You Are Now Entering the Mission Field

by Timothy Teuscher

Some of our congregations have a sign over the exit door of their church with these words inscribed: “You Are Now Entering the Mission Field.” But what exactly does this mean? The Table of Duties—that often overlooked third section of the Small Catechism—helps us better understand what that sign is getting at. This section focuses on “certain passages of Scripture for various holy orders and positions, admonishing them about their duties and responsibilities.”

The mission field that we enter is first of all our home: the holy orders and positions of husbands and wives, parents and children. It is in the home where husbands and wives forgive one another as Christ has forgiven them, where they convey by word and deed the same sacrificial love for each other that they have received from Christ. It is in the home where the chief duty of parents (and in our day we could also add grandparents) is to bring up their children and grandchildren “in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). In fact, that parental duty is reflected in Luther’s preface to the first section of the catechism: “As the head of the family should teach it in a simple way to his household.”

It is in the home where husbands and wives forgive one another as Christ has forgiven them, where they convey by word and deed the same sacrificial love for each other that they have received from Christ.

Leaving our home, the mission field that we enter includes our community and place of employment—the duties and responsibilities we have as citizens toward the governing authorities, as workers toward our employers, and vice versa. To be sure, paying taxes, obeying the laws of the land, respecting government officials, and praying for them may not seem to jibe with our common understanding of missions. Nor does simply serving our employer by doing our job faithfully seem to have anything to do with missions. But it does! St. Peter puts it this way: “In your hearts honour Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behaviour in Christ may be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:15-16).

The mission field that we enter also includes, as indicated at the end of the Table of Duties, the homes of our neighbours—praying for them, helping them in their time of need, sharing with them not only some of your daily bread but, if the opportunity presents itself, the very Bread of Heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ. In this regard there are two things cited by various researchers that we would do well to consider. First, around 90 percent of unchurched people are somewhat likely to attend church if invited. And second, only two percent of church members actually invite an unchurched neighbour, friend, relative, or coworker to attend church with them.

“We live on earth for no other purpose than to be helpful to others. Otherwise it would be best for God to take away our breath and let us die as soon as we are baptized and have begun to believe. But He lets us live here in order that we may lead other people to believe, doing for them what He has done for us.”

Two accounts from St. John’s Gospel speak to this matter. First, when Nathanael expresses his misgivings that Jesus is the promised Messiah, Philip simply says to him, “Come and see” (John 1:46). And second, after her encounter with Jesus at the well, the Samaritan woman went and simply said to the people in her town, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” (John 4:29).      

This leads us into the other mission field to which we have been called through baptism. There are some congregations which place that “You Are Now Entering the Mission Field” sign also on the outside of their church building. And fittingly so: after all, the very first two holy orders and positions mentioned in the Table of Duties are preachers of the Word and hearers of the Word. In other words, we ourselves are always the object of the church’s mission, always in need of hearing the Word of Christ, always in need of receiving the blessings of His mission, forgiveness, life, and salvation—always like that doubting Nathaniel and sinful Samaritan woman in need of Jesus’ presence and His life-restoring and life-giving mission. 

The Catechism (in the section on Confession) reminds us that this is so because we all fail to keep the duties and responsibilities connected with the “holy orders” or positions in which we have been placed, be they at home, in society, at work, or in our neighbourhood. “In this Christian Church the Holy Spirit daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers,” is how the catechism explanation of the Third Article of the Creed puts it. 

And when we “depart in peace” after receiving the Lord’s gifts at His Table, when we leave the Lord’s house after the Benediction is spoken over us by the pastor, where do we go? Yes, “You Are Now Entering the Mission Field.” So the Reformer sums it up: “We live on earth for no other purpose than to be helpful to others. Otherwise it would be best for God to take away our breath and let us die as soon as we are baptized and have begun to believe. But He lets us live here in order that we may lead other people to believe, doing for them what He has done for us.”

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Rev. Timothy Teuscher is President of Lutheran Church–Canada.

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