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The Missionary’s First Flock: His Own Family · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed thinking. It's it's really good to have
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you with us again as we as we open up some pretty heavy texts
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and try to make sense of the Christian life today, we are
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going to try and dismantle a picture that I think most of us,
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and I mean even those of us who've been in the church for
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decades have carried around in our heads for a long time.
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It's that mental image of the missionary as a spiritual
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superhero. Yeah, the solitary figure on the
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ridgeline looking out over a lost continent.
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Right, the absolute giant of the faith.
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We imagine them, you know, battling darkness, preaching to
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thousands and some jungle clearing, planting 3 churches
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before breakfast. And never breaking a sweat.
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Exactly. Never breaking a sweat.
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We tend to think their primary qualification is their seminary
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degree, or maybe their linguistic ability, you know, to
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speak fluent Mandarin or Swahili, or just their sheer raw
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boldness. But the source material we are
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looking at today argues that we've completely missed mark.
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We've missed it by a very wide margin.
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What if I told you that the primary qualification for a
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missionary and the primary tool for their ministry is not
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happening on a stage or street corner or even in a pulpit?
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It's. Happening at the dinner table.
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It's happening within the four walls of their own home.
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We're doing a deep dive today into a really fascinating text
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titled Biblical Missions, Principles, Priorities, and
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Practices. We're specifically focusing on
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the contributions from Mark Tatlock, Chris Burnett, and
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others, all about the missionary family.
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And the central tension we really need to unpack is this.
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We often treat the missionary family as just the support
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system for the real work. You know the wife and kids are
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just the baggage train for the husband's ministry.
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Which is just a tragic reductionism, a tragic way to
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see it. But this text argues that the
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family is the front line of the Gospel demonstration.
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It's a massive shift in perspective, and since we're
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framing this through Reformed thinking, we have to start with
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the text. We always have to start with the
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text. If you look at the Great
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Commission in Matthew 28, we we often rush to the go and make
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disciples part. We love the action verbs, but
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from a Reformed theological perspective, we have to look at
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the whole council of God. You just can't separate the
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command to go from the qualifications of the one who is
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going. And those qualifications are
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found where. Primarily in the pastoral
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epistles, so First Timothy 3 and Titus.
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One. Paul is incredibly clear here
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when he's laying out the qualifications for an elder,
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which is the biblical standard for a missionary pastor.
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He asked this rhetorical question in verse 5.
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If a man does not know how to manage his own household, how
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will he take care of the Church of God?
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It's a rhetorical question, but it has a terrifying answer.
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The answer is he can't. It's an impossibility.
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So the mission of this deep dive is to understand that
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connection. We're not just talking about
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parenting tips for expats. We are looking at the biblical
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necessity of order in the home, how marriage and parenting are
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actually evangelistic tools. And we have a really gripping
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case study on cultural battles in Columbia.
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Plus, we'll look at the gritty reality of the struggles these
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families face. And we really need to be honest
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about those struggles. We do no on any favors by
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pretending they don't exist. Absolutely not.
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So let's get right into the theological foundation.
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One of the contributors, Mark Borisuk, he introduces this
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concept of congruity and sounds a bit technical.
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Break that down for us. What's he actually saying?
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Yeah, it does sound a bit academic, but the idea is
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actually pretty simple. Congruity is essentially the
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state of being in harmony or agreement.
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It just means the pieces fit together.
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OK, so Borisic is arguing that there cannot be a disconnect or
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an incongruity between the disciple making a man does
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outside his home and the disciple making he does inside
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his home. So you can't be Doctor Jekyll in
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the pulpit and Mr. Hyde at the breakfast.
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Table precisely. You cannot be a great evangelist
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to the nations and a stranger to your own children.
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Porosuk argues that faithfulness in the home is a prerequisite.
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It is not an optional bonus for the Super spiritual.
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It's the entry ticket. That's a great way to put it.
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It is the entry ticket. If you fail at the first level
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of discipleship, your wife and your children, you are
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disqualified from the second level, which is the Church and
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the lost. That really challenges the idea
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that ministry is what happens when you leave the house.
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I think a lot of guys, especially, you know, driven
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Type A guys, view the home as the place they go to recharge so
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they can go do the real work. And that is a fatal error.
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The home is not the refueling station, it's the proving
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ground. He points to First Timothy 3.45
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and Titus 1.6 as we just mentioned.
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But what makes this argument so compelling in the text is the
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discussion on order versus confusion.
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This takes us to the very nature of God Himself. 1st Corinthians
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14.33. For God is not a God of
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confusion, but of peace. In contrast, you have James
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3.16, which tells us that word jealousy and selfish ambition
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exist. There is disorder and every evil
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thing. So the default is chaos.
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The default is chaos. We live in a sin cursed world
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and because of the fall, the natural trajectory of
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everything, relationships, institutions, families is
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towards chaos. It's like spiritual entropy.
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If you leave it alone, it just falls apart.
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That is exactly right, and the argument here is that God
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designed specific roles in the family, husband, wife, children
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specifically to bring stability and order to that chaos and this
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brings glory to him because it reflects His nature.
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A chaotic home lies about God's character, and ordered home
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speaks the truth about who God is.
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But here's the kicker, and this is something Borissook notes
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that I think every aspiring missionary and honestly every
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Christian needs to hear. He says that going to the
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mission field does not fix your family problems.
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In fact, he uses a very specific analogy.
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He says the mission field functions like fertilizer for
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sin it. Is such a vivid image, isn't?
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It it is because usually we think of the mission field as
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this sanctifying place. You think, oh, we'll move to a
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new country, we'll be serving God 24/7, we'll be sacrificing,
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and all our petty arguments will just vanish because we're on a
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holy mission? We romanticize the geography.
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We think a change in longitude changes the heart.
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But Boris 6 says no. The pressure of the culture, the
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language barrier, the isolation, the spiritual warfare.
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It is like pouring miracle grow on your character flaws.
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So if you have a little weed of impatience in America.
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In the mission field, that weed becomes a Redwood tree.
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If there are cracks in the foundation of your marriage in
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your home country, they will become canyons on the mission
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field. The sinful nature chafes against
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God's defined rules, naturally. So if a husband is prone to
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passivity, you know, just checking out and letting his
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wife run things, the stress of the field will make him withdraw
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even further. If a wife is prone to usurping
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authority or being anxious, the field will amplify that anxiety
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to a breaking point. That's why this So what here is
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so critical. The distinct roles in the family
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are designed by God to display his glory to a watching world.
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If the family is in chaos, the message of the gospel is
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obscured. You can preach Jesus brings
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peace, but if your home is a war zone, nobody's listening.
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The medium is the message. You cannot preach order from a
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platform of chaos. Let's talk about those roles
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because the source material gets very specific about the
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missionary marriage is a living picture.
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It breaks it down into the husband's role and the wife's
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role. And I want to start with the
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husband because the text uses words like leadership and
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headship, which, well, they can be trigger words in our modern
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culture. They can be we are allergic to
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authority in the West, but we have to look at how Scripture
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defines them, not how modern culture caricatures them.
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The text points to Ephesians 5.2533 and headship is not
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defined as tyranny. It's not being the boss who
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barks orders from the recliner. Get me a sandwich, woman.
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That kind of thing. No, no, that is a complete
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distortion. Biblical headship is defined as
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leading by loving and serving. The standard is incredibly high.
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The husband must emulate Christ, giving himself up for the
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Church. So it's the opposite of a power
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trip. It's a death sentence to your
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own ego. That is a good way to put it.
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Think about the sacrifice involved in moving to the field.
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Often the husband is the one driving the vision.
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He feels the call, he says. God has called us to this
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unreached people group. But the text highlights that
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this often requires him to sacrifice his own professional
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goals, or maybe even other ministry desires to ensure his
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wife finds fulfillment there. That is a key nuance because he
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might be fulfilled. He's out preaching and doing the
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work. He's the hero in his own story.
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But if she's at home, struggling with the language, feeling
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isolated and dealing with plumbing that doesn't work, he
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is failing. If he is winning at ministry but
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his wife is withering, he is losing and that connects to
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first Peter 3.7, which is a verse that should make every
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husband tremble. Does husbands must live with
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their wives in an understanding way, showing honor to them as
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the weaker vessel, Meaning, you know, usually physically minker
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or more vulnerable in that context, since there airs with
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you the grace of life and then comes the consequence.
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So that your prayers will not be hindered.
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Let's just sit with that for a second.
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That is terrifying. It really is.
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I mean, we talk about spiritual warfare a lot in missions.
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We talk about binding spirits and praying for breakthroughs.
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But the implication here is that if a missionary's marriage is
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out of order, if he's not loving, honoring and
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understanding his wife, his communication with God is
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blocked. Imagine being on the front
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lines. You're in a hostile region,
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you're engaging in spiritual warfare, trying to reach a
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localized people group, and your supply line to headquarters is
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cut off not because of the enemy, but because you are harsh
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with your wife at breakfast. It renders the missionary
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powerless. A hindered fellowship with his
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wife results in a hindered fellowship with God.
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You cannot bypass the second greatest commandment to love
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your neighbor and your wife is your nearest neighbor to fulfill
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the Great Commission. OK, now let's look at the wife's
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role. The text references Ephesians 5
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and first Peter 3 regarding submission, and again we need to
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define this carefully because submission is another one of
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those words that makes people bristle.
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Yes, and again, we have to define this biblically, not
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culturally. The source describes submission
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as a blessed position that fits God's design.
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It's not about inferiority. It's not about silence.
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It is about function and order. It pictures the church's
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submission to Christ. So when a missionary wife honors
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her husband and follows his lead, she is preaching a sermon.
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She is visualizing the theology. She is showing the world how the
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church relates to Jesus. If she is constantly undermining
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Him, mocking Him, or fighting for control, she is preaching a
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false gospel that the church rebels against Christ.
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And this is not just theoretical theology.
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We have a case study in the text that proves how powerful this
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is, the story of Victor. This was one of the most moving
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parts of the source material for me.
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It is a beautiful story. Victor was a Chinese man.
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He was an atheist, deeply rooted in the communist system, and he
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was antagonistic toward religion.
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He had been educated to believe that religion was the opium of
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the masses, just a crutch for the weak and uneducated.
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So he was not looking for God. He wasn't walking into a church
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asking how do I get saved? Not at all.
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He was deeply skeptical, but he started attending a Bible study
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led by the author Mark Borisuk. And do you know what broke down
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his walls? It wasn't some ontological
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argument for the existence of God.
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It wasn't archaeological evidence for the resurrection.
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It was the aroma. The aroma of marital love.
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Victor grew up in a home where his parents fought constantly.
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It was a chaotic, angry environment.
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He believed marriage was, as he put it, the graveyard of love.
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He thought that once you get married, happiness just dies.
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Wow, that's a cynical worldview. It is, but it was his reality.
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But when he spent time in the missionaries home, he saw
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something that did not fit his worldview.
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He saw husband and wife who genuinely loved each other.
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He saw husband serving his wife. He saw children who are
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respectful and happy, not just compliant out of fear.
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That is incredible. He was just watching the family
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interactions and that was the apologetic.
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It was, he said. Later I saw parents who didn't
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fight constantly and children who are respectful.
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The imperfect but faithful family was the evidence that
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this God they talked about actually made a difference in
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real life. It opened the door for the
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gospel. He realized if their God can do
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this, if he can bring keys where I only know war, then maybe he
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is real. It really validates the premise
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of this whole deep dive. The home is the frontline.
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The sermon wasn't the words Borsuch spoke.
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It was the life he lived in his living room.
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Which is why the order we discussed earlier is so vital.
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Chaos pushes people away. Divine order draws them in.
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Speaking of the living room, let's transition to parenting on
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the field. Because if marriage is the
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picture of Christ in the church, parenting is often the picture
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of the Father and his children. And the text suggests that
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parenting on the mission field is, well, it's complicated.
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To say the least, just like with marriage, the move to a foreign
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culture puts immense pressure on parenting.
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The text cites Proverbs 22.15. Folly is bound up in the heart
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of a child. Which means again, moving to a
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new country does not change the kids heart.
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Right. There's this myth that
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missionary kids, MKS are automatically little angels.
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But a change in geography does not equal a change in nature.
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If a child is rebellious in America, they will be rebellious
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in Asia or Africa, perhaps even more so because of the stress.
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The stress of transition, losing their friends, different food, a
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different language. And the source material
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emphasizes that discipline is evangelistic.
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Yeah, this is a key insight. How so?
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I think we often think of discipline as just behavior
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modification. You know, stop hitting your
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sister or be quiet while daddy is on a Zoom call.
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That's a secular view of discipline.
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It's about convenience and compliance.
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A biblical view, according to the source, connects discipline
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directly to the gospel. 1st, the text reminds us that a man is
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disqualified from ministry if he is pugnacious or prone to anger.
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That's from First Timothy 3.3. So discipline can never be done
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in anger. That is a high bar, especially
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when you're jet lagged and stressed.
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It is the highest bar, but the methodology is this discipline
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followed by instruction. That's from Ephesians 6.4.
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You discipline the child to show them the seriousness of sin,
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that actions have consequences, But then you instruct them.
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You show them that they cannot meet God's holy standard on
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their own. So you don't just say be better,
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you say you sinned and you can't fix it yourself.
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Exactly. You point out their inability.
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You hit your sister because there is anger in your heart and
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you can't scrub that spot out. And that points them to the only
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one who can. Jesus 2nd Corinthians 5.21 The
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cycle of discipline and instruction is meant to lead the
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child to the cross. It shows them their need for a
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Savior. That is why parenting is
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evangelism. Every time you discipline, you
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are preaching the gospel to your child.
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So it's not just about managing behaviors of the missionary
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doesn't look bad, it's about saving the child's soul.
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Precisely, And the source also talks about the importance of
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preparation and unity before even leaving for the field.
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It's not just the parents dragging the kids along on an
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adventure they didn't ask for. No, the whole family needs to be
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on the same page. Borzuk talks about involving the
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children in prayer, learning the language together.
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And this is crucial, having fun. Fun seems so frivolous when
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you're talking about saving souls.
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It's not frivolous, it's essential for survival.
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He mentions biking to the Olympic Park in Beijing.
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As a family, you have to build that bond.
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You have to create memories that are positive so the child
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doesn't just remember the mission field as a place of
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deprivation and duty. Including them in the ministry,
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right? Not just parking them in front
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of a screen while the adults talk.
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Yes, his daughters worked at a local fruit stand to build
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relationships. They played games with the Bible
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study students. When the children see themselves
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as participants in the mission rather than victims of their
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parents calling, it changes everything.
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They become fellow workers. That brings us to a very
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different context. We've been talking a bit about
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China with Victor, but the source material shifts gears to
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a section by Santiago Armel about Colombia, and this is
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where we see the family engaged in what I would call cultural
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warfare. This is a gripping section.
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Armel paints a vivid picture of the context in Colombia.
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He talks about the spiritual awakening there, which is
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beautiful. The church is growing, but he
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contrasts it with the dark history of the narco culture.
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The statistics are staggering. I have them here. 504,100 acres
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of coca leaf in 2021 and 1400 metric tons of cocaine produced.
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That is an industrial scale of ice.
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It is. And that level of drug
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production creates a culture. It is not just an economic
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statistic. It shapes the soul of a nation.
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He calls it the narco culture. It produces a society obsessed
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with easy money, debauched lifestyles and viewing women as
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trophies. It's a culture where the wisest
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person, the vivo, is the one who can skirt the law, cheat the
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system and get rich quick. So if you're a Christian family
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living in the middle of that, you're swimming upstream against
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a raging river, how do you survive and minister in that
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environment? Our mail outlines 3 specific
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fronts where the family has to fight.
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This is where the rubber meets the road.
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Let's go through them. The first front is corruption
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and lies. In that culture, there's a norm
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that says if you can evade the fare on public transport, you're
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smart. If you can cheat on your taxes
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or bribe A policeman, you're wise.
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It's institutionalized dishonesty.
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Exactly so. The biblical counter strike is a
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radical commitment to truth. The missionary father must keep
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his word, no matter how small. If he says he'll be somewhere
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AT20 PM, he is there at 2.0 PM. If he owes a penny, he pays the
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penny. This reflects God, who is truth.
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In a culture of lies, a man of integrity stands out like a
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lighthouse. It confuses people and then it
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intrigues them. Why did you pay that fare?
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Nobody was watching. Because my God watches it is a
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powerful testimony. The second front he mentions is
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physical vanity and this was eye opening.
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I didn't realize Columbia was such a hub for.
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This. Oh it's massive.
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Medical tourism and plastic surgery are huge industries
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there, specifically in cities like Medellin and Cali.
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The narco aesthetic has created this pressure on women to meet
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very specific voluptuous standards.
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It's a culture that worships the body.
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So the missionary family has to fight that, especially if they
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have daughters. They fight it by valuing the
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imabo day, the image of God and inner beauty.
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As first Peter 3 describes, the missionary couple has to have
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hard conversations. Are we inadvertently promoting
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vanity? How do we talk about bodies?
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Are we showing that we value godliness over appearance
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because the culture is screaming the opposite at their children
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every day? Your value is your shape.
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The home must be the place where they hear the truth.
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Your value is your Creator. And the third front is
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covetousness or easy money. The new rich mentality everyone
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wants the narco lifestyle. Wealth without work.
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The lucky break it. Reminds me of the prosperity
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gospel actually. There is a lot of overlap.
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The biblical counter is industry and hard work.
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The pastor must show that ministry is actually work.
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It's not a scam. He laborers in preaching.
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He laborers in counseling. He shows that work is a blessing
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from God, a creation mandate, not a curse to be avoided by
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finding a bag of cash. He models 1st Thessalonians 2
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working with his hands so as not to be a burden.
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It really shows that the family lifestyle is a theological
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statement. In China, the ordered loving
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home refutes the idea that religion is for the weak.
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In Colombia, the honest, hard working, modest family refutes
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the narco culture of vanity and corruption.
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That is the synthesis of this entire deep dive.
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The family is not just living in the culture, they are living
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against the sinful patterns of the culture to show a better
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way. They are a counterculture of the
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Kingdom. But doing that, it's hard, and
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it it takes a toll. We can't paint a rosy picture
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here and pretend that if you just have good theology, you
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won't suffer. Yeah.
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The source material includes a report from Chris Burnett based
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on a meeting of regional directors in March 2023.
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This is the real world struggle section.
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This is where we get gritty. These directors oversee hundreds
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of families across the globe. They know where the bodies are
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buried, so to speak. They identify the top stress
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points and marriage struggles were at the very top of the
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list. And specifically unspoken
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problems. That is the danger.
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Think about the isolation, who you talk to.
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If you are the missionary, you're supposed to be the
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spiritual giant. You can't tell your supporters
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back home, hey, we are on the brink of divorce because you
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might lose your funding. It's the pedestal trap.
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Right. And you can't tell the locals
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because you're supposed to be mentoring them.
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You can't bleed in front of the sheep.
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So you suffer in silence. Often, yes, the report
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highlights the desperate need for older female mentors for
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young wives and accountability for husbands.
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And then there's workaholism. Because the needs are so great,
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people are dying without Christ, The husband feels justified in
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neglecting his family. I'm doing the Lord's work, he
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says. And sounds so noble.
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But it is a deception. The text cites First Timothy
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5.8. If you fail to provide for your
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own household, you have denied the faith and are worse than an
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unbeliever. And providing is not just money.
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It's not just putting rice on the table.
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It is emotional presence. It is spiritual leadership.
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If you win the city but lose your children, you have failed
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the biblical mandate. They also talked about
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children's struggles, and I appreciated the distinction they
21:25
made between sin and developmental disorders.
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That is a crucial distinction. In the past, maybe the church
21:31
was too quick to label everything as rebellion.
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But learning disabilities, dyslexia, ADHD, autism are not
21:37
sin. They are physical, neurological
21:40
realities. But on the mission field, you
21:42
don't have the Ieps, you don't have the specialists, you.
21:45
Often lack the resources completely.
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You're in a village where they don't even have a word for
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autism. Parents are left to handle
21:52
complex developmental issues largely on their own, often
21:55
while homeschooling. It is an immense pressure
21:57
cooker. And then there's the issue of
21:59
aging parents. This one hits hard for anyone
22:02
living away from home, but for a missionary, it's compounded.
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The guilt is real. You're in South America and your
22:08
mom in Ohio is getting dementia. Your siblings are there, taking
22:12
care of her, changing the diapers, driving her to
22:14
appointments, and they start to resent you.
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Why are you playing Hero overseas while we're doing The
22:19
Dirty work here? Exactly.
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You're out there saving the world, and we're here saving
22:23
Mom. It creates family riffs.
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And biblically, we're called to honor our parents.
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That doesn't stop when you get a visa.
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It does not. The text suggests a very
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practical solution, flexibility and funding.
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Mission agencies are starting to increase budgets to help
22:40
missionaries care for their parents financially or to allow
22:44
for more frequent travel back home.
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It is a recognition that the command to honor your father and
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mother is binding even across oceans.
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One of the most modern struggles they mentioned was isolation,
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specifically the virtual world trap.
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This is something missionaries 50 years ago did not deal with.
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No, this is a new phenomenon. 20 years ago, if you went to the
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field, you were there. You waited three weeks for a
23:06
letter. Now you can spend 6 hours a day
23:09
on Zoom with people back home. You can live your whole life on
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a screen. Expat Bubble.
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Exactly. You go to an international
23:14
church, your kids go to an International School, you talk
23:17
to your mom on FaceTime every night, and you watch Netflix and
23:19
English. You can live in a country for 10
23:21
years and never really touch the local culture.
23:24
You're physically in Bangkok, but digitally in Boston.
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And the directors warned that this is a major danger.
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It prevents deep acculturation. It prevents language fluency.
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You have to cut the cord and engage the people you are called
23:38
to serve. You have to be willing to be
23:40
uncomfortable and disconnected from your home culture to truly
23:43
Incarnate into the new one. So we've laid out the theology,
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the roles, the cultural battles and the struggles.
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It's a heavy load now. What does descending church, the
23:53
people listening to this who might be back home in the
23:55
suburbs, do? Lauren Brown contributes a
23:58
section on the support system. And she grounds it in three John
24:01
6 to 8, which talks about supporting those who go out for
24:04
the sake of the name. It says we ought to support such
24:07
people so that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
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I love that phrase, fellow workers.
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Even if you stay, you're working with them by supporting them.
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Exactly. She also mentions Phoebe in
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Romans 16, a woman who was a Courier and servant who needed
24:20
support from the church in Rome. The key principle she mentions
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is God causes the growth from First Corinthians 3.
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Why is that relevant to support? It relieves the pressure.
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Missionaries can feel immense pressure to produce results to
24:33
justify their support letters. We saved 50 souls this month.
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Return on investment, right? It becomes a sales pitch when
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the send in church reminds them, hey God causes the growth, you
24:44
just be faithful. We support you for your
24:46
faithfulness, not just your numbers.
24:48
It's a huge weight off their shoulders and allows them to
24:51
focus on the work rather than the marketing.
24:53
She gives some very practical tactics for women caring for
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women, and the first one is simply time.
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Listening is ministry. We tend to think we need to
25:02
offer profound advice. We want to fix it.
25:06
But often the missionary wife just needs someone to listen to
25:09
her vent about the cockroaches, the heat, the corrupt police and
25:12
the loneliness without judging her and without giving her three
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Bible verses to fix her attitude.
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Yeah. Bearing the burden with her
25:19
exactly and how we pray matters too.
25:21
She talks about moving from the generic I'll pray for you to
25:25
using prayer journals. Yes, tracking specific requests
25:28
and then tracking the answers. It validates the missionary
25:31
struggle when you can call them and say hey I've been praying
25:35
about that visa issue you mentioned 3 weeks ago or that
25:38
conflict with your neighbor. How is it going that tells them
25:41
they are not forgotten? It tells them their life matters
25:44
to you. And I love the idea of video
25:46
calls that normalize their life. Right.
25:48
Don't just talk about the ministry stats.
25:50
Ask to see the kitchen window. Ask to see the kids rooms.
25:54
Show me what you're cooking. It grounds the relationship in
25:56
reality. It reminds you that they are
25:58
real people living in a real place, not just disembodied
26:01
spirits doing ministry. They're finally caring for the
26:04
MKS, the missionary kids. They're the third culture kids.
26:08
They don't fully fit in the host country, but they don't fit in
26:10
back home either. They're in between.
26:13
Brown suggests setting up video groups for teens ages 11 and up
26:17
to connect with peers, Sending birthday cards directly to the
26:20
kids, making them feel seen because often they feel like
26:24
invisible baggage attached to their parents calling.
26:26
It's so practical and yet so vital.
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So let's bring this all together.
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We've covered a lot of ground today.
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We have. If we had to synthesize, the
26:35
main argument of this deep dive is that the missionary family is
26:39
a theological statement. Whether they're in China facing
26:42
atheism or Columbia facing narco culture, the ordered, loving,
26:47
biblically structured home is a light in the darkness.
26:50
Absolutely. And I want to apply this to our
26:52
listeners who are not missionaries.
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This Reformed thinking is not just for the mission field.
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Every Christian home is a mission field in microcosm.
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That is the conviction. Isn't it?
27:02
The requirements for the elder in First Timothy 3 managing the
27:05
household well are not just for elders and missionaries, they
27:08
are the pattern for Christian maturity.
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If your home is full of chaos, anger and disorder, you hinder
27:14
your witness to your neighbors just as much as a missionary
27:17
hinders their witness to the nation.
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'S you can't export what you don't have.
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Exactly. So as we wrap up, I want to
27:23
leave the listeners with a final thought to chew on.
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Here's the question I would pose based on everything we've
27:28
discussed. If we believe that the family is
27:31
God's primary illustration of the gospel, the picture of
27:34
Christ in the church, is it possible that the greatest
27:37
hindrance to global missions today is not a lack of funding?
27:42
Is it possible it's not closed borders or hostile governments?
27:46
What is it then? Is it possible that the greatest
27:48
hindrance is a lack of ordered holy marriages in our sending
27:52
churches? Because we can only export what
27:55
we are? If our churches are full of
27:57
broken, chaotic families, then that is what we will export to
28:00
the nations. And if we can't export healthy
28:03
Families, what are we actually exporting?
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That is a sobering thought. We're not just sending
28:07
individuals. We are sending a culture.
28:09
We're sending a theology of the home.
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Precisely so the work of missions starts in your living
28:14
room tonight. Thank you for joining us on this
28:16
deep dive into biblical missions.
28:18
We hope this challenges you to look at your own home, whether
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you are in the suburbs or the jungle, as the primary place
28:24
where the gospel is demonstrated.
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Until next time, keep thinking.