Warren Janzen has served as the International Director of SEND since 2004.

What does God say about missions?

• Mar. 8th - A Visa to Make Disciples
• Feb. 23rd - Isn’t “all” a little much?
• Feb. 8th - Setting Up Your Tent
• Jan. 25th - Hope of the World
• Jan. 12th - My Gift
• Dec. 11th, 2009 - Fearless
• Nov. 2009 - What's in a word?

March 8th - 1.4 A Visa to Make Disciples

“Passport!” I obediently slide my document across the counter and through the small opening in the Plexiglas window. The immigration officer flips through the passport, looking for the visa that will let me enter his country. That visa gives me permission to proceed. That visa is my way in.

That visa carries authority. 

About two weeks after his resurrection, Jesus gathers the disciples for a retreat at a mountain in Galilee (Mt. 28:16). There in the undistracted quiet of a scenic getaway He gives them the third and most extensive installment of instructions.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20).

“All authority…has been given to me.” Jesus establishes His reach into the world! There is nothing that can stop Him. Nothing that overrides Him. He gives a visa that trumps all other commands. The principle of submission to any lawfully constituted authority -- see Paul’s words in Ephesians 6 -- is only suspended when that authority demands that we compromise our commitment to Christ and disobey His commands (cf. Acts 4:19,20; 5:29).

Governments may say we have no right to engage their people with the gospel, but Jesus gives us absolute authority to “make disciples of all nations.” “All authority” provides the context for the focus of mission. Digging a well, building a school, offering hope to the marginalized – it is all to be done with a desire to “make disciples.” All our giving and going and praying, all our teaching and building and baptizing, is to focus on making disciples of all nations. 

Jesus doesn’t just give us a task and send us out. Like bookends, His authority and His presence support His great commission. His authority determines our direction and purpose. His presence provides the power and encouragement to carry out that task. Christ’s presence is not a cheerleader beside us or behind us, shouting encouragement as we face perplexing languages and unfamiliar cultures. Jesus is right out in front clearing the way, arranging the encounters, orchestrating the circumstances, empowering the message. 

Under His authority, and with His continuous presence, we are to make disciples -- disciples of ALL nations. We’ve been handed a visa to go, to teach, to baptize. The outcome we seek is fully devoted followers of Jesus who worship at the throne of grace. This was the challenge He put before the disciples at that retreat.

• This is the challenge each generation must rise up and take. You’ve got the visa. Where are you going with it?

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Feb. 23rd - 1.3 Isn’t “all” a little much?

On the evening of the resurrection day, Jesus met the disciples and gave them the first of His instructions: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (Jn. 20:21). About a week later, Jesus again appears to His disciples and further elaborates on their mission by defining its scope. “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mk. 16:15).

Did He just use “all” twice in one sentence? I can understand “all” when it’s something I can see or touch, like “you mean you ate it all?” But this kind of “all” is a lot trickier to wrap my mind around. Jesus is talking about “all the world” and “all creation,” describing the scope of His follower’s mission with two encompassing descriptions. “All the world” makes it a global command. It’s a macro statement, capturing the more than 16,000 people groups spread throughout the earth. “All creation,” on the other hand, is a micro statement. It has in view every person. While the goal is that every person has a compelling invitation to follow Jesus, there is a hint of the broader impact. As more people encounter Christ and worship Him, more people will take up the stewardship of creation. Salvation is a social event in that its fruit radiates beyond the individual to others and to creation itself.

Sent….into all the world…to preach the good news…to everyone. Is Jesus serious? Does He have any idea how many people that is? The most conservative estimate I could find of how many people are yet without a compelling invitation to follow Jesus is 1.9 billion people. That’s a lot of people!

Perhaps this will help you understand how really big that number is. A new iPhone 3G has 32 GB of memory and can load 6000 songs (assuming that the average song is about 4 minutes long). That means an iPhone can play your favorite songs for 2 weeks without repeats or pauses. Consider this: if each song represents one person that is without a culturally appropriate, compelling invitation to follow Jesus, your iPhone 3G will play non-stop for over 12,000 years before it has played one song for each of the lost people in the world. That is 6 times the number of years it has been since Jesus walked on this earth.

Sent….into all the world…to preach the good news…to everyone. Is Jesus serious? Yes, He is! As He continues to unravel this great commission to His followers, He lets us know how it will be accomplished.

He is serious. Are we?

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February 8th - 1.2 Setting up your tent

We all want to make an impact. Whether in a city devastated by an earthquake, a country devastated by religious oppression, or a society which paints Jesus as passé, we want to bring a kingdom impact. How is that going to happen? In John 20:21 Jesus gives His first of five statements about the future mission of the disciples (typically referred to as the Great Commission passages). He says, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

Jesus impacted our world by coming and living among us. God didn’t simply send a PowerPoint, a DVD or a cool screen play. God sent His Son to become one of us, to “set up His tent among us.” When Jesus describes the Kingdom (Mt. 5-7), it is all about God meeting us in our brokenness. It is God blessing us by being right here with us, by being for us. Christ’s impact does not end with His resurrection and return to heaven. In fact He uses the very strategy which God used: He sends us. Jesus declares, “YOU are the salt of the earth…YOU are the light of the world” (Mt. 5:13, 14 emphasis mine). This is not a statement of guilt, “you should be like this but you’re not.” It is an empowering declaration of who we are right now. Right now we are salt and light. Right now the world is in need of both. Right now, for this generation, we are the way He is choosing to reach the lost and powerless, the devastated and distressed. This is about YOU becoming a living expression of Jesus’ love and grace and hope. This is about YOU being sent. “Come and follow me,” Jesus said, “and I WILL MAKE YOU fishers of men” (Mt. 4:19 emphasis mine). We follow, He enables. We are sent, He empowers. We are salt and light, He is the source.

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. How are His grace and glory and love going to impact our world? Through you. You, the sent one. You, setting up your tent wherever He places you. You, under His enablement, living out the grace and peace of our LORD.

Note: for a detailed study of the progressive and incremental expressions of the Great Commission, see Marv Newell’s new book, Commissioned: What Jesus Wants You to Know as You Go.

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January 25th - 1.1 Hope of the World

Like many of you, I have been moved by the suffering and death faced by so many in Haiti. My heart goes out to those who are so desperate for help, and I join with the prayers of many who are seeking to bring aid in the name of Jesus to these afflicted people. While SEND does not have any work in Haiti, many of our members are partnering with local churches and other organizations to help meet the overwhelming needs there.

1.1 Hope of the World

Anyone you know of in need of some hope? I can hope for warmer weather, better grades, or that one day I’ll get a Mac. What is the difference between a “wish” and a “certainty” when you are talking about hope?

1 Peter 1:3 says that through the resurrection of Jesus, we have been given a “living hope,” something that is sure, secure, definite. In Jesus, we have proof of someone who has tasted death and survived. It’s kind of like going out for fugu, a poisonous delicacy in Japan. The expert chef prepares the meat of the puffer fish so that the diner’s tongue and lips go numb, but not their throat. Imagine being served a plate of fugu and watching your friend eat some pieces without any adverse effects. You’ve been given a living hope that the chef has done his job well!

While Jesus is our living hope, His Church is to express this hope to the world. The Church is the body of Christ gifted and sent by the Holy Spirit to display and advance the kingdom of God in the world. SEND passionately pursues the establishment of healthy churches among the unreached. We want them to be salt and light in their own communities and then reach beyond their communities to others who have not heard. Everything we do is because of the hope that is in Jesus. Our lives and our work all point to that hope. We strive to live and work in a culturally relevant, compelling expression of love resulting in local communities of faith. That is the kind of impact we want to make in this world.

It’s a very tall order! What does it look like? How do we actually make that kind of an impact? I’d like to spend the next few months looking at the multiple instructions of Jesus to his followers regarding the building His church in the world. Won’t you join me?

We are the “called out” ones, belonging to the LORD and bringing hope to the world.

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January 12th, 2010 - My Gift

What kind of gifts did you receive this Christmas?  What kind of gifts did you give?  And in particular, what did you give that person who already has everything?  They don’t really need another tie or sweater.  Anyone like that on your list this year?

Can you imagine the dilemma those Magi faced 2000 years ago?  What do you give someone whose birth has been announced by the stars?  Think about it for a moment – what were the Magi hoping to communicate with their gifts?  Some have suggested the gifts proclaim the identity of the child: gold for the King of Kings, frankincense for the Son of God, and myrrh for the sacrifice Jesus was to make.  But was there something else going on here?  The Magi traveled a long way for this moment.  Was there something more behind their gifts?

Matthew 2:10 gives us a glimpse.  The Magi were “overjoyed” (NIV) when the star led them to the place where Jesus was staying.  They “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (ESV). Overjoyed...exceedingly...great joy.  We get the message, they were amped up.  I think the gifts were more than just a royal care package, more than just identity markers for God's Son.  The gifts were deep expressions of their overwhelming joy.  The gifts were a declaration that Jesus was their real treasure.  The gifts were a statement, perhaps a commitment, that these wise men wanted to value Christ more than anything else.

As we enter into 2010, I want to present that same kind of gift to my King.  I want to value Him more than anything else.  And I crave that the nations might also discover Him as their boundless treasure, their unsurpassed joy.  My heart beats with Psalm 96:3-4, “Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples.  For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; He is to be feared above all gods” (NIV).

So here is the question.  How am I going to give my time, my talent and my treasure to Jesus in 2010?  Taking that one step further, how can I be involved in bringing His message of hope and a future to the nations?  Especially to those who are without a compelling, culturally relevant witness in their village, town or city?

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December 11th, 2009 - Fearless

Joseph was afraid.  What had he gotten himself into?  He was engaged to be married, yet his soon to be bride just let him know she was already pregnant!  How would he get out of this without too much shame and publicity?  Then one night “an angel of the LORD appeared to him in a dream and said ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid…’” (Matthew 1:20).

Mary and Mary Magdalene were afraid.  They couldn’t make sense out of what they were seeing.  The stone was rolled away.  There was a person whose “appearance was like lightening” by the tomb.  What was going on?  The angel spoke to their bewilderment and said “Do not be afraid…Come and see….go quickly and tell…” (Matthew 28:5-7).

Later Jesus Himself appears to them and says “Greetings (come and see)…Do not be afraid…Go and tell…”(Matthew 28:9-10).    These encounters reflect a pattern for Christ followers:  fearlessly coming to Him, fearlessly going to others. 

Jesus invites us to come to Him, to taste and see that He is good. Taste and see His grace as He transforms lives.  Taste and see His compassion as He restores the broken-hearted.  Taste and see His goodness despite the sickness, the rejections and disappointments that we all face.  Jesus invites us to come fearlessly to Him with all of our needs, all our questions…with all of “life.”

Then Jesus commands us to go and tell.  We are sharing His story in some of the hardest places in the world.  We have the scars to prove it.  Yet the command remains in place and with it the promise, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).  Fearlessly coming to Him with all that life throws our way, fearlessly going to others with His message of love and forgiveness.
 
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November 2009 - What's in a word?

"I'm going on a missions trip!"  While my heart jumps when I hear about someone moved toward missions, I always wonder what "missions" means to them.  Sometimes it's used to describe that needed, valuable trip to our own inner city.  Other times it involves a trip across the country or over the ocean to help reach out, build something, or bring healing to a needy community.  At other times it describes someone committing months, years or even their careers to engaging the unreached.  

God has always been on a mission.  His pursuit of the lost started in the Garden of Eden, and does not simply end in salvation.  God continues to pursue our hearts.   As He draws us deeper in worship and adoration and understanding of His heart, He propels us out toward those He loves and for whom He died.   As with Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, we've been blessed in order to bless others.  When God's propulsion sends us beyond the reach of the local church, when it sends us to those who have little or no access to the gospel, we call that missions.  Perhaps "pioneer missions" is a better term to separate it from the common and broad usage now.  Either way, bringing the gospel to the least reached is the passion which drives SEND.  

What's in a word?  The driving force of God's pursuit.  That Jesus came to "seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19:10) compels us to do no less.

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