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Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Matthew 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
"Missions" Slogans and Quotes
Do you need a reason for missions? Do you need inspiration or ideas for a sermon or message on missions? Quotations from missionary leaders like William Carey and Hudson Taylor have served as battle cries for the Christian Missions movement.
Why missions? World evangelism has advanced with inspiring missionary slogans like these:
Who was the first to use the phrase Great Commission? It may have been Dutch missionary Justinian von Welz (1621-1688). Nearly 200 years later, it was Hudson Taylor who really popularized the words "Great Commission" to describe Matthew 28:19-20.
"God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him." -- Hudson Taylor, missionary to China
"I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light" -- John Keith Falconer
"God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply" -- Hudson Taylor
"God isn't looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him" -- Hudson Taylor
"The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed" -- Hudson Taylor
"If I had 1,000 lives, I'd give them all for China"
-- Hudson Taylor
"Sympathy is no substitute for action." -- David Livingstone, missionary to Africa
"Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God" -- William Carey, who is called the father of modern missions
"The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become."
Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia
"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose" -- Jim Elliot, missionary martyr who lost his life in the late 1950's trying to reach the Auca Indians of Ecuador
"We are debtors to every man to give him the gospel in the same measure in which we have received it"
-- P.F. Bresee, founder of the Church of the Nazarene
"In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been" -- Robert Moffat, who inspired David Livingstone
"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?" -- David Livingstone
"Can't you do just a little bit more?" -- J.G. Morrison pleading with Nazarenes in the 1930's Great Depression to support their missionaries
"Lost people matter to God, and so they must matter to us." -- Keith Wright
"The Bible is not the basis of missions; missions is the basis of the Bible" -- Ralph Winter, U.S. Center for World Mission
"Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell." -- C.T. Studd
"If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." -- C.T. Studd
"No one has the right to hear the gospel twice, while there remains someone who has not heard it once." -- Oswald J. Smith
"Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission has forfeited its biblical right to exist."
-- Oswald J. Smith
"The mission of the church is missions" -- Oswald J. Smith
"We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first." -- Oswald J. Smith
"This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth!" -- Keith Green
"There is nothing in the world or the Church -- except the church's disobedience -- to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility." -- Robert Speer, leader in Student Volunteer Movement
"If God calls you to be a missionary, don't stoop to be a king" -- Jordan Groom (variations of this also credited to G. K. Chesterson, Thomas Carlyle and Charles Haddon Spurgeon)
"If you found a cure for cancer, wouldn't it be inconceivable to hide it from the rest of mankind? How much more inconceivable to keep silent the cure from the eternal wages of death." -- Dave Davidson
"World missions was on God's mind from the beginning."
-- Dave Davidson
"In our lifetime, wouldn't it be sad if we spent more time washing dishes or swatting flies or mowing the yard or watching television than praying for world missions?" -- Dave Davidson
"Let my heart be broken with the things that break God's heart" -- Bob Pierce, World Vision founder
"No reserves. No retreats. No regrets" -- William Borden
"If ten men are carrying a log -- nine of them on the little end and one at the heavy end -- and you want to help, which end will you lift on?" -- William Borden, as he reflected on the numbers of Christian workers in the U.S. as compared to those among un-reached peoples in China
"The reason some folks don't believe in missions is that the brand of religion they have isn't worth propagating." -- Unknown
When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages." To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."
"Someone asked, ‘Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved?’ It is more a question with me whether we -- who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not -- can be saved." -- Charles Spurgeon
"The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time"
-- Carl F. H. Henry
"Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop."
- Kurt von Schleicher
"Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God's delight in being God." --John Piper
"God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshippers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose." -- John Piper
"You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving." -- Amy Carmichael, missionary to India
"Only as the church fulfills her missionary obligation does she justify her existence." -- Unknown
"As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both." -- J. L. Ewen
"The command has been to 'go,' but we have stayed -- in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth ... but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland." -- Robert Savage, Latin American Mission
"People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives ... and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted." -- Nate Saint, missionary martyr
"We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God." -- John Stott
"Believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story." -- K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia Bible Society
"Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ." -- Francis Xavier, missionary to India, the Philippines, and Japan
"'Not called!' did you say?
'Not heard the call,' I think you should say.
Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face -- whose mercy you have professed to obey -- and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world. -- William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army
"The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity." -- Mike Stachura
"The true greatness of any church in not how many it seats but how many it sends!" -- Unknown
"It is not in our choice to spread the gospel or not. It is our death if we do not." -- Peter Taylor Forsyth
"If God's love is for anybody anywhere, it's for everybody everywhere." -- Edward Lawlor, Nazarene General Superintendent
"Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is -- where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge." -- Robert C. Shannon
"People who don't believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world. The early church took Him at His word and went East, West, North and South." -- J. Howard Edington
"It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions." -- John R. Mott
"In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God's work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer." -- Dick Eastman, president of Every Home for Christ (formerly World Literature Crusade)
"What's your dream and to what corner of the missions world will it take you?" -- Eleanor Roat
"We can reach our world, if we will. The greatest lack today is not people or funds. The greatest need is prayer."
-- Wesley Duewel, head of OMS International
"Love is the root of missions; sacrifice is the fruit of missions" -- Roderick Davis
"Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love" -- Roland Allen
"I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ." -- Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
"If you take missions out of the Bible, you won't have anything left but the covers" -- Nina Gunter
"If the Church is 'in Christ,' she is involved in mission. Her whole existence then has a missionary character. Her conduct as well as her words will convince the unbelievers and put their ignorance and stupidity to silence." -- David Bosch
"Missions is not the 'ministry of choice' for a few hyperactive Christians in the church. Missions is the purpose of the church." -- Unknown
"The concern for world evangelization is not something tacked on to a man's personal Christianity, which he may take or leave as he chooses. It is rooted in the character of the God who has come to us in Christ Jesus. Thus, it can never be the province of a few enthusiasts, a sideline or a specialty of those who happen to have a bent that way. It is the distinctive mark of being a Christian." -- James S. Stewart
"The average pastor views his church as a local church with a missions program; while he ought to realize that if he is in fact pastoring a church, it is to be a global church with a missions purpose." -- Unknown
"The Christian is not obedient unless he is doing all in his power to send the Gospel to the heathen world." -- A. B. Simpson
"The will of God -- nothing less, nothing more, nothing else." -- F. E. Marsh (also attributed to Bobby Richardson)
"If the Great Commission is true, our plans are not too big; they are too small." -- Pat Morley
"If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is not obeyed until the will is lost by self-surrender in the will of God. Living, praying, giving and going will always be found together."-- Arthur T. Pierson
"The history of missions is the history of answered prayer. From Pentecost to the Haystack meeting in New England and from the days when Robert Morrison landed in China to the martyrdom of John and Betty Stam, prayer has been the source of power and the secret of spiritual triumph."-- Samuel Zwemer
"'Go ye' is as much a part of Christ's Gospel as 'Come unto Me.' You are not even a Christian until you have honestly faced your responsibility in regard to the carrying of the Gospel to the ends of the earth." -- J. Stuart Holden
"Some are trapped in boxes of pea-sized Christianity, full of myths about missions that rob them of incentive to care about the un-reached" --David Bryant
God's Warrior
To Live and Serve
Lucia Godwin, LIVING FAITH, Feb. 26, 1992
"I have this day to serve the Lord and God's children. In this day I will encounter persons and situations that are not chosen by me. I may not prefer all the day's experiences, but it is in this day, and this day only, that I can live and serve.
Yesterday is no more. For good or ill, its actions and thoughts have come and gone. Tomorrow is not yet here. Today, I will guard against dwelling on the yesterdays and tomorrows of my life. Someone may say, "Don't you believe in planning and preparation?" And I will answer, "Yes. I believe in God's plan. I prepare for God's life."
Although I may walk the same old paths of yesterday, I look to them with a newness of heart. I seek the way Jesus chooses for me to serve him and my brothers and sisters. And if the morrow comes, I begin afresh, looking to God's adventure for the day."
God's Warrior
People who don't believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world. The early church took Him at His word and went East, West, North and South. -- J. Howard Edington
I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ. -- Count Nicolaus Ludwn Zinzendorf
The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. --C. S. Lewis
The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed -- Hudson Taylor
It is the duty of every Christian to be Christ to his neighbor. --Martin Luther
If your Gospel isn't touching others, it hasn't touched you!
--Curry R. Blake
How you believe God perceives people will determine how you respond to them. --Jacquelyn K. Heasley
Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell. -- C.T. Studd
I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light-- John Keith Falconer
We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first. -- Oswald J. Smith
As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both. -- J. L. Ewen
The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.
- Henry Martyn
We Christians are debtors to all men at all times in all places, but we are so smug to the lostness of men. We've been "living in Laodicea ", lax, loose, lustful, and lazy. Why is there this criminal indifference to the lostness of men? Our condemnation is that we know how to live better than we are living. --Leonard Ravenhill
Someone asked. “Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved?” It is more a question with me whether we -- who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not -- can be saved. -- Charles Spurgeon
Sympathy is no substitute for action.-- David Livingstone
Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ.
Francis Xavier, missionary to India, the Philippines, and Japan
In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been -- Robert Moffat
No one has the right to hear the gospel twice, while there remains someone who has not heard it once.
-- Oswald J. Smith
The key to the missionary’s work is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the needs of the lost. We are inclined to look on our Lord as one who assists us in our endeavors for God. Yet our Lord places Himself as the absolute sovereign and supreme Lord over His disciples. He does not say that the lost will never be saved if we don’t go— He simply says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . . ." He says, "Go on the basis of the revealed truth of My sovereignty, teaching and preaching out of your living experience of Me." --Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love" -- Roland Allen
Use your ministry to build people, not people to build your ministry. --Jacquelyn K. Heasley
Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. --John Wesley
If you are walking with Jesus, in the Spirit, you need not fear going too far. No believer has gone as far as God wants him to go.--A. A. Allen
'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face -- whose mercy you have professed to obey -- and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world. --William Booth
He is not seeking a powerful people to represent HIM. Rather, He looks for all those who are weak, foolish, despised, and written off: and He inhabits them with His own strength. -- Graham Cooke
God uses people. God uses people to perform His work. He does not send angels. Angels weep over it, but God does not use angels to accomplish His purposes. He uses burdened broken-hearted weeping men and women. --David Wilkerson
When you get to heaven God won't ask you why you weren't more like Billy Graham. He may ask you why you weren't more like you. Get in touch with who you are. Lead with your own unique style. Be yourself and let God use you. --Rick Warren
If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men. --Oswald Chambers
I don't know how your theology works, but if Jesus has a choice between stained glass windows and feeding starving kids in Haiti, I have a feeling he'd choose the starving kids in Haiti.--Tony Campolo
While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now I'll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight-I'll fight to the very end! --William Booth
Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us daily. -- Sally Koch
Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends or designs it or not. He may be a blot radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be a blessing spreading benediction over the length and breadth of the world. But a blank he cannot be: there are no moral blanks; there are no neutral characters. --Thomas Chalmers
It takes spiritual authority to bless others. Many Christians say, "God bless you," but one clearly senses that although the words express a kind wish, they lack real spiritual authority.
--M. Basilea Schlink
To silence a preacher from preaching judgment is like being awoke from sleep by a fire alarm, and just silencing the alarm, and going back to sleep. --Unknown
If I am content to heal a hurt slightly, saying "Peace, peace," where is no peace; if I forget the poignant word "Let love be without dissimulation" and blunt the edge of truth, speaking not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love. --Amy Carmichael
Simple assent to the gospel, divorced from a transforming commitment to the living Christ, is by Biblical standards less than faith, and less than saving, and to elicit only assent of this kind would be to secure only false conversions.
--J.I. Packer
If you teach men that God is the source of their pleasure and sin is the source of their pain, they will run to God and away from sin.-- Jacquelyn K. Heasley
In every revival there is a re-emphasis of the Church's missionary character. Men return to Calvary, and the world is seen afresh through the eyes of Christ. The infinite compassion of Christ fills the heart, and the passion evoked by Calvary demands the whole wide world as the fruit of His sacrifice. --John Shearer
Evangelization is a process of bringing the gospel to people where they are, not where you would like them to be… When the gospel reaches a people where they are, their response to the gospel is the church in a new place...--Vincent Donovan
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. -- John Piper
God has huge plans for the world today! He is not content to merely establish a handful of struggling churches among each tongue, tribe and nation. Even now He is preparing and empowering His Church to carry the seeds of revival to the uttermost ends of the earth. -- David Smithers
God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshippers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose. -- John Piper
We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God. -- John Stott
