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An Excerpt From Endless Possibilities by Rev. Dr. Lee B. Spitzer. . .

Spiritual Journey-Based Mission

The most important goal-oriented spiritual journey Jesus has called the universal church to embrace is the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20). As Lord of the journey ("all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me"), Jesus promises His abiding presence throughout the journey ("I am with you always") and lays out the journey goal: "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." We journey to the nations so that people everywhere may embrace Jesus as Lord and hear His call to journey for the sake of the kingdom. Mission is the primary spiritual journey of God’s people!

Spiritual journey-based mission endorses the notion that every Christian is in some sense a missionary. This obviously does not mean that everyone is called to be a career missionary any more than the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers means that everyone is called to be a pastor. Nor does it do away with those specialized journeys. Rather, spiritual journey-based mission implies that throughout one’s life, God calls us serve the Kingdom through specific short or long term goal-oriented journeys whose themes relate to the great commission mandate.

These mission-centered spiritual journeys should not be limited in variety. Under the umbrella of this form of journey are the vocational careers of a long-term international missionaries, the short-term missions project, social action outreaches, health-related ministries, evangelism of all sizes and methods, etc. The destructive ideologically-based antithesis between traditional evangelism and social action in missions (and local church life) is false. The Kingdom of God is large enough to embrace both at the same time, and there are enough people within the Kingdom to hear God’s call to journey in both areas to ensure that their agendas are completely fulfilled. The problem really is not that one form of witness detracts from the other but that too many people do not choose to heed God’s call in either area. We need to help people recognize, embrace and fulfill their mission-centered spiritual journeys instead of permitting them to believe that being "missions-minded" means simply giving money so that others can do the work. Jesus’ words are as true now as they were when he first shared them with his disciples: "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. As the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field" (Matthew 9:37-38).

The message we proclaim to the nations must be spiritual journey-based. Why is it that Christianity has not become the majority religion in any region of the world where another major religion first reigned? Early Christianity’s evangelical message, with its emphasis on holiness as pleasing to a righteous yet forgiving God who does not act arbitrarily, was sufficient to render less morally-based religions (such as the ancient Roman and animist faiths) obsolete. However, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism (the other six major world religions) embody a vision of holiness that is as deep as Christianity’s, while also, each in their own way, offering a coherent and sophisticated spiritual journey paradigm which makes experience meaningful for their adherents. Until contemporary Christianity boldly weds its evangelical doctrinal message to a coherent spiritual journey paradigm which makes experience richer for people of other faiths, it will not be able to claim spiritual victory over them or gain a significant number of converts from among their ranks of serious adherents. The creative re-integration of a spiritual journey paradigm into our conversation with other religions is one of the most important missiological tasks confronting the church in the twenty-first century. If we do not accomplish this, other religions will continue to grow stronger in traditionally Christian areas such as Europe and North America, continuing a trend we see taking place at the present time.

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