Executive Editor’s Note: In this five-part series, which began in the March 18 issue of the Baptist Trumpet, Derrick Bremer has traced Europe’s missionary legacy, its spiritual decline, and the need to rethink strategic missions in light of global influence. This final installment calls churches and believers to move from reflection to response by rekindling a shared commitment to the Great Commission. The other articles in this series are available in the March 18, March 25, April 1, and April 8 issues, and online at BaptistTrumpet.com.
A fire never dies all at once. It dims slowly. Embers fade beneath ash with the heat remaining, waiting for fresh fuel and faithful hands to stir it again.
For two centuries, the Baptist Missionary Movement burned hot with that flame. From William Carey’s India to the first missionaries sent by the Baptist Missionary Association of America, our forebearers believed that the gospel was worth crossing oceans, facing sickness, and surrendering comfort. Because of them, the light of Christ reached the nations.
Fires must be tended. Every generation must decide whether to warm itself at yesterday’s glow or to gather wood and make it burn again.
The Movement We Inherited
We stand on the shoulders of pioneer missionaries who had no precedent besides Scripture and conviction. They built missionary societies before there were budgets. They sold belongings before there were sending agencies to connect churches and believers together. They trusted God when all they had was a calling.
Over time, those sparks grew into structures. God blessed those efforts. He used our organization to extend our reach. Our structures remain vital tools in God’s mission; rekindling the flame is about breathing new life through them. If we aren’t careful, structures can make individual churches and Christians less personally involved. Even with all the organization in the world, we must never assume that anyone can do the work that belongs to us in our place.
It’s not comfortable, but it’s true that missions today can sometimes feel routine. We’ve grown familiar with the cycle of reports and updates. That’s a blessing that can also make us forget the fire that once drove tears and prayers behind those reports. We quote the Great Commission easily; living it daily is harder.
That discomfort is an invitation to rekindle what made early missionaries restless. They didn’t go because they felt guilty. They weren’t looking for someone’s gratitude. They went because they sensed their call, and they obeyed.
When William Carey challenged complacency in 1792, he showed the slumbering saints in the pocket of affluence what their obedience looked like. His famous call, “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God,” was an earthquake that shook comfortable churches awake.
We need that shaking again.
Our generation must move from remembering the missionary movement to rejoining it. History is a guide, not a finish line. Rekindling the embers means asking what it looks like to live with missionary conviction right now in our neighborhoods, in our churches, and among the nations.
Signs of a New Spark
God is stirring hearts among His people. I’ve spoken with three different church pastors recently who want their churches to be more involved in associational life. They want to shepherd their members to have a personal connection with the missionaries they support. Young leaders are hearing God’s call to plant, translate, and teach. Retired pastors are mentoring new missionaries. Small congregations are discovering that faithfulness can have a global reach.
Believers are linking arms around the same old gospel, burning with new intensity.
Each of these small flames matters. We can take action to keep that fire burning:
• Through prayer that expects God to act. Every missionary movement in history has begun with believers on their knees. Prayer enlarges our vision and reminds us that mission is God’s idea, not ours.
• Through partnership. When we treat missions as a program for professionals, we risk the local church losing its sense of ownership. Every church, regardless of size, can pray, give, and send.
• Through proximity. Missionary passion is contagious. Spend time with missionaries, listen to their stories, and host them in your home. We love what we pray for, and we give to what we love.
• Through obedience in the ordinary. Not all of us will cross borders, but all of us can cross streets. When mission becomes our lifestyle in the local community, sending someone across the world feels like the next faithful step.
The Heart That Still Burns
Missions is not an enterprise of the exceptional. It is the routine obedience of ordinary Christians in the hands of an extraordinary God.
When Paul wrote to the Philippians from prison, he thanked them for “partnership in the gospel from the first day until now” (Phil. 1:5 ESV). That word, “partnership,” is the DNA of missions. The gospel spreads through partnership between those who go and those who send, those who preach and those who pray.
Some of us go to foreign fields; others keep the home fires burning — lest we ourselves look like post-Christian Europe tomorrow.
A Word to the Churches
As we gather for the annual meeting, we do so to join a story far older and holier than any of us. Our meeting is not about the business. The Great Commission is not a motion to be seconded; it is what defines us.
Many of those attending have prayed, given, and served faithfully for decades. The fruit of your faithfulness is being felt around the world. But there is more to do, and God still calls laborers.
When we meet, shake hands, and hear reports, I pray we would also ask, “Who will God send next?” And are we willing to be part of the answer?
The fire that burned in the hearts of Patrick, Carey, Boniface, and the Moravians still burns wherever believers refuse to settle for comfort over calling. When God’s people decide again that being sent is not optional, the world will once more feel the warmth of that flame.
Looking Ahead
As Michelle and I prepare to be presented at this year’s national meeting as a missionary candidate to France, I’m deeply aware that my story is only one spark in the larger work God is doing through the Baptist Missionary Association. My prayer is that our collective obedience fans those sparks into a blaze. I want to see every dark corner of our world know the love of Christ. Until then, the embers are still warm, the Spirit still breathes; now it is our turn to stir the fire.
