Before Jesus ascended to the right hand of God, He said something significant to His disciples: “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 have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19-20). This exhortation is what Christians call the Great Commission, and the profound statement that follows it is what Christians depend on to accomplish the Great Commission. Indeed, Christians cannot evangelize without Christ nor make disciples out of anything without Him. Christ with Christians makes missions possible, successful, and worth the complex and costly task of evangelizing to the nations. 

In the verses before the Great Commission, Christ says another profound statement. He declares, “[a]ll authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18). The fact that Christ presently reigns from heaven is not only a massive comfort to Christians, but it is a promise that God will accomplish everything He has planned, including the Great Commission. Dave Mathis, in Finish the Mission, states, “[n]ot only is missions powered by Jesus’s universal authority, founded on His finished work, and modeled in His ministry, but also missions is sustained by the promise of His presence and the pleasure [Christians] have in Him.” Because Christ reigns from heaven and with Christians, missions will not fail. He will be known among the nations because He has ruled it so.

The Great Commission is an invitation. Creation sings the praises of God (Ps. 148), and through the justification that the Gospel brings, the Christians of the earth join in. God, though able, does not choose to do His work alone, but he desires those who worship Him to walk alongside Him in His work. He invites Christians in the Great Commission, “out of kindness and generosity and love, to get onboard with the things He is doing in the world right now, and until the end of time. He’s inviting [them] to walk with Him as [they] share a role in His glorious plan.” That is what the mission is. Christians walk alongside the Lord as they steward what He has given them. He is responsible for all the work. After all, the word mission comes from the Latin root missio, which means “sending.” The subject of even the word mission is not Christians but the Lord Himself. He sends. The only thing Christians must do is go and participate in the work He has already planned.

While Christians must only go, there are a few practical things for which they are responsible. These things are laid out for them in the Great Commission. The first command is “go.” It is followed by “make disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28:19). How do Christians do this? They must share the Gospel with the nations to make disciples. If and when the people come to faith, God has worked to regnerate their hearts. Like all things, “conversion is first God’s act, before it is even [theirs]. [All people] must be saved, and through Christ [they] are” if God has worked faith in them. Once this miraculous and glorious event happens to those being witnessed, they are to be baptized in the Trinitarian formula, and then they are to be taught all of the commands of Christ.

While evangelism to the nations is God’s work, it can be challenging for Christians to communicate the Gospel cross-culturally. In order to combat this difficulty, Gailyn Van Rheenen suggests that missionaries become incarnational. He states, “[i]ncarnation is redemptive identification, expressed through empathetic relationships used by God to transform the heart, the mind, and the soul.” Like Jesus, missionaries must become those they witness in a way that understands them and takes on their own “culture, struggles, triumphs, defeats, and temptations.” Also, like Jesus, they are to come in humility. They participate in the people's lives “‘not as benefactors, but as co-workers.’ [Incarnational ministry] necessitates standing with new Christians, not standing over them.” While Jesus had the authority and holiness over all those around Him, He came like everyone else. He came as a man. Christian missionaries must do the same. They must become like the people around them to become effective and love the people well.

Once the missionaries become like the people, they can share the Gospel with them. Once again, this can prove challenging. In order for the missionaries to share the Gospel effectively, they must make use of contextualization. Contextualization is making the Gospel understandable to a particular culture without sacrificing the truth of Scripture. It is about adapting words so that people may understand them based on their worldview. The Apostle Paul is a near-perfect example of contextualization in action. Rheenen states that “as more Gentiles became believers, Paul championed a view that allows Gentiles to become Christians without adopting Jewish customs or observing mosaic rituals… [he believed] that the new believers of a new culture did not have to speak the language, wear the clothes, or follow all the customs of the sending church.” This is contextualization in terms of those already saved, but Paul also contextualized the Gospel to those yet to be converted. One example is when Paul witnessed the philosophers and stoics at Athens (Acts 17:16-34). He came across statues of their pantheon of gods and a statue of an unknown god. He contextualized the Gospel by stating that the unknown god was representative of Christ, who is Lord of all. Moreover, Paul was willing to become all things to win some to Christ (1 Cor. 9:19-23). Missionaries must function the same when they share the Gospel.

Contextualization does have limits. In the case of the unknown god, “[Paul’s] Gospel was not simply the opportunity to add another immortal to the pantheon of worship.” Instead, he had to elaborate the contextualization with both reason and Scripture. Contextualization alone does not save unbelievers. The Word must accompany it. The Apostle Paul tells Christians, “[f]aith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). Paul wielded both contextualization and “a sword—dividing people from their former religion [and] their previous way of life.” A missionary must understandably implore Scripture to bring lost souls to Jesus. 

Another strategy that missionaries should practice is planting churches rather than only seeking the conversion of individuals. Discipleship multiples exponentially. A disciple will have multiple disciples, and those disciples will have disciples of their own. A church provides an environment for this practice to be facilitated. Once a church is planted in a previously unreached area, it can serve as a “‘missional outpost’ in [its] neighborhood and city.” It becomes a beacon to the surrounding area and a city on a hill.

A church that has done an excellent job of being a “missional outpost” is Westminster Presbyterian Church of Amarillo, Texas. Recently, the church has started an afterschool program for the neighboring middle school. Of course, the ministry started as small, and only a few children attended, but it has grown exponentially. Within the last couple of weeks, the church has received a forty-five thousand dollar grant to grow its program and to bring more middle schoolers to saving faith in Christ. This was the Lord’s doing, and He will accomplish whatever He desires with the ministry in His hands. 

While Westminster has been faithful in witnessing to its neighbors, there is room to grow into a missional calling. Like many church congregations, the congregation is primarily composed of the older generation. While this is not bad, it would be nice to have younger people in the church service. Westminster could continue inviting children from the afterschool program to youth groups and Sunday service. Having a diversity in age would be of great benefit to the church. The older generation would have more opportunities to disciple believers, and the younger generation could learn quite a lot from the mature Christians. It would also unify the church in a way that it has not been unified in the past years. Intergenerational ministry reflects Christ's unity with children: “[l]et the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matt. 19:14). 

Westminster should not only become more missional with the neighboring middle school but also reach out to the community as a whole. Westminster is located in a historic neighborhood within Amarillo, and many families do not know Jesus. Indeed, they may have never even heard of His great Name. A strategy to reach these people would be to participate in the neighborhood chats already established on social media, reach out to families with many connections, and even walk door-to-door. While door-knocking is an old method of evangelism, it has just as much power as any other sort of evangelism because God powers it. Because of the Holy Spirit, some families may visit the church and become Christians. No work is done in vain. 

When this new influx of people join the church or even think about joining the church, they may not understand how reconciliation with God occurs. Because of this, it would be missional for Westminster to practice reconciliation itself in order to welcome in and display reconciliation to God for the unbelievers and newly churched Christians. Westminster should practice “loving and forgiving one another, even when they can find lots of reasons not to do so.” This forgiveness and reconciliation will be a light to all the visitors and a display of the Gospel of Christ. More importantly, the Gospel must be preached at Westminster for reconciliation to occur. 

If Westminster is not already doing so, it would also be helpful for them to implement regular evaluation and planning in terms of missions. The congregation's elders, deacons, and church staff should get together to discuss their current philosophy of missions in relation to the philosophy of missions found in the Bible. After evaluating, they ought to plan and discuss the motivation for missions inside and outside their community. This planning time would focus on both vision casting and realistic expectations that are manageable under the current church budget. 

Overall, Westminster has done a fairly good job fulfilling the Great Commission. However, they are capable of doing more and expanding into new territories where evangelism will be more prevalent for every congregant of the church. Over time, Westminster will become more devoted to the Great Commission and missions as a whole, both inside and outside of their current ministry context.