Mission (religion)

“ For the transmuting of character the mission of Christ was a witness to the universe that the last might be first, and that the lowest might be lifted to the highest position of honor and glory, as the result of the Divine condescension, the deep down-reaching love of the Son of God. ”

“ We do not for a moment doubt that all Christian missions do exercise an influence of this wide and far-reaching character, and from time to time we can see results which clearly spring from it, but we cannot think it wise to set out this vague influence as the primary purpose of a mission. We believe that the Christian missions which aim directly and primarily at the conversion of men and the establishment of a living native Church produce this fruit by the way. ”

“ It also became plain that if the Church would fulfil its mission it must serve all the interests of the people. I was brought up with the idea that its mission was largely, if not exclusively, spiritual. Its chief and almost only concern was the soul of the individual man. It was thought that a man has a soul, and that that soul was in peril. ”

“ I can talk to the brethren to-day on the same principle—there is not a man in this Church but what is capable of doing good if he has a mind to do so. Here are Elders who say, "I want a mission; I want to go and preach ”

“ There is no place on this earth where greater good can be done than here, preaching the gospel to this people and getting them to be Saints indeed. I would say to my young friends and to the middle-aged brethren, though I believe all who are going may be called young men, that if you go on a mission to preach the gospel with lightness and frivolity in your hearts, looking for this and that, and to learn what is in the world, and not having your minds riveted—yes, I may say riveted—on the cross of Christ, you will go and return in vain. ”

“ To believe in Christ is to believe in missions, missions unto the uttermost part of the earth." It would be a shame to appear to apologize for what is of the essence of Christianity. So we turn away from all smaller reasoning, to the one great spring and impulse of mission work far and near. The Christian has to see those whom Christ sees, for the follower looks through his master's eyes; the Christian has to love and serve those whom Christ loves and serves, for the follower lives only in his master's spirit. ”

“ Like the Prophets and the Doctors I would fain enlighten souls. Fain would I travel the earth, O my Well-Beloved, to preach Thy Name and to set up Thy glorious Cross in Pagan lands. But one mission only would not suffice for me; would that I could at one and the same time proclaim the Gospel all the world over, even to the remotest of its islands. I would desire to be a Missionary not only for a few years, but to have been one from the creation of the world, and so to continue to the end of time.
HIST. D’UNE AME, CH. XI
I long to accomplish the most heroic deeds. ”

“ And all of the work should be done through the missionary society which alone can rightly coördinate and unify the whole work of the particular mission.
Faith Missions, so called, represent a genuine and a worthy spirit among many of God's people today. To them the somewhat lumbering business methods of the large missionary organizations savour too much of worldly prudence and seem subversive of the deepest Christian faith. They maintain that the old method is one that looks too much to men and too little to God for support. ”

“ The Divine One is speaking his last words to those men who are soon to go forth and undertake the conversion of the world. What is his most weighty thought? It is that which was expressed in his closing prayer: “As thou hast sent me into the world even so have I sent them into the world;” that is, the mission of Christian men in the world was to be the same as His own. It was to be a mission of vicarious suffering and service for all the world. Men were dying in their sins in all countries. The nations were sitting in the shadow of death. ”

“ Strive to be full of the Holy Ghost, and the necessary means will come to you, often in a way you cannot comprehend, and you will be expedited in your journeyings and perform your missions. And furthermore, if you will not drop one thread in the garments of your characters, from the time you leave here, I am not in the least doubtful in my mind—I have not a shade of hesitancy in my feelings in promising that each of you will accomplish a mission that will please our Father in heaven and every good person on the earth and in heaven, and live to return to this place. ”

“ This work of preaching Christ to those who know him not, must be carried on by missionaries and agents. It is usually the custom to expect that every mission agent shall devote some of his time in visiting neighbouring villages and in gathering the people together and in presenting to them, in all simplicity, the message of salvation. ”

“ What is needed is the flavor of missions in the life of the churches, the vision of Christ’s kingdom kept continually before the imagination and faith of the people, the proportions of the local, not magnified into excessive size, but brought into true harmony with the greatness of our Redeemer’s work for the race. ”

“ Our mission is as real, noble and important as that of preaching the Gospel, and aside from its bearing on the enlightenment of those who would otherwise go astray, and offering the means of relief to those who have already sinned against Nature, it is of a broader and even more sweeping importance. ”

“ The Missionaries must be men of great piety, prudence, courage, and forbearance; of undoubted orthodoxy in their sentiments, and must enter with all their hearts into the spirit of their mission; they must be willing to leave all the comforts of life behind them, and to encounter all the hardships of a torrid, or a frigid climate, an uncomfortable manner of living, and every other inconvenience that can attend this undertaking. ”

“ But we do not only pray that the kingdom of God would come to us and remain with us, we also pray that it may come to all men who as yet are not members of this kingdom. We pray that all men may become true believers in Christ through the preaching of the Gospel. This work, preaching the Gospel to all nations, we call mission-work. The Second Petition is the great mission-prayer of the Church. The Lord admonishes us: "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth laborers into His harvest." ”

“ I confess to the Latter-day Saints and to the world that I want power to prevail on all the inhabitants of the earth to embrace the gospel of the Son of God that they may be saved in the Kingdom of Heaven. I want influence in the midst of the Latter-day Saints, sufficient to get all men and women to sanctify themselves before the Lord and to sanctify the Lord God in their hearts, and that they may be of one heart and one mind in all things, that they may be the disciples of the Lord Jesus. ”

“ The mission exists in the midst of a people and influences the people; it makes converts, it establishes them in the faith, it cares for them in mind and body, it prepares them to set the moral and religious standard for any Church of the future. It is not concerned directly with the widest possible preaching of the Gospel. When the native Christians whom it is painfully and slowly educating and training come to maturity they will spread the Gospel throughout the length and breadth of the land. ”

“ Human nature has never felt influences more deeply religious than those set at work by missions, recalling the effects of the preaching of the Apostles themselves. Remorse of conscience, loathing for sin, terror at the divine wrath, confidence in God, sympathy for our crucified Saviour, the ecstatic joy of the new-found divine friendship, utter contempt for the maxims of the world, iron determination to love God to the end—these are the sentiments which, by the preaching of missions, are made to dominate entire parishes in a degree simply marvellous. ”

“ Just as Jesus Christ had a time-ministry which he came into the world to fulfill, and having accomplished it returned to the Father, so the Holy Spirit, for the fulfillment of a definite mission, came into the world at an appointed time ”

“ The purpose and mission of the holy, divine Messengers is the training and advancement of humanity, the cultivation of divine fruits in the gardens of human hearts, the reflection of heavenly effulgence in the mirrors of human souls, the quickening of mental capacity and the increase of spiritual susceptibilities. When these results and outcomes are witnessed in mankind, the function and mission of the Manifestations are unmistakable. ”

“ The mission of the church is to participate in the reconciling dialogue between God and man. Here is the source of the true life of the world. Here, too, is the source of the life of the church and its worship. ”

“ The supreme question of missions is how to multiply the number of Christians who, with truthful lives and with clear unshaken faith in the character and ability of God, will, individually or collectively, or coöperatively as a church, wield the force of intercessory prayer for the conversion and transformation of men, for the inauguration and energizing of spiritual movements, and for the breaking down of all that exalts itself against Christ and his purposes. ”

“ Nothing need be plainer. It is the mission of the Holy Spirit to impart unto or bestow upon each member of God's church such qualifications as will make him a useful and effectual organ in this holy structure. ”

“ Why rest contented with stringing notes together — mere trouveres of a day — when it remains with you to consecrate yourselves, even on earth, to a mission such as in the popular belief only God's angels know? ”

“ The objects of Christ's mission, so far as they refer to the twofold purpose of revealing the Father by an impersonation of his image, and giving new moral life to men by awakening within them a conscious fellowship with Divine truth and goodness, have already been unfolded. ”

“ That this is the true theology of missions, the history of missions is the best of all proofs. We need not only to touch the intellect, but also to touch the heart. We need to furnish a motive that will win to action the sluggish and selfish devotees of systems century-old that have enslaved them. One message, and one only, has accomplished this result, and that is the message of the Cross. Not the presentation of God's greatness and power, but the story of the personal Jesus and his giving up of his life for sinners, has moved men to give themselves to him. ”

“ All Missions have come or are coming to this. It needs but a simple knowledge of the love of God and the redemption of the world by the Lord Jesus Christ, to fit a man to go home and tell his neighbors the good news which has come to him. ”

“ But to accomplish their mission they need a will of iron and the wit of a hundred men. And from the iron they take the strength, and from a hundred men's brains they absorb their wisdom. Divine missionaries, they appear in all departments of life. ”

“ NECESSITY FOR ALL TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR MISSIONS. He that sent his Only Begotten Son into the world to accomplish the mission which he did, also sent every soul within the sound of my voice, and indeed every man and woman in the world, to accomplish a mission, and that mission cannot {313} be accomplished by neglect; nor by indifference; nor can it be accomplished in ignorance. We must learn our duty; learn the requirements that the Lord has made at our hands, and understand the responsibilities that he has placed upon us. ”

“ The churches in America, which have aided in sustaining the mission by their offerings and their prayers, have seen fewer results, than have crowned their labors in other fields; their faith has been sorely tried; but they have been permitted to hear, from time to time, of souls ransomed from darkness and sin; echoes of the songs of triumph sung by departing saints have been borne to their ears, and they have felt that their labors have not been unrewarded. ”

“ Such lives in the churches of mission lands are the weightiest arguments for Christianity. But conversion to Christ goes, in its influence, farther than the individual. It has a far-reaching social influence. ”

“ Wherever the Christian missionary goes there is renewed interest in education, in the development of the mind. The church and the school, the Bible and the spelling book, go hand in hand. Christianity is the handmaiden, not the foe, of education and of intelligence.
Missions help the spiritual man. The supreme aim of Christian missions is to care for the human soul, to have it redeemed by the blood of Christ and kept by the power of the Holy Ghost after it has been redeemed. This is the end of all missionary work. ”

“ What you say is interesting, but what I wish to know is not whether missions increase business—we have business enough and have methods of increasing the volume—What I want to know is whether the missionary is making good and whether Christianity is making good in meeting the spiritual needs of the heathen. If ever I should become greatly interested in missions it would be because I should feel that Christianity could solve the spiritual problem for the heathen better than anything else. ”

“ The real work of Missions, the work of winning souls to Christ, is a spiritual work, and can only be done by spiritual men. Living men alone are competent to place " living stones " in the wall of the spiritual temple. ”

“ Our missionary spirit therefore should be wide as the world; and those who boast of the superior broadness of their principles, ought to lead the way in a large-hearted effort to follow up the directions of their Saviour:—“Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” ”

“ Pray for the mission among Israel and the heathen nations. Christ's command is explicit, God's promise sure. The Church, obeying the divine word, and constrained by the love of Christ, cannot but send forth evangelists.* [8] Let us regard the missionary spirit as the very spirit of Christian prayer; and in all our thoughts and prayers and work connected with the missions of the Church of Christ, let us remember how closely we are brought into communion with the Saviour. There is nothing higher and more Christlike; there is nothing in which the love of God comes nearer to our hearts. ”