Our church is preparing to put on a training event on missions, evangelism, and outreach. M.E.O.W. (Missions, Evangelism, and Outreach Week) is coming up June 2-6, 2014 and I’m praying for people to make it a priority to come and catch the passion. I’m also praying that we’ll see lasting evangelistic fruit through this effort by God’s grace. As I’ve been doing my part in getting ready for this conference, I remembered John Piper’s reflections in Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions. Piper’s writing on the relationship between missions and worship is so crucial that it is worthwhile to quote him at length. Here are his words at the opening of chapter 1 (pages 35-36):

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

 

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. ‘The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!’ (Ps. 97:1). ‘Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!’ (Ps. 67:3-4).

 

But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, ‘Let the nations be glad!’ if they cannot say from the heart, ‘I rejoice in the LORD. . . . I will be glad and exult in you, I will sing praise to your name, O Most High’ (Pss. 104:34; 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.