Who Sends You, and Who Cares for You

This is the last lesson of Business as Mission. The first six lessons covered the Bible, history, what business as mission is, the four accounts, integrity, and success and failure. The last lesson comes back to where the whole Sending Path ends: real sending is done by your own church.

First, see how Paul was sent. In the church at Antioch, some prophets and teachers were serving the Lord and fasting, and the Holy Spirit said, “Separate Barnabas and Saul for me.” (Acts 13:2) Then the church, “when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” (Acts 13:3) Paul was one of the most gifted apostles in the New Testament, yet he did not decide to go on his own: the Holy Spirit called, the church confirmed, and the church sent.

People in business as mission especially need to hear this. Because they often do not live on mission funds, it is easy to think, ‘I support myself; I don’t need anyone to send me.’ But financial independence does not mean you can fly solo spiritually; precisely because the money does not come from the church, you need to stay joined to the church in prayer, in watching over one another, and in giving account. Carey in lesson 2 ran the indigo factory and asked the mission society not to send him money, yet he kept writing to them and reporting what he was doing.

Next, see what Paul did when he came back. They returned to Antioch, “had gathered the assembly together, they reported all the things that God had done with them.” (Acts 14:27) Those who go out come back and give account to the church that sent them: not only good news, but difficulties too. Lesson 2 spoke of “having regard for honorable things” (2 Cor 8:21), and lesson 6 said that even in failure you give a clear account—the first people you give account to are the church that sent you.

Sending is not only seeing people off; it means caring for them along the way. John praises Gaius for helping brothers who “for the sake of the Name they went out,” (3 John 7) saying this is how “we may be fellow workers for the truth.” (3 John 8) Those who send and those who are sent are fellow workers. There is another phrase worth noticing for people in business: these workers went out “taking nothing from the Gentiles” (3 John 7)—they did not ask the people they served for money. People in business as mission who support themselves are, in a sense, walking the same road.

People who are sent out get tired, lonely and discouraged. Once the prophet Elijah was so exhausted that he lay under a juniper tree and asked to die. God did not begin by rebuking him; he sent an angel to wake him: “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you” (1 Kgs 19:7). Caring for someone who is doing business and bearing witness far from home is often just that practical: someone asks whether they are tired, someone remembers their children, someone welcomes them when they come home and listens. Paul says, “Bear one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2).

So if, after this course, you really carry this burden, what next? First, talk to your pastor; let the church know you and confirm you, rather than deciding on your own. Second, learn to run a real business at home first: as lesson 3 said, the business has to be real, and if you cannot run one here, you will not manage it elsewhere. Third, seek out an experienced mission agency or organization for training and assessment; what to write or not write in prayer letters, follow their guidance. Fourth, gather a small group to pray for you, and give account to them regularly.

The Learning Map does not send anyone, and it does not assess who is suited to go. What we can do is walk with you to the church door; once you go in, the one who sends you is your church, and the Holy Spirit who spoke at Antioch.