On June 5th, 2009 John Piper delivered the first part of his sermon “Let the Nations Be Glad” as part of the Advance 09 conference in Durham, NC. His thesis for the sermon was that a church is not biblically missional unless it is involved in missions. In this context he defined missions as pioneer or pauline missions. That is, missions is going to places where Christ is not known. Being missional involves going to the ends of the earth that all peoples may worship God. In other words, you cannot be missional if you are only focused on reaching your local community.
He made it clear that he was not calling churches to stop caring and serving their local communities. Rather, he said that being missional involves caring both for one’s local community and for the unreached peoples of the world who have not heard of Christ.
He warned that our souls will shrink - be sick- if we ignore the world. Only in caring for the world will our hearts be healthy. This is true for both individual believers and local church communities.
May we follow Piper’s call and be biblically missional, caring both for our city and the world.
Piper’s sermon can heard in its entirety:
Let the Nations Be Glad, Part One
Let the Nations Be Glad, Part Two
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Michael - thanks for the synopsis! It was an amazing talk and EVERYONE with a heart for the church, with a heart for the nations, should listen to Piper’s talk.