job is nobody's job. And
so when you call everything missions and everyone a missionary,
what happens, Colin, is the priority of taking the gospel cross-culturally,
especially to the unreached. It gets marginalized or forgotten. So

(16:48):
those are a couple of the challenges.

S2 (16:50):
Matthew, let's stop right there, because I did mean to
ask this question at the beginning and you've just brought
it up. So let's stop here and talk about it
for a moment. How would you define or how does
your organization define missions as to what we see in
the Bible?

S3 (17:07):
Yeah, missions with an S. I want to be clear.
There is the cross-cultural advance of the gospel. It is
tied to those five great Commission statements that Jesus gave again,
on different occasions, different contexts. And they are about taking
the gospel to every nation, every tribe, every tongue, um,

(17:28):
every single culture that is historically and biblically, I believe,
what has been considered missions. And so it is crossing
those ethno linguistic barriers with the gospel. And we would
say a missionary to tie into that is someone who
is called by the spirit, um, affirmed by the leaders

(17:49):
in the church to take the gospel in those cross-cultural contexts. Now,
this doesn't mean that you have to leave the continent
because the nations have come to us. There are opportunities
to do missions in the context of the US, but
it is an important thing to consider is that when
we talk about missions, we're talking about taking the gospel cross-culturally.

S2 (18:11):
Yeah. I was just going to mention that we live
in a culture now where just about any state you
live in, you're going to find people who are from
other parts of the world. And so this cross-cultural calling
that people may experience to a maybe a local shelter
that welcomes people with an Islamic background or a. Place

(18:36):
that helps people find homes that are primarily Hindu, or
go down the list of the types of ministries that
now exist across the United States. Those can be and
actually are cross-cultural, missional opportunities.

S3 (18:52):
You better believe it. You know, in acts 17, we
read about the God being the orchestrator of the boundaries
and the places that people live in, and the nations
are on the move. And so when we see immigration
and refugee disbursement and those things, we should say, God,
what are you up to? And there's no question the
nations have been brought to our doorstep, and we should

(19:13):
be lifting our eyes and say, God, you've brought the
foreigner here. You've brought the person from a muslim context
or a Hindu context here. How can I build a
bridge to share the gospel with them? Um, I will
add to that though just a note of caution. I
think sometimes we have a replacement mentality like, okay, we
no longer need to go over there because they've come here.

(19:38):
And the problem with that is a very tiny percentage
of the unreached are living in the context of the US.
So hear me by all means, we should make that
a part of our mission. strategy. We should be encouraging
our people to be on the lookout for the nations
that are all around them. But that doesn't replace the
need to then send our people overseas where the vast

(20:01):
majority of the unreached people live.

S2 (20:03):
Yeah. So we've talked about a couple of dilemmas and challenges.
How about a couple of strengths or opportunities?

S3 (20:11):
Yeah, I'm glad to move to those strengths and opportunities
for sure. So 7474 excuse me, 74% report having strong
passion for the Great Commission. So we wanted to lean
into that. Now there may be some confusion about definitions etc.
that need to be clarified, but 74% say they care

(20:33):
about the Great Commission. In fact, they they cited it
as a strong passion. So we want to build on that. 82%
have decision making authority over missions in their church. And
this was no surprise to us because as I mentioned,
we've been doing this 20 years, and we find that
without the buy in of senior leaders, the missions needle

(20:54):
seldom moves. But on the other hand, the positive side
of this, if the senior pastor, the elders, the senior
leaders are championing the cause of missions, then it begins
to infiltrate the church. It becomes integrated in the church.
And so no surprise, God has given authority and influence

(21:14):
to his shepherds. And if they wield that authority and
influence in a way that reflects his heart, they can
see more and more people in the congregation embracing the
Great Commission.

S2 (21:26):
It seems like in recent years, many churches have added
a position like the one that you held for ten years,
a missions director. But that often can mean that there
is mission activity going on. But it is, again, just
one of many things happening in the church. It sounds
to me like part of what you're saying you would

(21:47):
like to see and you would like for churches to do,
is to move from involvement to that integration you were
just talking about. In fact, I found a quote. It
was in some of the material you sent me. It
says churches that move missions from being a part of
the church to being the heart of the church are
really where it's at. Talk for a moment about that.

S3 (22:10):
Yeah, I think I would link that, first of all,
again to the biblical narrative that the the meta narrative,
what many people call the grand narrative of Scripture. And
it's the main story, it's the master story. And we
see it again all the way from Genesis to Revelation.
And so one of the things I think that can
be done to integrate that passion, to see all nations

(22:32):
come to know Christ, is for obviously pastors to preach
from the pulpit. Now, I'm not suggesting every Sunday should
be Mission Sunday. By no means. In fact, there's many
messages that have no missions context. But one of the
things I would encourage pastors and leaders to do, those
who handle the Word of God when they're developing a

(22:53):
teaching out of a text, when they look at that text,
they should ask the question, is there an opportunity to
connect this story to the plotline of Scripture? Now, sometimes
the answer is no, but I think more often than not,
there is an opportunity to anchor that teaching into the plotline.
I'll give an example of this column that I think

(23:13):
is often overlooked. So we have the story of David
and Goliath. Everyone's familiar with the story of David and Goliath,
and when I ask people, what's the theme or lesson
that comes to mind when you think about that story,
what have you been told over the years? I'll call.
I'm going to I'm going to pull this one on you.
What do you think most people think about when they
hear the story of David and Goliath? What's the theme
that might surface?

S2 (23:34):
Conquering big challenges in our lives?

S3 (23:38):
Absolutely. All you need is a rock and a rag.
And you can take out the giants in your life. Okay,
I'm not saying that should be overlooked. But when David
approached Goliath, he said, this day, I'm going to cut
off your head and feed your body to the beasts
of the field and the birds of the air, and

(24:00):
all the world will know that there is a God
in Israel. See, David knew that God wasn't blessing him
just for him. He was blessing David for the sake
of God's fame, for the sake of God's name and
renown being spread to all nations. That's just one example.
There's so many. So I would encourage pastors when you're
teaching not just pastors, anyone who's handling the Word of

(24:20):
God in a small group context. Pastors, when you give
a teaching, ask yourself, is there an opportunity to anchor
what I'm communicating to the plotline? J.D. Payne, good friend
of mine. He's a professor at Stanford. He says we
should make a beeline to the plot line when teaching
the Bible. And he pulls that from an old adage

(24:42):
that says make a bleep. Beeline to the cross. Never
assume the gospel every time you teach a message. Make
sure that you're communicating the gospel. And I think we
can do the same thing with mission. So that's one aspect, Colin,
is the integrated aspect. Another one I would say is
you're going to probably have a missions department or a
team in your church, and you should because they're the
ones that are overseeing it. But how do you then

(25:05):
leverage the other ministries of the church to participate in
your church's global vision and strategy? And so an example
of this. I'll give one from a church I coached.
The missions pastor had met with other key ministry leaders,
and he said, how can we incorporate what you're doing
into our global strategy?

S2 (25:25):
We're going to talk more about that when we come
back in just a moment. Phone lines are open 87754836758775483675.
We're talking with Matthew Ellison. As you can tell, he
has a passion for missions and a passion for your
local church to be engaged at a higher level. Maybe

(25:47):
your church is engaged. We'd love to hear your story.
Maybe you wish your church was engaged. We'd love to
hear from you as well. [phone]. We'll be back with more.
With Matthew Ellison talking about growing church missions on equipped
with Chris Brooks coming up in just a moment. [phone].

(26:08):
Stay with us. Welcome back to equipped with Chris Brooks
I'm Colin Lambert sitting in for Chris today. And again
a reminder please be in prayer for Chris and his
daughter and the family as they go through some challenging times.

(26:28):
Right now we are continuing to lift them up to
the Lord. I would ask you to do the same.
Our guest today is Matthew Ellison. He is the founder
and president of 1615. We're talking about growing church missions
and an upcoming book called The Sending Shepherd. Matthew, want
to go back to one point you were making just
before the music started? Kind of rushed us out. We

(26:49):
talked about first having pastors integrate missions into their teachings,
into their sermons each week or as they're able as
as that narrative comes about finding ways to acknowledge that.
But then you also talked about an example of how
the missions department, I think, can team with other parts

(27:10):
of the church body or other areas of the church
where they can do the same at different levels.

S3 (27:17):
That's right. Um, we often talk about an integrated missions vision.
So if missions is indeed central to God's heart, central
to Scripture, we don't want to marginalize it and make
it one of many options, so to speak. Though you
may have a missions team and department totally get that.
But in integrated missions, vision invites all disciples to be

(27:38):
disciple makers of the nations. And so what this might
look like practically calling is a missions team or committee
or pastor, or however you organized, connecting with other major
ministries in the church children's ministry, women's ministry, men's ministry.
The ministries that are involved in discipleship and saying, how
can we work together to mobilize and rally the kids

(28:00):
of our church, the women, the students, so that they're
all participating in the story of redemption? How can we
connect them to prayer opportunities, giving opportunities, engaging the nations
at our doorstep, whatever that might look like. So, so
really mobilizing and leveraging existing ministries so that together the
church is participating in this redemptive story. And I think

(28:26):
one of the pushbacks that I often hear when I
suggest this type of integrated approach is this, oh, boy,
if we make missions integral, not just a part of
the church, but the heart of the church, All the
other important ministries are going to want the same. We
have limited stage time and everything else. Every ministry wants
more emphasis than it currently gets. And here's the thing

(28:48):
the pushback reveals the problem. God's redemptive story shouldn't be
just one of many ministries, one of many ministry options,
calling it is the story. So think of this you
cannot make a case that everyone in your church should
be doing children's ministry or women's ministry. Fill in the blank.
But if missions is integral to the Bible, integral to

(29:10):
God Himself, then you can make a case that everyone
should be participating in that vision. So I think it's
a matter of messaging, integrating it into our theology and
then opportunity, connecting it to all the people in the
church so that they can all grab on to God's story.

S2 (29:29):
Yeah, I love that. Okay. Stay tuned. We're going to
get to your calls right now. 754836758775483675. Let's go to
Zeke in Tampa. Thanks for calling your question or comment today.

S4 (29:47):
Yes I have a question or I have a comment
actually for the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. So
I'm a senior pastor of a Hispanic church here in
the Tampa area in Florida. And when the pandemic started,
you know, I feared a little bit, you know, of, um,
decreasing our giving to the missions. But the Lord spoke
to my heart that instead of decreasing that I should,

(30:09):
I had to increase. So as a result, we increase
four times our giving to the specific mission in Nicaragua.
And the Lord supplied. We went through the pandemic fine.
You know, the Lord supplied for us to give four
times more to that specific mission the Lord supplied for
the church and is still today. We support that mission.

(30:31):
We actually have been there with a group, uh, twice
in Nicaragua and we continue to to bless them and
also other people from other churches and people that are
not even Christian yet they join that vision. So we
saw the Lord's hand in this decision that we made.

S2 (30:48):
Uh, Matthew.

S3 (30:50):
Wow. How encouraging. Zika one. I just want to commend you. Um,
I know you're not looking for a pat on the
back at all, but I am so encouraged to hear
that when many churches were becoming insular, they were turning inward.
And I get it. There was big problems. There were
big issues. But you maintained your heart and you continue

(31:11):
to look to the nations. And let me just say,
I'm not surprised that God blessed you. Uh, Psalm 67,
the psalmist, Praise God, bless us. Be gracious to us.
Make your face shine upon us, that your ways may
be known in all the earth, your salvation among all nations.
And so the psalmist says, God bless me so that

(31:31):
I might be a blessing to the nations. And so, Zeke,
what an encouragement and I am so glad that you
experienced this, this reflex blessing of aligning your heart with
the heart of God.

S2 (31:44):
Amen. Zeke, thanks for your call. We appreciate it. Great
to hear from you. Uh, let's move right along. Gail,
you're listening in Georgia today. Thanks for your call. Your
question or comment, please.

S5 (31:55):
Okay. Thank you for taking my call. Um, yes. We're
a church of about 450 people in a small town
in Georgia, and we have made a commitment to, um,
support missionaries. And we support around 50 missionaries will contribute

(32:17):
to their support. And, um, what we we have committed to, um,
incrementally increase our the amount of our budget that we
use to support missions. So we're up to now about 20%
of our budget. And that's in addition to Faith promise,
which is above. The support that we commit from our budget.

(32:40):
So what we do is we have a missions committee,
and every year we have a missions conference. And all
of the missionaries who can come to this conference if
they happen to be on furlough or can make the trip.
And we try to encourage them and love on them
and just do special things for them. But it's also

(33:02):
to acquaint the congregation with missionaries. And every Sunday we
feature different missionary on the screen, and we tell what
they're doing and we pray for them. And, um, at
the when we have the conference, we have a special
program for children, for teens, and for the whole congregation

(33:23):
as well, so that they can be acquainted with them.
So we encourage short term mission trips, especially to areas
where our missionaries are serving to help them and encourage them.
And in the past we have been sending church. But
in recent years, I mean, we've been a supporting church,
but in recent years we've made a commitment to become

(33:44):
a sending church, and we've recently sent three young couples
to little reached and unreached people groups. And we have
some young people who are currently in the process of
training to also become missionaries. Um, so we do this,
but we don't. We also have a very big outreach

(34:07):
in our community. And because we have grown and we
meet at our family life center now, we have allowed
our old church building to be used by a Hispanic
congregation on certain days. So, um, we just have made
a commitment to really support missionaries. And on the mission committee,

(34:29):
We each are assigned different missionaries and we communicate with
them and stay in touch with them by calls or
email or whatever, so that we always know what they're doing,
what their needs are, and we're ready to help if
in any way we can. So I just wanted to
share that because we're not a huge church, but we have, um,

(34:51):
continued to increase the support of missionaries.

S2 (34:56):
Yeah. Matthew boy Gale sounds like, uh, that church is
on the right path.

S3 (35:01):
Yeah. It's beautiful. And I just want to surface a
few things, um, comments on her comments. And one is
neighbors and nations. See, they're reaching the world, but they're
also doing outreach. It's not either or. It's both. And
and there's a distinction, though, and I think that distinction
is important because when you blur it all together, often
those who are marginalized or those who've never heard. So

(35:24):
neighbors and nations is what I heard. I also hear
joy in her voice, and I heard it in the
previous call as well. And one of the things that
occurs to me is that we can't afford not to
do missions, because one of the things that God gives
us as we join him in his redemptive story is joy.
I believe he was David David Penman, he was a

(35:45):
archbishop in New Zealand, and he said no local church, um,
regardless of its size or circumstance, can afford not to
do missions. We need to be sending our best people
to the front lines, because encouragement and nourishment will come
to that church. And so I just want to hit
on this, and I think she surfaced it in her
commentary here. And that is missions is not only necessary

(36:08):
for the life of the world, Colin. It's necessary for
the life of the church. And I think you hear
that in her comments there.

S2 (36:16):
Yeah. Gail, thanks so much for your call. We appreciate it.
One other thing I'd like to add as well to
something Gail shared. She talked about bringing in as many
missionaries as possible for this mission conference. Just a couple
of years ago, Matthew, I had on a lady that
works with Barna and they had done a study which
had to do with, uh, what led young people. What

(36:39):
types of things led young people into getting involved in
ministry or missions? And one of the things they said
was heavily involved in them. Choosing ministry or missions as
part of their adult life was being exposed to missions
and missionaries as young people. And almost every person I've

(37:01):
talked to who's in the mission world, especially missionaries, they
were exposed as kids to missionaries in their church, missionaries
in their home. Something for parents to think about as you, uh,
are engaging with your church and you're engaging with missionaries
or people involved with missions, uh, get those people around
your kids. You will not know what God might do

(37:24):
with those interactions that take place.

S3 (37:27):
Yeah. Amen.

S2 (37:29):
[phone] is our number. We're going to take a quick break.
Come back and we're going to continue with your calls. Abraham.
Hold on. We'll be right back with you. [phone]. By
the way, if you'd like to learn more about this
upcoming book about the ministry and work of 1615 or Matthew.

(37:50):
It's all available on our website, Radio.com. It's that easy
equipped radio. You can also check out our Facebook page
at radio. Same thing for Instagram. You'll find some of
the information there as well. Again, our guest Matthew Ellison
with 1615. We're talking about growing church missions. You may

(38:13):
have a tale to tell. We'd love to hear your story.
Before our time runs out as well. 8775483. Six. Seven. Five. Eight. Seven. Seven. Five. Four.
Eight three. Six 483675 more of equipped with Chris Brooks
coming up in just a moment.

S1 (38:29):
Each day on equip, we confront the cultural challenges of
our time, offering biblical truth with discernment and confidence in
God's plans and purposes. Your support as an Equipper helps
us reach more people with God's truth, and you'll receive
exclusive monthly resources and updates to encourage your spiritual life.
Become an Equipper today and partner with us in this

(38:52):
vital ministry. Call 888644 4144 or go online to equip radio.org.

S2 (39:10):
Welcome back to equipped with Chris Brooks. I'm Colin Lambert
sitting in today. Our guest, Matthew Ellison, founder and president
of 1615. We're talking about growing church missions. Our phone
lines are open 87754836758775483675. Let's go back to your calls. Abraham,

(39:31):
you're in Indiana. Thanks for calling. Today. Your question or comment?

S6 (39:35):
Hi. Um, yeah. Global mission begins with our obedience. Um,
I found in my life more recently than not. I'm 34.
I grew up in church and with the faith, but
at 34, I've learned, um, hearing God's voice personally is
is a very important thing. And as I listen and

(39:56):
I started a vessel of his voice ministries, um, I
started praying for other people. God said, how many people
have you prayed with when they were in trouble? And
then I started praying online, and before I know it, um,
I was reached by a, um, by an evangelist in Pakistan, Daniel. And, um,

(40:18):
now I'm ministering to a whole community that I never
thought I would, just by starting with obedience and prayer.

S2 (40:27):
Wow. How about that, Matthew?

S3 (40:31):
Yeah, I love it. I love it that there's a
scripture that comes to mind calling Psalm 46, ten and 11.
Be still and know that I am God. I will
be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in
the earth. And you know, he talks about obedience and,
you know, knowing God. Um, that's where missions begins. It's

(40:52):
our passion for knowing him and loving him that fuels
us to begin to share the gospel with those around us,
in our neighborhoods, and even to the ends of the earth.
So he's on to something there that there's a correlation
between obedience and love, and walking in fellowship with God
and having a passion to reach the nations. So I
love that.

S2 (41:13):
Yeah. Abraham, thanks for your call. We appreciate it. As
you prepare for this book to launch again, it's called
the Sending Shepherd. It was commissioned in partnership with Barna
and with pioneers, which are both the great organizations. What
what kinds of things are your are you hoping to
inspire or produce or change within the church body? The

(41:35):
life of the reader. What what kinds of things are
you looking for?

S3 (41:39):
Yeah, I've been throwing around this term internally with our team,
and this is the first time I've maybe shared it publicly,
but gracious disruption calling. Um, you know, we don't want
to browbeat pastors. I mentioned that this book, I hope,
is an encouragement because many pastors are discouraged. But I

(41:59):
think in the midst of the discouragement, they have marginalized
the mission, the mandate that the priority. And so if
missions is in the margin at local churches, part of
the equation is the pastor. It's just that's the way
it is. And so we pray it's a gracious Disruption
that they're pulled into the story. And again, it's not

(42:22):
only necessary for the life of the world, it's necessary
for the life of the church. And I don't know
a single pastor that would say he doesn't care about
the spiritual vitality of the flock. And if the flock
is going to be healthy, then that which matters most
to God must matter most to the church. And so
that's one I would say emissions awakening. I'm dreaming really
big here, Colin, but there's no shortage of resources. This

(42:45):
is not a resource problem. It's a vision problem. And
the church has plenty of resources given by God to
engage the the nations, all the resources necessary to send
and support an army of Christ loving ambassadors is already
in the church. And so we want to see a
new missions movement take place among the unreached. And we

(43:07):
believe for that to happen, there must first be a
missions mobilization movement among churches. And as we've said, that
really requires pastors to become sending shepherds. Um, maybe just
to kind of seal up this thought. This is a
quote from John Mott. He wrote it 120 years ago,
and he said, the secret of enabling the home church.

(43:29):
By that he means the church in America to press
her advantage in the non-Christian world is one of leadership.
And so that's what we pray that pastors are encouraged
that this master story of Scripture doesn't become a plot
line in your churches. It'll bless your church, it'll encourage

(43:50):
your people, it'll bring about church health. It aligns with
God's heart. And then those who need the gospel the
most will get it. And your church will be the
vehicle that God uses to bring it to them.

S2 (44:02):
Matthew, we've just got a couple of minutes left. I
know that, uh, you know, you have shared adequately and
expertly what is needed. What is, uh, the church is
called to do in this sense. But inevitably there are
going to be pastors in senior leaders who don't see

(44:22):
this book, who haven't heard this call yet. There are
people listening today who are in those churches who are
who are congregants in those churches who would love to
see this take place in their church. Maybe a quick
thought to someone in a church body who wants to
encourage their pastor in this way. What are your thoughts

(44:42):
on that?

S3 (44:44):
Yeah, this is a challenging question. A good one to
land on. Um, I find that often missions passionate people.
I'm going to call them mobilizers. Those who are trying
to rally God's people into his mission. Sometimes they're their
own worst enemies. And what I mean by that is
I think they often wear their convictions with frustration. And

(45:07):
I get it. I get it like, how are we
marginalizing the mission of God? I get that, but but
I think they need to have a winsomeness when they
are trying to encourage their pastors to care more deeply
about missions. And so I would say you need to
wear those convictions with brokenness and humility and with tears.
You need to pray for your pastor. Pastors have a

(45:30):
tough role. Be a source of encouragement. Be a cheerleader,
and be an encourager to your pastors. And I would say,
make sure you're serving at your church. Oftentimes, you know,
if you have a criticism of any kind, but you're
not actively engaged in the life and the welfare of
your church, your your message is going to fall on
deaf ears. Um, and just simply put, buy the book,

(45:53):
read it. If you feel like it would encourage your pastor,
hand it off to your pastor.

S2 (45:57):
It's a great idea. When's it coming out again?

S3 (46:00):
It'll be out in September.

S2 (46:02):
September. The sending shepherd. And it's coming from your friends
at pioneers and 1615, along with some help from Barna.
Matthew Ellison with 1615. Always great to talk to you
my friend. Thanks so much for your time today. It
is a true blessing.

S3 (46:17):
Thank you brother, always a pleasure.

S2 (46:20):
Well, thank you for tuning in today. I hope you
learned something I certainly did and encourage you to check
out that new book coming in September, The Sending Shepherd.
You can learn more about that book about the Ministry
of 1615, about Matthew Ellison, our guest today at our
website equipped radio that is equipped Radio.com. I encourage you

(46:42):
to check that out and make use of it. Share
it with others, especially those who have a heart for missions.
Thanks to the team in Chicago. Thanks to the staff
here at the bridge, and thank you for tuning in
today to equipped with Chris Brooks. It's a production of
Moody Radio, a ministry of the Moody Bible Institute. Have
a great day.